Soundtrack of Coming-of-AgeTrack 1. Child (MARK)
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| (Twitter/@Ieemarkees) |
That rhetorical question popped up in my mind as soon as I hit 18 years old, about three years ago. Yep, barely an adult but the pandemic really played a great amount of part for it. I actually turned 17 about a month after the school's two weeks—ended up as two years—holiday announced. I feel like ever since then I started listening to a lot more music.
The clock's turning to 2:50 AM right when I write this line. It's late at night and I can't fall asleep yet, so I'm putting in my earphones and turning my music on. It's the coming-of-age soundtrack's playlist.
By the way, three years have gone by since I updated something here (i’m finally back y’all😼 wkwk). Now I'm back to the Music Corner to share some of my favorite (kind of) adulting songs, starting with the K-pop ones.
So for track one, I want to invite you to dive into the lyrics of Child by MARK.
Mark Lee, or better known as MARK, is a member of NCT and its fixed sub-units NCT 127 and NCT DREAM. The song itself was released on February 4, 2022 as MARK's first solo release—which also kicks off the music archiving project’s NCT LAB. It is a project series that will allow the NCT members to release solo tracks, self-composed titles and unit tracks.
To be honest, I’m afraid I might not be able to give you much context about MARK or NCT since I am also still on my journey of getting to know them better (✌). Though for this Child track, I kinda have a lot to talk about.
Child is a song about adolescence. It is the main focus throughout the whole song. The title itself reminds me about how we all have an inner child. Although we're becoming adults we were all children once, weren't we?
In NCT Music Space, MARK once mentioned. “I feel like we all have that childish side of us, no matter what age we are in. Whether it be a rebellious type, whether it be a lonely type, or whether it be just being ignorant type. All those "childish" emotions are put into the song and that's how it came to be.”
It is a song concerning deep, vulnerable topics and it's quite relatable in a lot of ways.
Child might be two years old already but it will always have a special place in my heart. Therefore I'm bringing it up here.
Since it's going to be a long, long writing, let's just go get into it, I guess?
(Disclaimer: I'm not good yet with Korean so I took the lyrics & translations from other sources. Feel free to correct if there's any errors in it ^^)
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(Who do you think you are?)
내 마음을 매달고 흔들어 날 어지럽게
(Why are you hanging my heart and shaking it? It's making me dizzy)
내가 문제아라면 왜
(If I'm a troublemaker, then why?)
항상 질문을 던지는 건데
(Why are you always asking questions?)
First thing first, have you ever doubted yourself so much? To the point where your mind just filled with all those frustrated questions? Is it the people's expectations of you one of the ones driving you crazy?
If the answer is “yes” then I guess it is what MARK's trying to talk about for the opener of the song. People's expectations and the weights of responsibility they put carelessly into our not so strong yet not so fragile shoulders.
At the same time, I think, it can also have a double meaning in it. The “you” in the lyrics can also be targeted to himself. You know how sometimes our own expectations can keenly hurt us more than people's expectations, right?
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| (Youtube/SMTOWN) |
To learn more context about Child, I was actually watching the Child's Diary on NCT’s Youtube Channel. And from there, I found MARK's saying how he likes the word “문제아” which in English means “a troubled kid” or like “a troublemaker” and decided to use it for one of the song's keyword.
Not because he is or was a troublemaker but more because he has a lot of problems, which makes him think and talk to himself a lot. It gets to the point where it makes him mentally stressed and thinks that he's not living to the fullest.
Sounds familiar? For me, an overthinker, yes.
When I listened to the first verse, I do feel like both people's expectations and our own expectations are most possibly the causes behind our habits of always questioning ourselves. If you're in the age of a quarterlife, you might've still or have gone through this.
I’m a child
너가 바란대론 못 돼
(I can’t be the person you want)
It’s my question many questions
사람들이 바라본 난 누구야
(Who am I in other people's eyes?)
Who am I? Who I’ll be?
다른 밤 같은 Nightmare
(Different nights, same nightmare)
Lyrics source of the cover, yes. Main part of the song too since it is the chorus.
The questions that already shouted out in the first verse gets revealed right away in the chorus. Those same questions that kept getting repeated unconsciously inside our head. For some of us, it's something that we can never really get out of our mind.
Even if days gone by and night always changes, we always get stuck with the same problems, same questions, same nightmares.
By that means, nightmares aren't always described as literal nightmares in dreams. Nightmares can also be described by those stresses and negative thoughts you're struggling alone very late at night. In a lot of cases, those nightmares are the one keeping you up from sleep.
Just by yourself, stuck in your head. It sucks, isn't it?
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| (Youtube/SMTOWN) |
Quoting from MARK, they're all actually those wide, infinite, endless questions. Because there are just that many people, many thoughts, judgements and opinions that can come at us at any time.
We all also have different versions of us that might be so different from what people thought we are. They might think we're kind-hearted but we would say we're actually not as kind. They might judge us when we make mistakes or do some ‘red flags’ things but we know we're the ones screaming “you are the worst” to ourselves.
It can also work vice versa. People might always throw negative things at us but we can just focus on taking the positive sides of things. People might hate us and be busy telling people the bad side of us but we know our worth and can always learn to be a better version of ourselves.
At the end of the day, it's all on you. You, who decided to listen to yourself first before listening to others. You, who decided to deal with yourself first before looking up to who you are for others. It's always back to our own decision and the way we’re looking at things.
