Kim Namjoon’s songs showcase various set of emotions that range from happiness , sadness , stress and joy. With the new release of Indigo, Namjoon has been breaking multiple records. Each song of the album takes you on a journey of Namjoon’s life experiences and teaches you beautiful lessons of life. Indigo is called the last archive of Namjoon’s 20’s.
Indigo is a diary of a 29 year old man named Kim Namjoon who tells us a story of his late twenties in the form of ten tracks which cover various emotions and raw feelings. In the Indigo album magazine film Namjoon expressed the feeling of how he felt like it was the first time he was doing something all by himself while making Indigo.
The speciality of Namjoon’s songs are that they don’t have a specific time where you should listen to it. Each song has its own beauty and can be listened to at any time. All that matters is a heart filled with love for music , the urge to listen and feel someone’s words and listen to their story , the rhythmic vibing of soul to the song and most importantly, understanding the in depth meaning of Namjoon’s words.
Namjoon has the ability to write beautiful songs that come straight from the heart and touch the hearts of the listeners. He has the talent to write songs with a verse of four to five lines with a meaning that would have multiple interpretations. His songs are the kind where the listener gets to understand in their own way as well as get to know namjoon’s thoughts and perspectives while making the song. Now let’s go over the songs of Indigo.
Note : the analysis of the songs are solely written according to the way I’ve understood the songs. Any other interpretations of the lyrics are totally possible. Secondly, the songs aren’t in order of the way they’re arranged in the album so pls feel free to scroll and read it according to the album if you feel like it ! Hope you have a happy read!
Wildflower is a song that explains Kim Namjoon’s emotions and emptiness that he feels as a human while talking about his four personas; as a celebrity, as a person that’s stuck in a storm of problems, of a person that dreamt big things and the one whose hopes were shattered by his own expectations. Its a song that describes one’s inner desires of finding freedom and happiness but at the same time talks of how the same freedom can turn to one’s “shackles” by tying them to the ground and pushing them to a stage where they feel like everything’s pointless.
The song opens with Namjoon looking at the sky and singing “flower field that’s where I’m at, open land that’s where I’m at”. This is just a brief opening of the song where Namjoon talks his heart out. It compares what his heart wants to reality. his heart expresses a desire to belong in a place where’s there’s peace, and a calm and quite surrounding where people know him for the person that he is but in reality he’s slowly getting “devoured” by his dreams to the point he no longer feels the ground beneath him and everything seems so distant and far from what he actually wants. it shows how people often wish for success and fame and once they start achieving it and reach the peak of fame suddenly a lot of people start treating you differently.
Namjoon says he yearned for flames and a beautiful fall. lets consider flames as a word for “desire” and beautiful fall as “peace”. in the next line he says even before things began, he had dreamt of applauses and smiles. often when people dream, they think about the end results or things that will happen after the dream has been achieved. most of these are positive thoughts. Similarly, Namjoon thinks how he would be surrounded by appreciation, love and applause once he achieves his dreams. But as time went on, even after achieving his dreams, he didn’t feel the emotions that he wished for in the beginning. things that he loved and desired for started growing distant, things started changing and his freedom or dreams turned to shackles or barriers of his happiness and his heart’s desires came crashing down.
I think BTS is like fire like firework but RM is like a wildflower. A wildflower that’s just blooming in a meadow. I want to be someone like a wildflower just lying in a meadow.
-kIM NAMJOON IN INDIGO MAGAZINE INTERVIEW
Namjoon talks about how he had to undergo sleepless nights as various thoughts clouded his mind. he would stare at the crescent shaped moon outside his window as he tried to find himself. He tries to search for his dreams, his goals, his soul and his heart. “Scatter across the sky light a flower flower work.” I think of the chorus part of moonchild as I listen to this line from wildflower. In moonchild Namjoon says “when moon rise its your time:. similarly Youjeen asks Namjoon to scatter his dreams across the sky so that it will shine brightly with hope that he will find himself and his lost happiness with time.
Namjoon starts to feel like he’s running an endless race filled with expectations and failure and everything starts to feel exhausting to the point that it seems pointless and he just wants to remove the mask of fame and popularity which he now describes as “wretched”. He starts questioning and being doubtful about how he thought he would feel happy at the end of this because happiness has turned into a mere memory.
he lays in a flower field staring at the sky and trying to think about his goals and makes up his mind to keep pushing forward regardless of all the obstacles that come his way which is symbolized by the storm in the MV. He makes a decision to never give up even though bad memories exist. Society has always been judgmental regarding everything that it has become hard to find someone who lives in silence. Here silence refers to focusing on oneself without dragging someone else down. living in silence is described as “a boat in full bloom” by Namjoon. He says he does not care about what people talk about him as long as he knows himself. Namjoon wishes to be somewhere peaceful where he can find himself as he does not want to go back to the stars. He wants to go to a place where he doesn’t have a predetermined set of goals and just wander to a destination without purpose where he can go with the flow without worrying about consequences as he discovers his worries and befriends his shadows.
“He really gave me hope. he gave me something to hone in and focus on. Production-wise I really levelled up a lot. I found my passion for making music again.”
-DOCSKIM IN THE INDIGO MAGAZINE INTERVIEW
Namjoon finally asks us not to tell him to be like someone else because that’s not him and all he wants is to be himself. he went from burning fireworks to flowerwork, from boyhood to eternity and he says he will finally return someday.
Wildflower is a song that shows the internal struggle between fame and success while trying to stay true to oneself. its about gathering yourself and finding and fulfilling your hearts desires and not losing yourself during your journey of success.
Lonely is a feeling of emptiness. It’s an emotion where you feel alone/lonely despite being surrounded by people. You feel like nobody understands you, recognises your hidden pain, you feel invisible in public and thoughtless in private. You feel exhausted and empty. It’s a feeling where you try to enjoy your own company but deep down you know you’re hurt.
