TEAR??? YOU MEAN LOVE YOURSELF TEAR?? YOU MEAN DIOR HOBI THAT MESSED UP MY LIFE TEAR??? YOU MEAN THE TEAR THAT BROUGHT US ALL TO TEARS WHEN WE LEARNED WHAT IT WAS REALLY ABOUT TEAR????
Since I’m already here in the Outro: Tear hole and have been for about 12 hours now. I may as well use this opportunity to point out one of the very distinct reasons Outro: Tear evokes such visceral reactions from all us who hear it.
The meaning behind it is defintely one of the reasons.
But another is the structure of the song itself. Outro: Tear is not one song with 3 verses saying the same thing. It’s 3 different reactions changing hands as the song moves from Namjoon to Yoongi to Hoseok. And along with the lyrics, the melody is doing the same thing. It’s weaving from Namjoon’s conflict to Yoongi’s despair to Hoseok’s fear.
It’s 3 different reactions in response to the same inevitable end.
Namjoon’s reaction being internal interrogation of his self. His relationship with identity has always been threaded through questions of sincerity. Kim Namjoon vs RM. Leader vs person. The person carrying everybody versus the person who is also exhausted and frightened and occasionally has absolutely no idea what he’s doing. It’s inward conflict. Was it real? Was the goodbye always inevitable because of his own insincerity him?
Then yoongi comes in with his verse that says, fine. Destroy it. His reaction is pure rage. And it’s not rage at the people who are important to him. No. It’s rage at the fact it has come to this. So he wants it all scorched. Bc if all of it has to go, then he wants it gone completely. No lingering. No halves. No hope.
And then Hoseok’s verse. His whole verse is grappling with fear through his words. But it’s also fear as a physiological language. It’s one of the truly unique things about his verse. How the melody literally starts with hard breaths. You can hear it in the song. Gasping. Forcing. Almost choking. And then his flow breaks out of its contained rhythm.
He’s panicking. He’s fearful bc “ending” was always just a concept. But now it’s here in present time. He spends the final verse driving his body and the song towards a state that feels increasingly unsustainable. The breaths are shorter, his delivery gets more frantic, rhythm breaking out of confinement, and then his repetitions like geol geol geol and byeong byeong byeong lose structure within the song and becomes a fixation almost.
So now you as the listener who has been experiencing that transition from conflict to rage and despair and now to fear and panic, you are naturally expecting a sort of resolve.
But it doesn’t happen. What does happen is the song quite literally cuts. The composition of the flow itself finally does what it’s meant to do. It ends without allowing for a resolve.
That part. That abrupt end. That is why Outro: Tear has that reaction on us all. Because the very last thing you experience with the song is an interruption. All of that confusion and pain and rage and fear carries with you into Hoseok’s verse where as the panic crescendos, you expect him to arrive emotionally somewhere. But he doesn’t. He is still inside the panic when the song takes him away from you.
So now you’re the one left holding all of that with you.
That’s what’s almost cruel about the song itself. There’s no completion. Hoseok’s verse just escalates and escalates and then cuts. That’s it. You don’t get closure. You don’t get the emotional luxury of watching the pain taper away. The songs just rips from you.
Since I’m already here in the Outro: Tear hole and have been for about 12 hours now. I may as well use this opportunity to point out one of the very distinct reasons Outro: Tear evokes such visceral reactions from all us who hear it.
The meaning behind it is defintely one of the reasons.
But another is the structure of the song itself. Outro: Tear is not one song with 3 verses saying the same thing. It’s 3 different reactions changing hands as the song moves from Namjoon to Yoongi to Hoseok. And along with the lyrics, the melody is doing the same thing. It’s weaving from Namjoon’s conflict to Yoongi’s despair to Hoseok’s fear.
It’s 3 different reactions in response to the same inevitable end.
Namjoon’s reaction being internal interrogation of his self. His relationship with identity has always been threaded through questions of sincerity. Kim Namjoon vs RM. Leader vs person. The person carrying everybody versus the person who is also exhausted and frightened and occasionally has absolutely no idea what he’s doing. It’s inward conflict. Was it real? Was the goodbye always inevitable because of his own insincerity him?
Then yoongi comes in with his verse that says, fine. Destroy it. His reaction is pure rage. And it’s not rage at the people who are important to him. No. It’s rage at the fact it has come to this. So he wants it all scorched. Bc if all of it has to go, then he wants it gone completely. No lingering. No halves. No hope.
And then Hoseok’s verse. His whole verse is grappling with fear through his words. But it’s also fear as a physiological language. It’s one of the truly unique things about his verse. How the melody literally starts with hard breaths. You can hear it in the song. Gasping. Forcing. Almost choking. And then his flow breaks out of its contained rhythm.
He’s panicking. He’s fearful bc “ending” was always just a concept. But now it’s here in present time. He spends the final verse driving his body and the song towards a state that feels increasingly unsustainable. The breaths are shorter, his delivery gets more frantic, rhythm breaking out of confinement, and then his repetitions like geol geol geol and byeong byeong byeong lose structure within the song and becomes a fixation almost.
So now you as the listener who has been experiencing that transition from conflict to rage and despair and now to fear and panic, you are naturally expecting a sort of resolve.
But it doesn’t happen. What does happen is the song quite literally cuts. The composition of the flow itself finally does what it’s meant to do. It ends without allowing for a resolve.
That part. That abrupt end. That is why Outro: Tear has that reaction on us all. Because the very last thing you experience with the song is an interruption. All of that confusion and pain and rage and fear carries with you into Hoseok’s verse where as the panic crescendos, you expect him to arrive emotionally somewhere. But he doesn’t. He is still inside the panic when the song takes him away from you.
So now you’re the one left holding all of that with you.
That’s what’s almost cruel about the song itself. There’s no completion. Hoseok’s verse just escalates and escalates and then cuts. That’s it. You don’t get closure. You don’t get the emotional luxury of watching the pain taper away. The songs just rips from you.