데자-부

when i journal, i speak as if someone else is listening. why is that? who am i speaking to? do i want to talk or am i saying this to myself?

2017 december 17 one of my favorite artists committed suicide. his name was jonghyun kim, he was a member of the korean-pop boyband SHINee, and he was a singer-songwriter and poet. i remember the morning, i remember getting kind of upset at my best friend for telling me when i said, “no, there’s a chance he’s alive.” i remember going out that day, forgetting about him, thinking i was sad but not that affected.

that night, it hit me: wow, i really admired this dude, huh?

i know i kept tabs on him. i knew about 3 weeks prior i had read some interviews of him. he had this radio show called blue night radio and, although we speak different languages, come from totally different places, it was a solace. i didn’t listen to it much, nor did i read the translations as often as i would have liked—almost impossible for me to now, it still hurts—but i know people valued it. it was a super late night program and this really tiny dude from this boyband wanted to reach all the people who couldn’t sleep, who had troubles, and he wanted to share the blue night with them.

he had an album come out, story opus 2, which was another volume of songs written about stories from BNR. koreans love ballads and i don’t, i think i’m way too nigerian for them and the weight they give, but though he’s really well known for his ballads (outside of SHINee) in south korea there’s a plethora of really interesting music he gave to us.

when i was a pretty big kpop fan i liked some of SHINee’s songs. i started to move away the more radical i got…doesn’t really mesh with the whole black radical feminist thing i have going on. i don’t even remember how i got into him as the artist. i may have heard symptoms for the first time and been blown away. it was a SHINee song and i hadn’t listened to them in so long. i found out that he wrote that song and i was so impressed.

i checked, that came out in 2013 with SHINee’s album “everybody.” then he wrote, produced, and composed a song for son dambi red candle and i just knew. he did gloomy clock for iu. his first album came out, his first story op, his second album, odd eye for SHINee, his second story op.

almost every single thing he’s written, composed, touched for himself or others i’ve loved. he definitely wanted to be sort of a michael jackson in SHINee. he was so funny, so grateful, so cute, so thoughtful. he was really sad.

when BNR ended he was really sad. i remember reading his interviews, though, and being like this dude is so amazing, so smart, so cool. funny, weird. he had gotten all these tattoos and i was like this is amazing, because i loved when idols got them. i looked at it as a fuck you.

it’s not my job to pontificate on the state of capitalism and kpop on a person’s psyche, ones in the industry. i do not believe it helps in any way, i believe that capitalism aids death, and i believe that it’s complex. suicide rates have risen in sk, but they’ve risen in america, and there’s no such thing as someone too successful for it, right?

i remember i read kurt cobain’s (alleged) suicide note years ago and i thought it was beautiful. sounds fucking creepy, but it was like he was saying that he loved people so much it hurt him, and we’d see him in this other life. a couple of weeks ago i read it again and i feel the same.

what could we do if we saved people? i know now that it’s more than just mental illness, or sadness. there are circumstances in which it feels so impossible to get out of that death is the only way. there’s a “suicide state” i guess. and, really, for a litany of reasons if the world was fucking right, we could save more people.

this is all about me but it’s my journal. he’s not here and i wish he was breathing. for his mom and sister, his dog, his friends. i remember reading something like “he’s one of the most talented musicians i’ve gotten to know, he loves music so much” during the BNR interviews. i remember him sobbing. i remember knowing he struggled with sadness. i distinctly remember him at a fan sign (dumb) and writing on a post-it note to a fan: i must be happy. i will be happy.

i hope he found peace. he gave me so much and i couldn’t return anything. his posthumous…poet|artist. i mean he was. any death after, any suicide we’ve heard of, it fucking sucks. it hurts to know that people can’t stay here. i want to remember all the good. how short and weird he was (“i’m actually 7 feet tall i just go around bending my knees all the time”), how loving, how sensual and skeptical and pessimistic. how in his she is video i cannot see anything. how much i love she is. how much i love what he gave us. i want to honor that. but i get bogged down knowing that he’s dead, he killed himself, he’s not here to breathe another day. that’s reality. and while i love humanity, too, one day we’ll take our last breaths. i just wish he, and others, could have been on earth longer. why not?