“I’m fucking lonely, I’m alone on this island”. Let’s consider the feeling of loneliness as “island” . An island is a separate piece of land that’s surrounded by water. It’s basically somewhere totally away from the rest of the land. That’s exactly how a person going through loneliness feels. He feels totally separated from the rest of the crowd and the rest of the world. Namjoon feels as though he’s stranded on an island where there’s nobody to hold his hand and be with him.
For a person who feels alone, every minute feels like an hour and every hour feels like an eternity. It’s as though time stops and everything around you is frozen. Nothing seems to make sense and everything seems to be worthless. Similarly, Namjoon says he’s stuck in a “moment of eternity”. The next line gives a vision as though Namjoon is present in a hotel room. In a hotel room, everything is properly kept and placed in an organised manner unlike the emotions namjoon is going through . He feels trapped in a room which feels narrow even when its wide. A person who feels lonely feels blank and doesn’t have any thoughts running through his mind except those of sadness and pain. He feels as though he’s “floating” alone. He feels trapped and suffocated in himself as he feels confused and hurt.
“I hated being in that hotel. I felt like i had to write about that sentiment at least once. It just hit me in a raw way more than anything else. I wanted to smash things in that hotel. So i told Pdogg all about it in great detail.”
-Kim Namjoon in Indigo Magazine Film
Memories are a very essential part of someone’s life. Often moments pass by but memories hold onto you forever. People come and go, things and places change but memories never change. Some memories are good while others are bad but the ones that hurt you more are the ones you think of often and remember in detail. Similarly Namjoon has certain memories that are silently crushing him from within and occupying his entire mind and grasping his soul and shattering his emotions.
He talks of how he’s tried a million times to let go of these memories but they never left him and he feels as though they’re holding him back from experiencing true happiness. “Now i hate the cities i don’t belong” . This phrase can be interpreted in two ways. One of the ways is in relation to the ” memories” he’s referring to. Often when certain incidents occur, they leave a deep impression on our thoughts which make us hate everything that’s related to it like the places in which these memories were made, the person connected to these memories etc. Here he’s talking about the cities in which the memories were made which hurt him every minute throughout the times he feels lonely. This makes him feel like he doesn’t belong to these cities and just expresses his desire to return home. Some memories haunt you even after time passes. Some memories are the reason you never heal. Another way in which this phrase can be interpreted is through the literal meaning of lonely.
Namjoon feels left out in big cities and feels invisible even after being present in a crowd and he just wants to get rid of this feeling and return home, a place where he feels loved and feels a sense of belonging , a place where he can be himself openly and live his life the way he wants.
“This song is like raw denim. Nothing has been done to it. It’s just denim in its original form. It’s the most Rae but if you wear it a long time it could end up having a washed feel to it”.
-Kim Namjoon in Indigo Magazine Film
A lot of people get drunk to get rid of unspoken pain and often blurt out things during the time they’re wasted. In the second verse namjoon talks of how he hates everything and time keeps passing by and he spends all day watching YouTube and Netflix . The only thing he has with him is the phone data and the meeting he has with his family everyday.
“my Moulin Rouge turning red” The Moulin Rouge is a secluded room inside the iconic red windmill in Paris. Namjoon’s feeling is similar to a secluded room that remains a secret in a small corner of his mind. In the next phrase he talks of the numerous clues or hints he sent out to talk about his feelings and to express what he’s going through but nobody really caught them and because of this, his loneliness has become worse and he just wishes to go back home.
Lonely is a song which is centred with constant strumming of guitar and just filled with rough and raw thoughts of namjoon that crossed his mind during his stay in Las Vegas. It expresses a lot of people’s thoughts as regardless of what you’re going through, you feel the safest in a place you refer to as your “home”.
Change means difference. Nothing in life is permanent. Whether it’s people, nature, climate , season , bad times and good times, relations etc. Everything changes. Change can be good as well as bad. It depends on how you take it. A common thing that you’re taught at a very young age is “everything happens for a reason” . But what people don’t tell you is whether the reason is good or bad. Life is uncertain and so are the people and relationships that you’re surrounded by.
Similarly, Namjoon talks about a change that happened in his life and in this song he refers to a person who he really loved and has left him broken and shattered. It talks about “the pain of losing someone”.
“The vibe is raw, something you’d see at a studio or on the street”
-Producer eAeon
The chorus basically talks about how nothing is permanent. Everything changes; situations, circumstances, life, people, everything changes. Someone could fall in love with you while others could lose feelings for you. Someone could be your friend while another could become an enemy. A person with a negative mindset can succeed while another who put in a lot of efforts could fail. Similarly, time never stops for anyone. It changes a lot. “That’s the world’s shape”. This sentence could be interpreted in two ways.
The first is the direct meaning in which namjoon talks about how change is inevitable. You can’t stop someone from changing. Change depends on the thing that’s changing . So that’s how the whole world works. The other way is by determining the shape of earth. A lot of PPL have different views on the earth’s shape. Some say it’s flat while others say it’s round. Different perspectives and different thoughts which are connected to change. When we don’t even have the same opinion regarding the shape of the world, expecting other things to stay the same doesn’t really make any sense.
“I think it’s a song that was produced in a way that overturned stereotypes or biases or general knowledge of how producing should be”
-Producer eAeon
The next verse talks about discovering someone’s true colours. It’s said “whatever glitters is not good” and “you never know someone’s true feelings unless they’re angry and they let everything out”. Once you get to know someone’s true intentions or their true colours and their real persona, it’s up to you whether you wanna accept them or walk away and distance yourself from them forever. Here Namjoon says he can’t believe he fell for someone without knowing the real version of the one he loved. If you get fooled by someone once then it’s a shame on the person who fooled you but if you let that happen again by falling for their lies again then it’s a shame on you.
After getting fooled twice by the same person , Namjoon questions whether he had lost his “sanity”. Here sanity refers to the ability to think rationally and he doubts if he lost it because he wasn’t able to recognise the game even though the pieces and moves were made in front of him. He knows there was something between him and his partner and everything was going fine but at times even when everything feels right , something wrong happens and it’s out of our control.
