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bangtanblurbs · 3 years

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autumn leaves

song: autumn leaves by BTS

first experience: my first listen of autumn leaves was when HYYH pt. 2 released. thanksgiving had just ended -- it was 2015. i was well into my fourth year of undergraduate studies and going through both a rough patch in some respects but also in others -- hitting my stride. i remember my first listen through of HYYH pt. 2 was in my tiny dorm room, perched on my bed, avoiding the responsibility of studying for my final exams. autumn leaves followed skit in the tracklisting, and before skit came baepsae. talk about whiplash... my emotions were all over the place. immediately i was taken by the unique backbeat and the beautiful blend of devastating vocals with emotional raps. for me, autumn leaves was immediately a favorite of mine from the album -- following closely behind butterfly. i can confidently say today though that the song is one of my top ten bangtan songs of all time. something about the sound, the lyrics, and the emotions i can hear in their voices makes it one of the most powerful rap ballads in the bangtan repertoire. i can remember distinctly i came to this revelation around christmas of 2015 as i continued to loop HYYH pt. 2 and really feel each beat and sound within the individual tracks.

at this time i was going through a period of great change in my life - and autumn leaves is the perfect song for change. it’s a song about losing a love but also about feeling as if you are losing a piece of yourself. there are many ways to interpret the song outside of just being another sad love song -- that is something that struck me. the lyrics speak to several facets of what happens when you give pieces of yourself to others, or when you reach crossroads in your life. finding this song at this particular moment in my life was like finding energy and light at a time of extreme darkness. it was healing. soothing.

feelings: i have too many. as always. autumn leaves is special to me because when i listen to it i’m reminded of both the place i was in when the sound found me, but also more recent development in my life that continue to relate to the song. when i first heard autumn leaves, i’d recently ended a relationship i’d been far too invested in despite knowing it was going to be a dead end - for about three years. i felt like i was at a point in my life where i needed to figure out who the hell i was without the one i’d loved. it’s funny though - i was happy to be free of that relationship, to be free of him, the pressures he’d put upon me. what do dead leaves mean if not a new spring right around the corner? perhaps i was feeling lost, but in my mind it was only temporary -- the dead must fall away to bring forward the spring.

that being said, i did mourn. not in the way you might think, but in the way that one mourns for lost time, lost identity. so often we, as women, give up our identities when we are in relationships. we allow others to define us in terms of those that we are in relationships with. i’ve realized this now that i’m older -- now that i’m more at peace with my bisexuality -- the notion that our patriarchal society defines us in terms of the men within our lives rather than our own talents and identities. this particular blog isn’t a space for my feelings on that topic though -- what i will say is that autumn leaves comforted me. perhaps i felt that i was at a point where my leaves were dying -- but does that mean the tree is dead? absolutely not. spring would come. my life would be reborn with a new focus taking over.

this being said -- i’ve always been one of those people that holds onto the past. i always wanted to be solid, non-changing, someone with convictions that they carried along from life. i think this stems from experiencing the death of a close friend while i was very young. i cherished the memories associated with her to the point where i didn’t want to lose the person i was when i knew her. so that’s always complicated change for me -- made the moments where the last leaves fell from the autumn trees that much harder. sure, spring was on its way, but what did that mean? would i lose the memories and the moments when my leaves where at their brilliance the previous season? or would i still carry those with me? what if i needed to correct course and completely rewrite who i was over the past -- would that mean losing who i was when i was loved by those i valued in the past? of course not -- but for some reason the more emotional sides of me didn’t see things in such a fluid way. lost was more profound when i was younger because it was also accompanied with these fears over the loss of my identity.

as i’ve gotten older i’ve realized that identity can have staying power whilst also being something that is fluid. transmuting something doesn’t mean destroying or overwriting it. it means building upon the base and modifying it so that things are more brilliant. the me that existed before and during my long-term relationship was the same me i’d carry into the future, but with many more improvements for my own wellbeing and ability to express myself. for me, autumn leaves is just that. whilst on the surface it may convey the emotions of a breakup -- it also simply conveys the feelings that we get when we progress from one period of life to another. we leave parts of ourselves behind in order to improve. does that mean we are fundamentally changed? absolutely not. it means that we have learned from the past -- that we have made progress. in the same way that trees grow and change over the years. perhaps they look differently (taller, greener in hue? more branches?) but they still provide us with lushness and shade.