Just like a child, not caring enough about anything but themselves. All they have in mind are just them having fun with life and not what people might say about it. They just go anywhere and do anything they want to.
Like MARK said, children can be seen as rebellious and ignorant at some point. But it might just them never wasting their time overthinking something that hasn't happened yet. They're just living their life.
For adults, it would not be easy to do. Might also be considered a lifetime journey.
I don’t know my own strength
There’s a lot that I don’t know
But you learn when you don’t know
These lines are possibly the ones hitting home the most for me. It's a straight up description of my current situation.
TMI, indeed. But more of it will come (peace).
Because of the lyrics of the chorus and what MARK’s saying about them, I stalk my notes and look up my old writings. I then found the writing I made in January 2021, the one where I wrote about how I'm starting to feel strange with myself. I started to think I can't recognize myself anymore, and it's still kind of happening till the day this writing’s posted.
The line “I don't know my own strength” just screams so much about me. I used to have a good amount of hobbies I could do any time I feel bored or fed up with life. Suddenly they're all gone. Every time I've tried to come back on just doing one of them, I will always end up not doing it again. This one included: writing.
At least I can still write even if it's because of and for my uni's tasks—even tho I still am struggling with writer blocks all the time. But for the rest of the hobby, I still need to try hard to get them all back. I know I need at least one of them for my own sanity.
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| (Youtube/SMTOWN) |
Ends of TMI tho, I think that's the one thing I've personally taken notes from the song. The lines before we get to the current lines I wrote up there, it said “If a dream is the sun. My mind is like earth, all day revolving around the sun.”
For MARK, dreams hold a large portion of his life. Having dreams and goals in life can always be the good things that motivate us to keep going. Whether it be daily, monthly, or yearly goals. I think it's best to try to always have them in mind.
“As a strongly driven person myself, I feel like a guy with no dreams is like a car with no engine.”
- MARK
It is related to the second and third line. We are all still in the process of learning. Just like a child, there's a lot of things we might not know yet but there will always be a time to learn more.
Learning can consist of simple steps such as taking ourselves out of our comfort zone, OR staying in our comfort zone but erasing the bad things that used to make us trapped in it. Humans are also dynamic creatures, we are evolving every day. Curiosity is only natural for us, just like a child.
And just before it gets too long, let's wrap up with the ending part of Child.
혹시 누군간 공감할까
(Would there be anyone who can relate?)
지금만큼은 알아주면 안될까
(Can someone understand me for now?)
I’m saying what’s on my mind
I’m tryna spend this day just like
There's so much I love about this song yet these bridge and outro ending the song is my favorite one.
People are so lonely. People can be so lonely. At the end, it's just them begging for help.
At least that's how I interpreted it.
It was just the line where I wanted to say, "can someone just notice me, notice my problems?"
When we're all having those moments, we're in that stance where we ask for help. Like, "when will there be someone who notice me?"
Because you need that attention sometimes, right? I guess people are all living off of each other. As much as we try to deny it, human are social creatures.
Well, anyway. I just love Child so much. You might also fall for it when you listen to the song.
Not only the lyrics but also his vocals, the backing vocals, the production, the whole scene from the music video—all of them are just chefs kiss. It wrapped up the song really well.
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| (Youtube/SMTOWN) |
Oh, and recently I just found out it has an alternate ending. I’m freaking late I know, but God I love that version even more. It might be a perfect way to end the song, sonically, and also for the songwriting.
The alternate ending actually has the same lyrics from the bridge cut out into two and filled with new lyrics. Where it goes “would there be anyone who can relate?” and followed by “I just can't stay in my head” repeated twice.
It is that kind of statement that I feel like most overthinker would have thought, at least once. The way MARK repeats the line “can't stay in my head” makes me thinking about how the more we try to not think about it, the longer we stay in our head thinking about it.
It's really resonating to the question, “would there anyone who can relate?” and the next question, “can someone understand me for now?”
Those kind of questions I might have, too. The ones I haven't got the answer yet.
In the alternate one, before it gets to second question he adds the lyrics “Even on many nights, just this time,” which kind of a lead on to the “different nights, same nightmare” part.
After all these frustrating phase, full-on 'staying in my head', he wish on someone finally recognizing his struggles. For at least once—just this time, one night of all his many different nights.
For that matters, I think the last two lines is a really good wrap up. By releasing Child, all he wanted is just to delivering what has been in his mind and how he has been spending his days.
As much as I love the official release, I just feel like the alternative ending really gives us even more deep, clear closure about what he has in mind.
Production wise, it could really make the climax after the bridge exploded a big and even raw emotions. Especially when it all has those lowkey guitar, angelic harmonization happening in the background or backing vocals or whatever you called it.
After all, Child will always have a special place in my heart. Aside from the lyrics, there's another aspect of the song that I also treasure a lot and I hope you can treasure it as much as I did.
Anyway, here's some little words from MARK!
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| (Twitter/@Ieemarkees) |
Also, MARK has just put out a pre-release single called 200 for his debut solo album upcoming next year, if you're interested to listen. Please support MARK and shower all his current and upcoming songs with love!
Thank you for surviving this nearly 2000 words writing with me, tehe. Till we meet again on the next Soundtrack of Coming-of-Age chapter! <3
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