Interlude: Shadow - Onomey Ovien

Interlude: Shadow a Review

by

Onomey Ovien

It seems like only yesterday that we were all getting ready for the comeback trailer for ‘Map of the Soul: Persona’ and now were already on to another comeback which is very exciting! I was curious to see who would be in this trailer and what the song would be like. 

The song starts off with Yoongi singing the hook in English ‘I wanna be a rap star, I wanna be the top, I wanna be a rockstar, I want it all mine, I wanna be rich, I wanna be the king, I wanna go win, I wanna be…’ 

What I noticed was that the song uses a sample of the 2013 song ‘Intro:O!RUL8,2?’ I’m sure the sampling of the song ‘Intro:O!RUL8,2?’ was done deliberately to maybe create a link to the lyrics used in the song where RM encourages the listener to live the life they want to live, not the life people expect and want you to live as life is too short. 

The use of the song makes me think that the aim was to get people thinking about the lyrics to that song without needing to repeat them vocally within the song whilst using the hook to demonstrate an example of someone living their own life and achieving everything they set out to do. In other words, Suga is looking back at himself when he was wanting to achieve his dreams, which is what we see in the broken mirror whilst showing us what happens as a result of his success.

This to me is very clever as whilst you’re listening to Suga telling the story of what he feared about achieving his dream and being overcome by darkness within himself, you’re also thinking back to the words RM spoke.

‘Nothing lasts forever

You only live once

So live your life, not any other’s lives 

Take chances and never regret, never

Never be late to do what you wanna do right now

Because at one point of someday

Everything you did 

Would be exactly what you will be, right?’

There were so many things to digest in this trailer video, from the lyrics, to the visuals, and the instrumentation. 

When the hook was sung at the beginning of the song, I thought the song was going to have an Agust D vibe that was full of attitude and arrogance throughout lyrically, but it had many different vibes lyrically as the song develops.

I didn’t understand the intro scene at first but looking back at it after watching the whole video I assumed that was him portraying how his life as the person he wanted to be involved being in hotel rooms all the time and feeling like even with the door shut, there’s always someone watching and waiting. The seven shadows could also be trying to represent the seven members of BTS and how they try to leave their shadow self behind but they’re waiting by the door ready for when they are feeling low. This starts a number of visuals showing how Suga feels from his perspective with such as when performing on stage, all he can see is thousands of camera phones in his face and people dressed in black acting as the shadows who follow him throughout. 

The chorus shows that we’ve gone from Persona where RM says ‘I just wanna fly’ to Suga who says ‘don’t let me fly’ in the chorus because he is scared his shadow will take over and then the song ends on an outro with a massive switch of vibe which can be described as chaotic because of how it feels when he’s hit with his shadow when he’s at the ‘top’. His shadow responding to him and telling him that ‘you are me, I am you, now do you know’ is truly frightening which makes me even more intrigued and excited for the upcoming album.

I think I could go on and on about this video as I’m sure most of Army can. I’m glad we got to see Suga do Shadow as we all know he has expressed a lot about his struggles with fame so it’s nice that he was able to put it in a song and show the different sides to him. He definitely took us on a roller coaster ride of emotions for sure.

Picture Credit: bangtan.official facebook