personal connection: perhaps i’ve jumped ahead... i’ve already delved into this in the feelings section. that being said... i hope that my story can bring comfort to someone else. or perhaps help you all think about the ways in which bangtan songs can promote healing in your own lives.

since my initial experience with the song i’ve had many other moments where i’ve turned to autumn leaves for comfort. i didn’t just leave it in the past -- it’s come with me as i’ve gotten older and moved into new spaces in my life. particularly i quite literally moved and started a huge new chapter in my life. and on this, autumn leaves has been a song i frequently find myself searching for. there’s a line in the song that resonates with me -- it’s in the bridge: “i hold on to these faded memories / is this greed? / i try to look back on these lost seasons / i try to turn back”

initially i’d been excited for my big move from atlanta to washington dc. i thought it’d be the moment where i finally showed people back home that i wasn’t a failure, that all the pride i’d held in myself and my intellectual accomplishments was valid... but partnered with that came the intensive homesickness, the feeling of being an alien. i wasn’t really welcome here in dc. i still don’t feel welcome, but that’s a story for another day - another song. the reality is though, i moved just as the seasons turned to fall. it felt like my old life was falling away, i was bidding adieu my old life -- the community that had raised me since i was eighteen -- it was all gone. i was scared, terrified my friends wouldn’t keep in touch, afraid i’d have to change who i was to experience success (mask my accent, dye my hair, use the language of the elites)... while it’s not a breakup in the way the autumn leaves reads, i felt like i was having to plead with myself not to let go of who i was just for the sake of being accepted here, or for the sake of making my day to day life easier. the beat of the song brought me comfort as i walked to school, where i received the fake smiles of professors and classmates... i pleaded with myself -- to never let the parts of me that had gotten me to where i was fall away... to always let those dead leaves be the fertilizer for who i was becoming, for the me that would deliver myself closer to my dreams.

even now -- i listen to autumn leaves and think about what i’m going to carry forward as the seasons change and we begin to work our way into a new normal in this pandemic. what parts of me will remain? what relationships will i keep? what *should* fall away, and what will i beg to keep around rather it’s healthy or not? i’m not sure. but closing my eyes and listening to the steady sound of autumn leaves brings me nothing but comfort.

song breakdown

musically: autumn leaves is one of the most iconic songs from the HYYH era. the beat is iconic, the mix of vocal line and rap line from verse to chorus is completely seamless, it’s almost like a ballad rap (so iconic of the HYYH era, with songs like love is not over). the asian style beats, and synth... the sounds of the song are flawless from start to finish. the underlying beat of the song is so smooth, it feels almost like constant crashing waves, the ebb and flow of the beat with a few accents to highlight the emotional pick-ups of the verses.

now -- it was controversial at the time -- many claim that autumn leaves samples beats from deadroses by blackbear. rather that’s true or not, i don’t know. but i find that listening to both songs back to back, they’re speaking to a lot of similar themes but with their own distinct sound and messages. there’s something about the genius of the back beat mixed with the emotionally charged rapping that sets autumn leaves apart -- also the use of vocal line is completely distinct and adds to the emotion in the sound.

vocally: i don’t have as much to say about the vocals in this song. they’re beautiful, with vocal providing honey belts throughout the choruses, which sound more like a repeated bridge. we also see the slower, more emotionally accented rap style from each of rapline. the integration of the vocals and rap are iconically HYYH and BTS. we see the raps pick up, and slow down providing for pre-choruses to build into the beautiful vocal ballad ranges.

autumn leaves performed live -- it’s something incredible. something i’m thankful i was able to experience. bangtan obviously never disappoint, but you can really hear the emotions in their voice with autumn leaves. the perfect adlibs, the changing rap paces, the roughness of rapline’s lower registers... it delivers the sadder themes of the song perfectly.

lyrically: time for a DEEP dive yet again. autumn leaves is about change, the loss of a love. of course meanings can be layered, it can be about change, but on the very surface its a song about loss of love because of changes over time.