A person can’t change unless they want to change. Here Namjoon realises and understands that you can’t fix someone unless they want to fix it themselves. Unless you do something wholeheartedly, it’ll never work out the way you want it to. He wasn’t able to fix the one he loved and wasn’t able to change them but he says he’s glad they found the right person for themselves.
Namjoon started his career at the age of 13. In 2013 he joined BTS and started writing songs for them. He represented the group as the leader , a member and also helped in translating the questions to the members in interviews. Kim Namjoon has grown and changed and become a beautiful human over the years. He’s learnt from his mistakes , improved and has become more sincere and dedicated towards his work. His way of answering questions , clarifying and the way he puts forward his thoughts and opinions in press conferences and the way he gives speeches on special occasions and various events has improved over the years . In a few videos Namjoon has talked about how the present version of himself wouldn’t write songs like intro persona or he wouldn’t be working on the songs in his mixtape titled RM the way he worked on them a few years ago.
“The chorus comes out once and then it just sort of ends it’s very rough. In a way it gives you that vibe we call arty. So people who love music deeply, all like this song”.
-Kim Namjoon
Basically Namjoon says he’s changed over the years and he’s not the same as years ago. A lot of websites including Wikipedia are known for giving incorrect information and spreading misinformation about a lot of things especially when it comes to artists and their journey. Exaggeration of info has increased and disrespecting people and their work has become common. Namjoon says the info that’s been put up in those websites talk about some stranger because the things mentioned in them are definitely not about him.
At the end he asks if his feelings have been properly communicated to the one that’s left him . He says someday they’ll face karma and will understand his emotions and understand his pain. And that day they’ll realise that they’ll never feel the way they felt when they were around Namjoon. He says nobody will be able to love them the same way he did. Love is rare, change is inevitable.
The word closer could mean a lot of things. It could be taken in the literal sense ; the feeling of being near someone or being close to someone , it could be taken as the bond or relation between two people or it could also be taken in an opposite manner. Some people feel close to someone after being distant from them because as they say “you never realise the true value of something until it’s gone”. Whereas a person far away from you could feel close to you when in reality the people who are close to you could feel miles away from you. Someone who is miles away from you could comfort and love you as well as understand you (this is what I feel about joon)
There are 24 hours in a day yet the night seems the longest regardless of the season. It’s the night time that brings out your hidden fears, unfolds your scars, opens your soul and frees your heart. It brings back memories, your last, reminds you that you’ve got a future that’s unpredictable and reminds you of how uncertain life is. There are moments in life where you feel distant from someone even after spending hours with them . You feel far from them and feel as though they don’t feel the same about you and don’t reciprocate the same emotions towards you. It’s as if “you don’t feel close enough”. Similarly, joon talks about how at times he feels far away from the person he admires and misses the time they spent together and expresses how these feelings unravel at night. At the same time, the time after midnight is the moment where everything around us is quiet and we get to experience real peace and calmness. We feel our thoughts and find ourselves.
We get to organise and collect our thoughts and cherish special moments. So Namjoon says he feels the closest to them at night but also feels distant from them. “Me never on your timeline see you always in the limelight”. A person who loves you will make you a priority. You might not always be the most important person of their day but you will always be one of the most important part of their life. They’ll always manage to dedicate a few hours of their day for you so they can talk about their day, share stuff and just be there by your side. If someone loves you , you’ll know . If they comfort you, you’ll know. In this phrase , Namjoon talks about how his partner or the one he admires does not give him any time. Doesn’t bother much about him and doesn’t put any effort and does not reciprocate the same emotions towards him. Though his special one doesn’t make time for him, he always sees them in the limelight. Now this could be taken in two ways. The first one could be the literal meaning of limelight which means “attention” or “centre of attraction”. So basically like Namjoon said , his loved one doesn’t give him time but at the same time, he sees them giving time and putting in efforts to everyone else other than him. That makes him feel hurt and sad. He notices how they spend time with others and make everyone a priority while treating him like an option. So during this, his special one is the centre of attraction among others making them the “limelight”.
Another way the word limelight could be interpreted is by Namjoon’s selfless nature. Namjoon is known to love unconditionally and selflessly. His partner may not have time for him but to Namjoon, they’ve always been a priority. Namjoon has always seen them as the most beautiful thing in his life and considered them as the limelight of his life . Being selfless is prioritising someone else’s happiness over your own and giving them more attention than what you’re giving to yourself. Similarly , Namjoon always made them the centre of his world and gave them a spotlight. So basically Namjoon considers his special one as the limelight of his life.
Namjoon says he wants to “keep rolling in the deep” . Rolling in the deep means an emotional closeness and dependence in a romantic relationship. Namjoon wants to feel a connection, a bond and a relationship filled with closeness with his loved one. He wants to love and be loved, wants to be remembered , prioritised and cherished. He wants to be cared for, cuddled and wants to have actual deep conversations filled with raw emotions along with humor. He says he means it and it isn’t a joke. He asks his lover why they’re “floatin’. ” He feels as though they’re losing interest in him and the attachment they shared together with each other is no longer present between them. He questions why his lover isn’t able to give him a convincing answer. He finds their words hard to believe and notices they’re “ceasing” or “failing” to answer.
“you run away like fish” . This phrase is similar to the phrase “fish out of water”. It’s usually used to describe a person that’s feeling awkward in a certain place. Namjoon puts forward a lot of questions which convey his inner thoughts and feelings to which his partner is obliged to answer. instead , Namjoon notices they wobble like a fish and wanna slip to escape and run away . He notices they’re uncomfortable and unable to answer these questions cuz they feel awkward.
Our dreams have a lot of meanings and interpretations . It’s said that if you think of someone or something a lot during the day , you dream of them at night because your dreams are a reflection of your subconscious thoughts. Namjoon’s thoughts are filled with doubts , confusion , pain and mostly , the visual image of his partner . When he sleeps , he feels the closest to them because that’s when he dreams of them . His dreams are the only place he gets to feel as if he’s close to his love. Similarly , the colours shown in our dreams also can be analysed and interpreted in various ways. Namjoon says he sees his partner in red, blue and green . These colours are usually used to signify emotional stimulation . Our dreams contain a lot of elements and parts to which we forget almost all of it while waking up. At the same time , we tend to remember certain larts of our dreams whether good/bad for a long time and probably even years. Namjoon says he remembers the dreams in which he sees his lover in red blue and green which shows how emotionally attached he feels to them.
