134340 “What meaning do the rest of the names have in this collapsing vitality? Although I still circle you and nothing has changed, I have no name in love, then have you really found Eris?”
Writers: Pdogg, ADORA, Bobby Chung, RM, Martin Luke Brown, Orla Gartland, SUGA, J-Hope
A song that’s most prominent instruments are a drum and flute is not something you hear often, especially paired with a strong rap flow and light-hearted vocal chorus, BTS were not tied down by any genre whatsoever in this song, and perfected that freedom entirely. The title “134340” is paying homage to the digits Pluto was given as it was demoted from a planet to a dwarf. “Once belonging to my sun’s universe… Now just an unpleasant fog in the heart of a star.”
The lyrics are metaphorical, as co-writer and rapper of BTS Min Yoongi (stage name: Suga), put it in an interview with billboard, and use figurative language to get the meaning of the metaphor across, to personify the feelings Pluto had in being demoted or casted aside from within the galaxy it still orbits around. This feeling of loneliness can be connected to that which one feels after losing someone they were used to having in their life, how it feels to be casted aside in someone’s life, and the need to make sense of your universe without them in it.
With lyrics like “…somehow it’s like I was never there from the beginning, my cold heart is 248 degrees below freezing , it stopped the day you erased me,” you can hear the bitterness behind . The chorus “I’m only circling around (you let me go, you lost me) / Now i’m just circling you mindlessly (you erased me, you forgot me) / once belonging to the sun’s universe / now just an unpleasant fog in the heart of a star /
낙원 (Paradise) ~“It’s not about dreaming. It’s sometimes too much to even breathe… the world has no right to swear [at me]. How to dream, we’ve never been taught. If it’s a dream you can’t make, you’ll hardly sleep.”
Writers: Iophiile, MNEK, RM, Song Jae-kyung, SUGA, J-hope
This song is my personal favorite on the album, since it resonates with a struggle many young people go through today, all across the world; we have been taught the importance of having a motivation to go forward in life, a dream that keeps you going. We are taught to be worried if we spend our lives in a dreamless stupor, those who have no plan or hope for themselves often seen as weak, even if they were never taught how to dream in the first place. Written and produced by Suga, BTS’ second leading lyricist and producer, we receive the underlying message he put into this song, having to do with his struggles with mental illness. “I don’t have a dream. It’s sometimes scary to dream, I don’t find it easy to live like this. To survive is a small dream of mine. It’s okay to life without a dream, you can still feel happy… Your dream can be different [small], even just sleeping or eating tonight, if dreaming is too big, just be yourself. We deserve a life, big or small, you are just fine.”
He brings up his very struggle with finding his own drea, since he connects his mental illness with the hopelessness he felt when trying to appease society and have a dream just for the sake of it. He knows now that it is enough if your only dream is to survive another day, and says we all should be okay with small dreams, whatever they may be.
There is constant imagery of a marathon in this song, “Marathon, marathon…” but everyone will eventually be met with it’s beautiful finish line once you die, Suga urges us to take it slow, and to not feel rushed in this process of getting to the end, “…Life is long, take it slow. At the end, it’s filled with dream’s paradise.” I interpret the intangible finish line described as the paradise we meet after we die to be a dream in itself, to get to the finish line slowly and with patience.
Suga makes it clear that having a mental illness is not a weakness, and the idea of merely dreaming for the sake of having a dream will eventually leave you in a worse mental state. “We dream like debt. To be great must be learned, [but] what is greatness? If only the future were a definite dream…”, The chorus is quite beautiful, giving hope and reassurance to those who are unable to find a dream, or a purpose. “Stop running for nothing my friend, just finish the stupid race / every breath you breathe is already in paradise / you don’t have to dream about everything / everything you [are/make/create] is already in paradise.”
Love Maze “Love ain’t a business, rather life a fitness. I’ve never used my head to love.”
Writers: Pdogg, DJ Swivel, Candice Nichole Sosa, RM, SUGA, J-Hope, Bobby Chung, ADORA
This is one of the more obvious songs on the album that is a generic love song, while still being a melodramatic tune, with a EDM-pop melody. They compare love to a puzzle that is very easy to get lost and trapped in. I take this song as a play on the very intricate details that go with loving someone or loving yourself, and how it is easy to get caught up in the moment and lose yourself. Suga’s verse takes a dark turn within the love maze, “In a maze that’s blocked in all four directions, we’re at a dead end, walking in the abyss… I hope that we wander towards a paradise together.”
Again, here we see the many examples of love being linked with ignorance, in this case with the idea that one will be able to find paradise in a maze that is blocked on all four sides. Yet Suga, in all his darkness, shows his romantic side, “If we are together, even this endless maze becomes a paradise… our hands that hold each other become the map” therefore we get the two sides of the same puzzle, and how, even if we never understand the puzzle or exit the maze, love may be worth it.
Part 3 Coming Soon!!
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