jin and jungkook start out the song beautifully. the lyrics lead in directly addressing the theme: “fall like those dry leaves / just falling without strength, my love.” indicating that the song is like a letter - it’s a message to a love. the speaker is comparing their situation to a dead leaf, useless... time has run out... time to leave and fade away... something new to come a replace. falling without strength, it seems as if the speaker is saying they’ve got no more fight in them anymore, they’ve given up and realized continuing the fight is futile. it’s time to just let everything fall away, fade into black. “your heart just goes far away / i can’t catch you / i can’t catch you anymore, anymore / i can’t hold onto you, yeah” as much as the speaker would like to hold onto the moment they are in, hold onto the person they’re with... they can’t anymore. the other person is too far away. time has led to them drifting further apart, their relationship falling away like a dead leaf.

yoongi starts off the first rap, leading in with heavy emotions and continuing the story, and theme of a tree moving into fall. “those fallen leaves that look so insecure / seem like they’re looking at us.” the leaves have already fallen off the tree now, they’re dead on the ground -- peering back up at the speaker and their partner. i interpret this as the leaves are looking back at something they used to be a part of, something familiar to them, just as leaves are a part of our lives, trees spectating our lives as we live. these leaves were a part of their lives -- and now they’re gone, a piece is dead now. “if i touch your hand, even if it’s all at once / it seems like it’ll all become crumbs” -- this line illustrates again the analogy that the leaves are like the speaker’s significant other, someone that might just crumble away like it was never even there before, like a dream, it’s that distant. “i only looked / with the autumn wind” the seasons have changed, it’s that time, it’s been that time, and now the wind is a force that finally pushing the leaf off the tree, finally pushing the relationship or moment of life to end. “your words and expressions that become cold at some point / i can see that our relationship is fading / an empty relationship like the autumn sky” this line directly refers to the relationship like the seasons -- there was a spring, beautiful and blooming, love blossomed. and in summer it burned. but as time went on, the clouds went away and the rain stopped (the autumn sky doesn’t bring the spring showers to nurture the relationship anymore) and the fire consumed everything, burning it out and leaving nothing. “an ambiguous difference compared to before / today of all days, the much quieter night” there’s nothing left -- there no more crackle of the fire burning, no more love. it’s empty, and gone. but nobody knew when it became this way or why, it just did. “one lead left clinging to a branch / it’s shattering, i see the end.” there’s something hanging on -- perhaps it’s just the memory -- perhaps it’s just the part of them that is afraid of change, that wishes they could stay in the warmth. but even so, it’s beginning to crumble, it’s beginning the process to fall away. “dead leaves becoming dried / the silence inside your aloof heart / please don’t leave me / please don’t leave me, crumbling dead leaves” from dead to dried, the emphasis is made that at some point things have moved past ending or that they have been done for quite some time and for them to now also be dried. that being said they’re dried, not gone, the memories exist the emotions have left their place. someday the marks of this relationship will impact and provide the basis for another with someone else -- for better or worse.

then, we reach the bridge-like chorus. it’s simple in lyrics despite emotion packed in tone. “i want the you that meets my eyes / i want the you that wants me again” this line indicates that the partner in this situation has walked away and had decided not to even acknowledge the speaker. to pretend they don’t exist, to remove them from their life -- perhaps to not even keep them as a memory. “please don’t leave me / please don’t fall / never never fall / don’t go far away” the speaker begins to beg, holding onto the last few minutes of whatever they believe is left of the relationship. the begging of “don’t fall” is at odds with the previous verse about a leaf already fallen -- perhaps the chorus is coming from a more desperate state, or a moment before the inevitable happened (the season changed, the leaves fell).

the post chorus brings in jin and continues with the same lament - the same desperate begging. “baby you, girl i can’t let you go / baby you, girl i can’t give up on you” the speaker is determined to hold onto the moment before the final fall. they are unwilling to let it all go -- hanging on to the last moments but also to the memories it seems. “like those falling dry leaves / this love, like dry leaves / never never fall / it’s fading.” at this point the chorus has progressed to where the leaves are fading and falling -- morphing into something that is no longer a leaf anymore. what is the speaker holding onto any more? just as memories too fade -- is there anything even left?