He wishes to keep sleeping for a few more hours just so he can feel the closeness and enjoy the bond he shares in his dream with the one he admires a lot . Waking up from sleep would mean losing connection with his dreams and this thought makes him sad and hurt. As the day approaches he feels the difference between imagination and reality. He feels suffocated at the thought of reality touching him again and loses grip on his imagination where everything seems beautiful and events go according to the way he wants. Coming to reality would be joining hands with pain and suffering . He regrets meeting the special one at the wrong time. He feels like he met the right person at the wrong time and regrets everything .
He asks them to call out “youngin”; a person in their adolescence who is mature and tell them that time doesn’t wait for anybody and it never freezes. Time just keeps moving. There are some days where everything seems to be moving at a fast pace and life seems so busy and your day feels packed with so many schedules but at the end of the day when you come back home to your favourite person , everything feels alright and life seems okay and time feels frozen; that’s when you know that person is your home. Similarly , namjoon feels as though time has frozen when he’s near his partner. As he embraces them in his arms with a warm hug and a soft kiss, everything seems alright and life no longer seems tough.
Sometimes you make certain promises to yourself but end up breaking them cuz deep down even you know that you can’t live without them cuz they were once your source of happiness and joy. Similarly Namjoon too made a promise to stay away from them for his inner peace but ends up breaking it over and over again cuz when he’s close to them , he feels the connection even though he knows that the connection isn’t from both sides.
“if love ain’t for us then i will be satisfied with this”. This sentence could be interpreted in many ways. Sometimes in life you try so hard to get something and when you don’t get it despite putting your whole heart and soul into it, you end up getting broken. During such a time if someone gives you something that’ll move you one step closer to achieving your goal, you’d immediately accept it even though you know you won’t be getting what you really desired for. But the feeling of knowing that you’re just one step away from getting what you really want, makes you settle for less. In this , Namjoon knows that the person he considers special doesn’t feel the same about him yet he’s okay with settling for less; he’s okay with accepting their present bond even though it means he won’t feel the closeness that he really wishes for. Another way this could be interpreted is through the pain that Namjoon is going through. In life we meet some people that become a really huge part of our life and when one day they say they’re gonna leave you , you feel ready to do literally anything to make them stay. You just don’t wanna go through the pain of separation and you’re ready to feel hurt by being with them instead of going through the pain of letting go. You know you’re gonna be broken and hurt but to you , staying with someone you love is more important than letting go and moving on even though you know they don’t love you the same.
“i don’t need your touch as long as it’s your love”. Love can be physical as well as emotional . In this Namjoon is referring to those beautiful feelings of love , those butterflies, the trust dedication and gentleness towards someone, the sincerity and those soft thoughts you have for the one you admire, the love that’s based purely on raw feelings that you have for someone. He just wants to love and be loved. Sometimes we love someone so much that we’re okay with letting go if that means they’ll be happy . It’s a kind of love where you prioritise someone else’s happiness, feelings, wishes, desires before your own. Here Namjoon is okay with even seeing the one he loves from afar cuz it’s not the physical touch or snuggles that matter but the thought of just giving your all to someone that matters. It’s the thought of giving someone a special place in your life that matters. It’s the closeness that matters cuz at the end it’s always the thought that counts. He asks his loved one to just stay wherever they are and not change at all and just allow him to look at them and feel their happiness and just give them love .
Closer is a beautiful song that talks about separation, the value of togetherness, the painful side of love, the beauty of loving someone and giving them a place in your heart, the importance of being surrounded by people you love and spreading comfort and love around you, understanding someone and just being with them and finally, it teaches us that sometimes letting go means happiness.
“Still life” refers to a painting or drawing of an arrangement of objects, typically including fruit and flowers and objects contrasting with these in texture, such as bowls and glassware. Still life refers to something that are “still” and don’t move. These days with fast pacing technology and developments , world has become fast. Time flies without realisation and the day gets over quick . Sometimes we get so busy that we don’t even realise the number of hours we spent over a certain task. Due to this , many a times we feel as if we’re stuck in a loop or a routine that just keeps repeating every single day and we just can’t seem to get out of it that we become numb to things like joy, sadness and other emotions. Sometimes we feel out of the loop where we don’t understand what’s going on around the world . We seem so confused and it seems like we’re just breathing and not living anymore and everything around us is moving and People around us are living their life to the fullest whereas we can’t even seem to figure out basic things in our daily life. This is the emotion that’s portrayed in Kim Namjoon’s song “Still Life”.
In the chorus portion Namjoon keeps saying “I’m still life” . This means that he considers himself to be stuck in a loop which just makes him numb to everything and everyone around him is moving whereas he remains still. No improvements, no developments , no changes , no movements; just still like the objects drawn in still life art. “I’m still life but I’m moving. Just life life going forward” this contains a paradox where joon says he’s still but he’s moving . In a way namjoon is saying that he’s still but not still life art kind of still where objects are drawn and it’s painted. Namjoon isn’t a canvas himself but his life is a canvas which has been painted in a way that cannot be changed easily. He feels stuck as if he’s confined to a room of four walls around him and he just can’t get out of that room and explore things like other people. He’s living in a bubble which makes him feel still yet he hasn’t stopped living life unlike the artwork. He’s still breathing, working, and doing things which means he’s moving.
Giving up on something would mean he has become still but in this case namjoon never stops wanting to live life. He hopes for better days where he can just live life the way he wants. He wants to keep his flower blooming again. Feeling like you’re a still life is like watching a flower grow without sunshine. A flower cannot grow unless it receives proper sunlight. If we consider the sunlight as “opportunities” and the flower as “namjoon” , right now namjoon feels like a flower that is unable to bloom because of lack of sunshine. But Namjoon wishes to get out of that suffocated emotion and breathe well in the sunshine which will in turn allow him to bloom and become a better and beautiful flower; a beautiful human with various opportunities, adventures and happiness.