sometimes i think about that kurt cobain letter and i think, like, someone could have saved you. someone could save anyone i suppose. i don’t know.

review of some songs i love, do more later. first thoughts, remaining feelings:

symptoms: first time i heard it i remember going yo this really SHINee?

gloomy clock: the melody, the harmony—i feel it too. i’m depressed, it’s depressing at this time i’m depressed. the ticking clock in the beginning. when their voices personify their loneliness. there’s this ennui i felt with them. the bitterness in the lyrics (i’m bitter, bitter, as if i’m drinking herbal medicine. i’m depressed, it’s depressing, it’s not a big deal but i’m depressed. i’m depressed, it’s depressing. as if i’m eating gloomy fruit, i’m depressed.) the loneliness, the depression, the bitter taste, the melancholy that’s gloominess. they’re so bored and empty. i can’t eat, i eat too much, i can’t sleep, i sleep too much. uulhada uulhae uuruul uurul yeolmae meogeun deut uul

orgel: i think when i found out he wrote this song i was like. bro. this is amazing, someone from a kpop group did this? before i knew anything about him. orgel’s a music box,spinning round and round (orgel) round and round getting dizzy. i think my favorite thing about the way jonghyun writes or makes music is that he’s got that ability that all my favorite artists do. it cuts me, i feel it so deeply but i can’t explain shit. why it hurts to hear round and round (binggeulbinggeul doragane) because i’m there, spinning too

red candle: it’s ridiculous because it shouldn’t work at least to me. that spanish or whatever feel. man he straight up cuts through the loving feeling and makes me so so so sad and want the missing love i don’t have. it works with dam bi’s voice because her voice isn’t particularly strong but that breathiness when the song speeds up, the way he wanted to display the urgency, blow out the light woo hoo hoo (bureul kkeojwo woo hoo hoo) she’s like…before you go, if you have to disappear in the night hold me but then you’re gone. in my opinion her desperation is also solidifying that she knows and that she’s pissed. alright

deja-boo: zion-t helped composed this one which is funny cos idc about his music. but that’s alright. i don’t know what to call this music like i don’t want to say funk. it’s clear with literally almost every manifestation of modern not folk/rock korean music there’s an affinity of black culture. this song got popular, or at least i thought it did and if it didn’t it shoulda because it was a first to hear. i’d never been this chill and happy. it’s honestly timeless. when zion-t comes in with his annoying voice works. jonghyun’s exit sing-rap before the song finishes is one of my favorites he’s done. honestly i wouldn’t have to know what the song’s about because it’s clear it’s about finding someone beautiful and wanting them there. either a relationship being found again or seeing that someone for the first time. oh deja vu, i saw you before, yeah you saw me right? (oh deja vu nan neol bwatdago geurae bwatjhana? nan namdeul gatji anha)

the last song verse will always be one my favorite of all his songs. he’s done some cool switching up on the whole bridge thing, like on she is, but this one makes me smile so fucking wide. i feel the connection between he and zion t, the guy and the girl, me and this song. it’s so beautiful, something’s started and it’s familiar. on the last sung verse: eonjenji saenggangman hago (i go); but it doesn’t matter when i saw you i keep thinking when that was (i go)

and deja boo has, quite possibly, one of my favorite song endings ever. it goes flawless into the next song on the album, which is so different, and it ends on the note that crazy should begin on. first of all, i never want deja boo to end. it’s a pleasure every time i listen to it, every fucking part, i could cry. but on the true last line (it’s in english), okay next, everything fades out and it’s just his very distinct voice.

i don’t know what to fucking feel now that it’s over but i know the next song will come, the album will play, and it’s going to be so beautiful

i miss you. i really really miss you. i hope you know people miss you, your family and friends love you, you made a lot of people happy and you were so talented. a poet and an artist.

you did well, jonghyun.

as always, i need you.