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I have recently decided to begin analyzing songs with stories behind them and interoperate them to the best of my ability. The first single I have decided to interpret is “Dive”, an enchantingly haunting song off of South-Korean K-R&B singer Jooyoung’s album, “Fountain”. It’s always been a favorite of mine as well as one of the songs responsible for attracting me to his music. I couldn’t not analyze it having seen the music video and knowing how much of a story is there, and on top of that, just how much beauty the song holds overall.
I’ve included the notes I took while watching and examining the lyrics in English, my mother tongue, which were officially translated subtitles and provided with the music video. The notes may be messy, and I apologize in advance for this, but I like to observe everything and don’t care too much about the quality of my observations. If you’re interested in getting to the heart of the story, please skip to the Takeaway section at the end of this article.
“Dive” Notes
- We first start off with an image of broken curtains (torn, shredded). Symbolically, in the Christian religion, curtains separated God from the sinners, so because the curtain has at some point been shredded, sin may have entered the house. However, the curtains are still strong and endurant, so the house is still sheltered from any further sin.
- Within the first panel, the man appears to be exhausted as he watches a woman(his lover for the m/v) sleep. A montage of them hugging in the next scene can reveal their intimate status.
- A train goes past that morning. Moving trainings symbolize feelings of loss, moving on.
- The man wakes up in presumably his home looking for something in particular, appearing confused.
- “Until the morning 머릿속엔, you kept reminding me about last night” can mean that the woman was on this man’s mind for a long time well into the morning when he awakens.
- The girl in the next panel is shown in red lighting smiling. Red usually represents carnality, rage, and strong emotions, but in this case, red symbolizes longing and sadness.
- In the next few panels, remembrances of this girl continue to taunt him, most of which are in sepia, a color usually used for old photographs and videos. To end this grief, he lets himself sink into a bathtub of water with his clothes on. This symbolizes just how painful this is to him, to the point where he cannot think of anything but sinking. This is similar to the title of the song as it is called “Dive”.
- “I’m going far away from you” similar to the moving trains and the feeling of sinking, the realization comes that the two have grown apart, and that this may have occurred last night.
- The man appears in the bathtub again pinching his nose shut and squinching his eyes closed, which can represent him comiting suicide as a result of these deep feelings from losing his lover. He doesn’t appear to have a struggle either; he is willing to let himself die.
- Additionally, on this man’s left hand, his ring finger contains a gold band, meaning he and this woman could’ve very well been married.
- In the next frame, he appears in carnal lighting, and this time it is sexual as backed up by the lyrics “the curves in your body, become the waves and swallow me”.
- “I keep sinking, your hot body temperature keeps me alive” this proves that the bath tub is a metaphor for his emotions and that the woman is the reason for his grief.
- “More attention is paid to outside aesthetics rather than characters in the next segment. This can symbolize that the story indeed moves away from the characters who are now ruined. Grief can be seen on both sides as well as coping attempts — man goes outside, and lady plays with light bulbs to distract herself.
- “His ring changes in the next red frame. Red often indicates danger. This can mean for however long he clings to the memory of woman (by keeping his ring finger ringed), he suffers more pain.
- The man ends up alone, and acknowledges how far he has come from his lover as he exits the building structure that he lives at, acknowledging he will never be able to hold her again. It should be noted that in this part, his hand is in his pocket, meaning that his ring is hidden, and he has not fully moved on.
- The season appears to be the winter-spring transition, which can indicate new beginnings as well as dead ends.
Takeaway:
The story takes place the morning after the previous night, in which a married or engaged couple* share a divorce despite missing each other. We can assume this is based upon the man’s co-dependency as he visibly cannot cope with the removal of her from his life. He tries to kill himself via drowning in a bathtub filled with water, but fails, hence the song name (“into you, I wanna dive”). The woman appears to be far less mournful as in many red frames, she is portrayed as coy and smiling. She can also be portrayed as evil through these red lights that highlight herself.
They both attempt to cope with their split by becoming distracted with every little thing in their environment which is currently transitioning from winter to spring. The change in season symbolizes new beginnings as well as the end of what used to be, or in this case, the relationship. The woman often toys with light bulbs while the guy spends time watching television and getting acquainted with his environment. We can assume that these methods work for the lady, as she isn’t the co-dependent one (there are not maybe frames of her mourning the relationship throughout the music video, perhaps only about three). However, these methods fail for the man, who ultimately moves out of the house he and his partner lived in, as a means to evade old pain. He hides his left hand with his ring around his forth finger in his pockets to hide how he will never truly be over what has occurred.
*It is possible that the couple was never married to begin with, and that the man is wearing this ring for a variety of unthought-of reasons. However, it is obvious throughout the clips that he shares an intimate relationship with this woman and is in deep love with her.