There are some people in this world who don’t like labels for the relationship that they share with other people, labels given to themselves by other PPL , or just being generally called or titled to something. This is because when you’re given a title for your work ,or for doing something , along with the title comes people’s expectations from you , dearies and wishes and plans that they have for you , which will tie you to the ground and make you feel obligated to fulfill those dreams and give up on yours . That’s the reason Namjoon says “gimme no name cuz I’m untitled”. He just wants to do his own thing , live his life the way he wants , not to be based on other people’s expectations and just be free and no longer feel still.
“My life is on display” this could be in reference to his celebrity life. Celebrities literally have their whole life on display . Everyone gets to know almost everything that happens , rumours are spread , false news and misinformation are spread regarding them almost on a daily basis . Even the most trivial details regarding their life are covered by the media and news reporters for their benefit. It’s as if their life doesn’t belong to them but belongs to the world. Namjoon has managed to leave his past behind but his future still remains unclear. Crushed by people’s thoughts , opinions , suggestions , advice and unnecessary expectations , he finally finds it a bit easier to breathe on arriving at “a fork in the road”. A fork in the road refers to a two lane road where the wanderer has to choose his path which will lead him to its respective destinations. A wrong path will mislead him whereas choosing the right path will help him attain his objectives at the earliest. Since Namjoon was unclear and uncertain about his future , he had to make a decision standing in between the two lanes. His one decision could determine what the future had in store for him. We’re often haunted by what happened in the past and haunted by what might happen tomorrow. Life is very uncertain and most importantly unpredictable. Anything can happen at any time. This haunting turns into a shadow that’s overcast on a person that can restrict and hold them back from trying to search for new opportunities which in turn make them “Still”.
Yet namjoon says he doesn’t really think of it much and manages to live calmly. He lives and moves every single minute and how of the day. Often people claim to know everything about a particular person just because they’ve known them for a long time. Yet in this namjoon challenges people to bet everything that they want to and claims that they still won’t know him completely.
In the second portion of the song, it gives the listener a feeling as though Namjoon has actually started living his life the way he wants to and dreamt of. He says “you can’t lock me up in a canvas” . A canvas is usually a board or a painting material which has frames around it and a certain painting is done. Everything that’s painted is according to the painter. The objects on the canvas have no decision making powers of their own. They’re mere puppets in the hands of the painter. Similarly Namjoon says he does not want to be stuck in such a canvas and wants to be free. In the second half of the song he says nobody can ever chain him to the frames of the canvas . ” Life is better than death” in this Namjoon showcases a will to escape from the routine life and just be himself. That shows a person is living otherwise you’re just breathing. To live life is basically doing things that you love passionately, loving people unconditionally, prioritising yourself before anyone else, and most of all , living life and not just breathing.
People want something from you but then get angry when you don’t listen to what they want. So basically people wish namjoon is a trendsetter but instead he wishes to be a friend. Someone who is humble , goes with the flows , just doesn’t matter how fast the world is running and just wants to go at his own pace, someone who is there for his friends etc. He wants to be a go-getter ; someone who is good at solving problems, doesn’t run after success but wants to be successful, an energetic full of life person.
Namjoon says he wants to live his days like weeds and not flowers. Weeds are undesirable plants that grow along with flowers. They’re removed later on . What he means is , bad days should be treated like weeds . They’re undesirable . They don’t have to be remembered cuz they’re not worth it. So move on and look forward to the blooming flowers of tomorrow rather than being stuck on unwanted unnecessary weed.
Still life is a song that beautifully compares a painting and its relation in the real world. It talks of difficulties of a person but at the same time talks about overcoming it. It’s a fun song with deep meaning .
Hectic is a common word that we use in our daily life to describe our day, while talking about life and work, to describe a state of relationship, to describe another human etc. Hectic is basically “stress”. its when you focus on something too much not because you want to, but because you have to. its the feeling of being pressured by things around you and is the constant feeling of burden whether its work, people or lifestyle. Sometimes hectic is not just stress but can be described as having only stress throughout the day. when you don’t find anything special in your day except work, when there’s nothing that makes you feel excited, when you don’t have anything to share with others that’s not stressful , that’s when your day becomes hectic. This is what Namjoon talks about in his song.
“yesterday was a hectic there was nothing romantic”. Namjoon is describing his day . He’s talking about how there’s nothing “romantic” in his day. Here romantic doesn’t have to necessarily refer to feelings of love. It could mean “special occurrence” or something that made him smile. He’s saying there wasn’t anything worth discussing about his day. We always look for a source of light or a source of motivation when things get tough (it’s namjoon for me) . Everyone needs a reason or a goal to keep pushing forward. When things seem pointless and hopeless , a ray of light makes you feel hopeful and makes things a bit easy. So here Namjoon is looking for that ray of sunshine to keep chasing after his goals. He’s in search of heaven. Heaven or paradise is a place of happiness and greenery and good things. So he just wants to see one such good thing that’ll make him get back up on his feet and keep moving forward.
“my shy smile in my old memories”. This could have two meanings. One could mean the actual shy smile that he gave in his old pics or memories. When we’re young, a lot of us are camera shy. We’re too innocent and shy infront of people, or just to talk, or to perform a skill infront of relatives and friends or just showcase a good smile so most of us when we look back , feel like we have an awkward smile but it’s just that we were too shy . The other meaning could be the smile that appears on his face reminiscing about his old memories. Sometimes when we look back on the fun days and happy times we had in the past, we smile with tears in our eyes. That’s the days we miss , that’s the time we wish to experience again and revisit again.
These days it feels like nobody has anything interesting to say, everyone’s just caught up with their own things in life and barely have time for their loved ones. He feels like people just speak for the sake of it. They bluff life “liquor talks” . When a person feels mentally exhausted and feels as though they’re done with everything and everyone, even the smallest of noises seem annoying and even the smallest of things irritate and make us feel frustrated. So here Namjoon feels annoyed and frustrated with bold light and violent taxis.
Not everyone that you meet will say good things about you. Some might talk good things to your face and speak nonsense behind your back whereas others might speak nonsense both to your face and your back. So he’s tired of meeting different people who speak the same nonsensical things about him . He’s tired of the suggestions given by people without asking, tired of the baseless opinions thrown at him by PPL who know nothing about him and tired of the unasked advice given to him. He questions his purpose of being born cuz he feels helpless.
When your head gets filled with thoughts that it becomes suffocating and messy and you can’t process anything , a lot of us tend to write these thoughts on a book and take it step by step and find solutions slowly to each problem and thought that goes on our mind. Similarly Namjoon writes down his thoughts on a book and tries to think of the times he felt lost so he can gather and collect his thoughts and properly organise them and think each bit through and through. But everytime he does that, he finds himself walking down the same road , meeting the same ppl and going through the same experience repeatedly. He finds himself taking a walk down the memory lane and coming to the present and finds himself getting lost immediately. He just cant find answers to his questions and that makes him sad and hurt.
He notices the day is coming to an end and thinks about everything that he’s done that day and finds he hasn’t done anything worth appreciation and finds no positive outcome or results that have come out from that day’s activities. He just feels tired. He questions what’s happiness and inner peace. Whenever he feels confused , he closes his eyes as if he’s dreaming and he sees a lot of people just dancing, swaying gently, having blurry visions of happiness and hopes to find his lost self and doing so helps him visualise what his heart is longing for; a day that’s no longer hectic.
Life is filled with lots of unpredictable events and things don’t always turn out the way they’re planned. these things might have a good outcome or a bad outcome. But the issue isn’t the outcomes; its the impact or the effect that these outcomes have on our lives and the impact it creates on us mentally. When good things happen, the span of this joy is short-lived. But in the case of the bad events, they leave a long lasting impression on us in the form of society’s judgements, their opinions and the disgusted looks that people give you. they leave scars on your soul and wounds on your mind that may hurt fir an indefinite period of time. the worst part is they never hide. you may have a great day filled with joy, excitement and be surrounded by love from all sides, But when the moon rises, these wounds are gonna haunt you and make your life miserable. No.2 is a song that talks about overcoming these emotions and moving forward. it talks about accepting that these scars cannot be healed and realizing that life can be enjoyed even with the presence of these scars.
“My love don’t look back anymore after all those waves passed through” each emotion is like wave; it passes. when you go to a beach, you will notice that the sand and water meet together at one point. now lets consider the sand as the good things in life and the waves or the water as the bad things in life. often we think more about the bad things in life which pushes down the good things in life. lets consider life as a “jar”. pushing down the good things in life makes the jar of life overflow with the bad things therefore suppressing the sand with water. at the same time, only filling your life with good things and ignoring the bad things would mean you are treating the bad events or bad memories like a shadow. though it gets hidden in the sunlight(happiness) , you know its always following you around. when these memories come up at night and emerge as a big shadow, its gonna hurt and haunt you more than it would normally do. moreover filling your jar with only sand makes it hard for anything else to get mixed therefore suffocating you slowly. therefore its necessary to fill the jar with both water and sand to create a balance. the point where the sand and water meet in a single place on the beach is called life.
The meaning of the first two lines is to treat the bad events like a wave and let it pass and to give more importance to the good things of life. It talks of prioritizing yourself and protecting yourself. this acts a shield from the bad things of life. even in the midst of the mixed memories, you’ve got a chance to live life, and that matters the most cuz not everyone gets a second chance at life. so its important to be grateful and live life in a better way.
not looking back at the memories would mean that at present you’ve got no regrets. but that also leaves a void in your mind and heart causing confusion. you feel lost not knowing which way to go. In our life, everyone around us throws suggestions at us and some of them include comments like “you are not that special”, “you are not the one” etc. Namjoon says he wont cry at such comments anymore cuz he’s focusing on moving forward and doesn’t wanna think of the past.
he then remembers his past where he was hungry for recognition and strived towards success and fame and he was so focused that he blew a balloon that only contained him and his ambitions. But one day it suddenly burst and he realized it was empty. in the desire for success, he forgot to give importance to other things in life that were equally necessary in the long run. he questions why his joy did not last forever and why everything was messy cuz he wanted everything to go in a flow but suddenly everything changed in a fraction of a second. he then realized that he was all lone in his journey. it was a path consisting of him, his sorrows, his mistakes, and his journey. But the he views it from an optimistic perspective. he realizes that though he made mistakes, though things did not go as per the plan, though there were accidents frequently, he tried his best. he owned up to his mistakes, took responsibility and learnt from them and changed for the better and that’s what matters the most. everyone can apologize but very few can actually take responsibility for their actions and change for the better.
The song then ends with Namjoon promising himself that he’s no longer gonna fixate on the past incidents and is gonna move on and focus on the present. He says he’s gonna accept himself for who he is and then move on and learn from his mistakes and protect himself always.
life these days is busy and hectic. nobody has time for anyone and in such times we often tend to forget many things out of which some maybe important while others may not. but amidst all of this we forget trivial things which form an important part of our life. whether its your close ones birthday, or an anniversary or a day of hanging out with your friends, these are trivial things which are actually very important. at times we feel so lost that we forget what we ate for lunch pr where we went throughout the day. this doesn’t happen because we are forgetful but because we are pre occupied with other things. But at times we feel so pressured by things around us and feel anxious and depressed about anything and everything. in such cases our mind gets clouded with multiple thoughts thereby occupying our entire mind causing us to forget everything. its a state where we no longer know who we are, what we want and what we desire. we don’t realize the days pass by, the time flying and the hours ticking by. that “mental state of forgetfulness” is what Namjoon talks about in this song.
in the first verse Namjoon talks about how he cant recollect what he did yesterday. He says that he feels ashamed cuz his mind is clouded with so many thoughts that he cant seem to remember anything else except the same repetitive thoughts in his mind. he apologizes to his friends and says that even though he’s 26, he still feels immature due to his forgetful nature. “with numerous thorns the morning that comes and goes ” everyday Namjoon wakes up with various new thoughts but of the same anxious depressing nature which make it tough for him to pass or get through the day. often when people feel sad they tend to sleep more as a way of escape from pain. it helps them relax even if its for just a few hours. but they wake up with even more thoughts and they cant really find an escape from it. so this thought is conveyed by Namjoon through the phrase “I am anesthetizing myself” .
When you feel really stressed , you start letting go of the things that you really love, you stop doing things that you used to initially find joy in , you stop following your passion . “I can’t go to the park but i like the colours of Nature” signifies that though she loves the colours of Nature , she doesn’t feel like going but at the same time she realises this is all temporary and these feelings will go away someday. It’s all just a matter of time. Things change, ppl change and even the weather and climatic conditions change. Things today are no longer how they used to be. Some PPL remember memories through the sense of smell. They recognise fragrance and get nostalgic . One such fragrance most of us are attracted to is the smell of wet soil after the first rain, the smell of nature , and the smell of grass. But like i said, things change . We’ve developed so fast in terms of lifestyle that the greenery around us has disappeared and it’s all just commotion and dust all around. That’s similar to the state our mind is in; confusion, thoughtless , and at the same time we’ve got a million thoughts running in our mind. Park sawol asks whether we remember the smell of grass ? It’ll be quite new. This could be interpreted in two ways .
Either it could be that she’s signifying change and nostalgia at the same time and clarifying that even the smell of grass has changed just like the days have gone by . In the second way , she’s saying that we have become so busy that we can’t even remember the smells of things that we once used to immediately recognise. We’ve started forgetting every single thing and are just stuck in our routine life.
The song ends with them humming nanana …. This could be them just accepting reality and just going on with life and just repeating the cycle of escaping from their pain using sleep as an excuse , just being stuck in a loop of repeating emotions, thoughts and feelings and the same suggestions , advice that are being given from PPL around you .
All Day RM with Tablo:
Everyone goes through their own set of problems and difficulties in their life and have a different way of processing each incident and thought . In such a situation it’s important to avoid judging people based on anything such as their clothing , their fashion sense, their way of viewing things etc. In this fast paced world, more importance is given to PPL who dress better and look better than a person who is dressed in a less expensive clothing . “All day” talks about how people are so judgemental and showcases the way people who have good bodies are considered more beautiful , the way all commercials have the same style , same way of selling their products and the same end goal.
The first verse talks about the way all commercials are the same consisting of nice dancers in nice clothes. Most of the time, PPL get roles in commercials, shows or movies based on their appearance and not acting skills or their experience because today’s entertainer industry is not about showcasing talent but showcasing or selling appearances. There’s less talent and more models in the music industry or any entertainment industry for that matter . “There are more bodies outside” he’s talking about how there are better candidates for roles than the ones that they’re stuck to or have chosen . All it takes is a little effort to explore. “Infact the body is nothing , the mind is more of the problem” .
Let’s talk about people who get bodyshamed every single day. Do you think they’re the issue ? Do you think they’re not made for trending fashion clothes? Do you think they don’t wish for a day of peace ? It’s totally not their issue. It’s the thinking that matters. It’s the fault of those people who think that PPL with a bit different bodies are not suitable for beauty standards when the fact is these beauty standards are set by us, a society filled with judgemental people, PPL who wouldn’t care about what you’re going through and don’t care about how their actions affect you . “It’s the mind that’s the real problem”. People need to change the way they think about others and should stop judging people for the way they look, their weight , their skin colour and the way they speak , the languages they know , their culture , the values they follow , the traditions they were brought up with etc and behave normal for once and we will see how the society and all the industries change their ways.
The moment a child is born we start setting our expectations for them and decide what they should be and what career paths they should choose . We not only think but we try to enforce the mentality of ” we are your elders so we know better ” on the growing child that makes them feel bound to our expectations not allowing them to open their wings and fly and explore. Everything’s pre decided therefore not allowing us to dream anything . “Forgetting dreaming” Namjoon wants to write his own poem and his own journey and decide his own path of life but he’s bound by societal restrictions and the fear of people throwing their views on him when all he wants is to achieve his dreams with his efforts and dedication and sincerity and not through a favour from others .
When people become a star , they often forget their roots , where they’ve come from , the people who were behind their success , the ones who were there all the time cheering and supporting them through the journey and where they started it all. Here Namjoon says ” you too have become a star. If you’re looking for something buried ,you taste it like me” . Namjoon tried to find himself everyday and discover and accept his real self . He tells the PPL not to forget their roots and in case they start digging , he encourages them to find themselves the way he discovers himself every single day .
We live in an atmosphere where everyone throws dirt on others until they’re the ones who are wrong . In that case they start viewing things from a neutral perspective unlike the other times. “They want you in fear . How dare you say what you feel” . PPL want you to say what they wanna hear. Anything otherwise spoken will be used against you. They want to dominate , control and use you to their benefits and will be the same ones who will go against you in a heartbeat. They won’t think twice before dragging you to dirt and tarnishing your reputation. They wanna fold you and your thoughts like origami and won’t respect you until you belong to an upper class status.
PPL who claim to have morals will step up on their characteristics and throw hurtful statements at you until you break and leave a cold personal impact. To this, tablo encourages us to make a big fire out of our big life and to make the most out of each moment . He asks us to “get our asses off the bench” and to fight when PPL try to suppress our voice. We’ve got dynamite in our dna … It’s a Wordplay used by namjoon with the songs of BTS dynamite and DNA but also means that we got fire in our dna and we should make the most of it.
He asks the haters to close their eyes cuz he’s no longer gonna turn a blind eye to his dreams and make them a reality and encourages all of us to do the same . The song ends with him saying he’s gonna continue fighting and raise his voice against the wrong doings and believe in himself , fly with his wings in the air , he’s gonna live and feel each emotion and live life to the fullest.
According to Plato, man reflects the character of the state he lives in. To understand a person, it is necessary to consider the society in which he lives. The state is not an institution that people come together and establish with their own will, but an organism, a whole. It’s important that we seek good values and honesty , and that we’re sincere to what we do whether it’s work , or career , or studies or anything that you’re doing in life. Your values define the person you are and your personality defines who you are.
When we’re young we don’t have any rules and restrictions or boundaries that we have to necessarily stick to but as we grow older we’ve got a lot of things that we have to follow like etiquettes, behaviour , mannerisms etc that we have to follow . When we’re young a certain action of ours was either wrong or right and didn’t have any major consequences but as we grew older each actions was interdependent on the other therefore if we made a single wrong decision it could lead to heavy consequences. When we’re young we get to do a bit of what we want but growing up we’re taught we should always aim for the peak and just keep rising and failures are condemned and anyone who fails even once gets looked down on and all of their other successful moments just get ignored thereby highlighting only the failure. He says he wants to go back to when he was nine so he could live a simple lifestyle.
It’s important to have or be surrounded by a group of PPL who share the same goal as you and to just get motivation when things get tough . So namjoon says we should always work in a team because nobody can really walk on the path of life alone and walking or treading alone would mean higher chances of just getting lost on the trails of life. Having someone beside you to share the sorrows and joys would make the path a bit easier. Namjoon wishes to dream big and dance in the dream openly and freely without judgements from PPL . He wishes to live the dream and experience it .
Being human means accepting that it’s okay to make mistakes as long as we don’t give up , being human means being honest and never separating yourself from the values that you grew up with , just accepting everyone as they are and giving yourself and others a chance to change. Being human is a phrase that could be interpreted in many ways . The main goal is to be human till the end of your time.
Doing or engaging in art is about expressing unsaid feelings through your works , empathy, looking at the world in an abstract perspective , understanding the worldly pleasures, showcasing your story and speaking yourself in the form of colours and paintings . To do art , you need to be human . True beauty is true sadness . It’s said by a famous Korean painter that namjoon has huge respect for. Namjoon says that PPL cry when they’re sad as well as when they’re happy . You cry when you win or lose , you cry when you gain or separate and when you cry PPL find it hard to understand why . This shows madness so therefore true beauty is true sadness .
When you write you need to feel what you write. you cannot feel the words or the lyrics that you don’t mean from your heart. PPL tend to connect or relate to this that are done from the heart. So unless you feel emotions like sadness or not , the things that you want to convey can’t be put forward in the right way unless it comes from the heart. Namjoon then talks about the artworks that remain timeless even after the end of the artist. The artist may no longer be alive but his art will remain permanent and contemporary. Namjoon has always expressed how he wants to make music that’ll remain timeless and pass onto generations and will be remembered even after decades just like these paintings.
In a world filled with greed and selfish PPL , it’s hard to be human . Being human means throwing away the greed , being selfless and open to PPL having flaws in them , being open to making mistakes and learning from them and accepting things and PPL the way they are. Namjoon knows this yet he says he’s not going to give up and is gonna keep trying till the end to be human and not just being a human but to be a beautiful human .
Everyone has that one person they seek comfort in. To me that person is Namjoon . I’ve always been a fan of the way Namjoon presents himself , and is just himself regardless of where he is . The way he spreads positivity , love , talks about his feelings in such a raw manner , maintains a balance between his professional and personal life , always gives time to his priorities and takes out time for his hobbies and passion and for studying artworks , reading books and just getting to know the world better. The way he works so sincerely and is so dedicated to what he does.
Namjoon has the ability to beautifully pen down his emotions in the form of lyrics which then turn out to be beautiful heartfelt songs that he has spent hours and years working on . He started working on indigo in 2019 where he got the idea for wildflower. It all started with a word and then turned out to be an album that’s been constantly breaking records since the time of its release. The carefully penned down metaphors and phrases, the way he uses personifications and uses paradoxes in his verses, the way he just writes !!! It’s amazingly beautiful.
When i first heard Indigo i had goosebumps. The main reason was his voice. The deep, husky voice along with the cool and calm bgm and the next thing was the LYRICS. his lyrics are something i really relate to . When Namjoon speaks , you feel like listening to it for hours . You feel like his speech is overflowing with honesty and has a gentle tone. The one song that touched me the most is lonely . It feels as though he’s singing my story in the form of a song which automatically brings me to tears.
It was then that i decided that i have to analyse this whole album in order to actually go in depth and find out the meanings of these beautiful lyrics . Took me about a month . On some days, i just couldn’t find the motivation and most of the time i was just sitting in front of the computer screen with a blank mind . On some days , analysing one song would take three to four days because i wanted to do justice to the songs. Other times i would constantly type and backspace everything and wouldn’t stop doing it until i felt it was framed correctly .
Whereas on the other days , i would be staring at the bedroom ceiling and suddenly would get an idea to write the analysis and i would immediately take out my phone and start typing and on those days i used to finish one song in one or two hours and some songs in 15 to 20 mins . But regardless of the time that i took , it felt worth it and i guess that’s what matters isn’t it . An artist feels good when his art turns out great and when others relate to it. Whereas a writer feels good when his writings impress him and make him wonder “woah did i write this?” .
Each song of Namjoon is connected with the other and someday i hope to explore each of his songs in depth and probably write it too. I hope you had a happy reading time going through all of the ten blues in indigo . See you, until next time.
Credits to :
Yoongienthusias and namgicores on twitter … My bestfriends who helped me with the graphics for this post . The blog would’ve been incomplete without them . Their work has made this post even more beautiful. Thank you for everything 💜
Kim Namjoon 
Woahhh this is so good !!! Thank you for this beautiful analysis
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this was such a beautiful inspiring read , you have a very beautiful way with words
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This is so beautifully well written and well detailed I really enjoyed reading this. Thank you for all you do for Namjoon and doing him justice. Keep up the good work 👍👍👏👏
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You’ve explained everything so precisely! Thank you for your hardwork 🥺💜
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Thank you this wonderful analysis. . My favorites are Wildflower and Lonely and the way you broke it down really was what I feel myself and what I assumed he may be feeling. You gave me a new perspective on his other songs too that I didn’t think about.
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