the next verse brings in namjoon, it plays off of the themes and tones in yoongi’s verse. it begins with the leaves already having fallen. there’s no more grasping onto what was, it’s much more about moving on and the ways the memory frames our ability to go forward. “like all the dry leaves fall / like all the things i thought would last forever are leaving / you are my fifth season” the speaker couldn’t imagine this happening -- a fifth season, there is no such thing. the leaves have fallen, despite him never imagining that it would occur, he’s dumbstruck. there’s a level of naivety here -- speaking to the things they thought would last forever -- which harkens back to the entire HYYH era theme. youth. learning growth. namjoon is speaking to new steps in life happening after finding out that what was familiar and comfortable is gone, and will not return as he is stepping into a fifth season and uncharted territory. “even if i try to see you, i can’t look / you’re still green to me / even if the heart doesn’t move, it moves by itself / lingering feelings hung out piece by piece like laundry” namjoon is charging here that he’s placing more emphasis on the past and the memories he holds rather than wanting to confront the reality that the other person has changed. they’re still green - young, fresh, healthy... he can’t help but still be in love because he cannot confront the fact that the other person has in fact changed. and at the same time all of this change and loss has made him raw, he cannot conceal his feelings even when doing mundane day to day things... his emotions hung out for all to see. “only crimson memories fall / from above me / even if my branch doesn’t shake / they constantly fall” the colors have changed from green to crimson, he is forgetting the hard times -- the memories that are rotten. the other memories, even if he keeps trying to hang onto them, they’re also going - being tainted by the dark and unhappy reality of things begin done. “right, my love must fall / in order to rise” he realizes, he need to cut the baggage, cut his false belief that things are still good, so that he can start a new season and try again. embrace his youth once again and heal. “even when you’re near, my two eyes / are far away, it’s happening / i’m being thrown away like this / inside my memories, i become young again” he emphasizes again that he cannot confront the reality of loss of this other person but realizes that it’s completely out of his control - he is the one being thrown. but he knows he can retreat to whatever space he needs to in order to cope or heal, he can hide inside his youth in his mind. he can stay there until he heals and can emerge once again.

the chorus the repeats again, but this time it moves into the beautifully delivered bridge by taehyung. he begins with his low and smooth range “why can’t i give up on you yet / i hold on to these faded memories” which calls directly to namjoon’s verse. the seasons are changing, but he cannot let go of the past. things are fading but they remain his refuge. “is this greed? / i try to look back on these lost seasons / i try to turn back” he begins to realize that there’s an element to these emotions that might be toxic, that he wants but he knows he cannot have what he wants, or that he wants too much. he wishes he could retreat back to the summer, or the spring. turn back time and hide in those brighter moments.

the final verse is beautifully delivered with hoseok’s unique style. he offers an unexpected conclusion to the hopelessness of yoongi’s verse and the denial and dismissal in namjoon’s. “burn them brightly, woosh / it was all beautiful, right, our path / but they’ve all faded” hoseok remembers fondly the memories, reflects positively on the way that things had been going... but he recognizes that that path exists no more -- those leaves are dead and gone. he uses the word “burn” which is often what happens with dead leaves, they’re burning brightly those memories -- like they’re seared into his mind and heart. they’ll never leave his essence. “dry leaves come down like tears / the wind blows and everything grows apart all day” this line beautifully captures the mourning process and the confusion that follows -- the learning to unlearn and untangle your life from another person’s. to move away from something that was so permanent in your life and mind. “the rain is falling and you’re shattering / until the very last leaf, you you you” the weather references in this verse are fitting for the theme of seasons but they also take control away from the speaker - make reference to the fact that even as they speaker would like to, he cannot control his emotions just like he cannot control the situation and relationship coming to an end. the very last leaf -- he tried to hold on, he waited till the end, but finally the hope is gone.

the chorus repeats with some additional lines bracketing it by taehyung. ultimately the song leaves us with a feeling of being unsettled as things came to an ended. time passed by and things changed -- and end was inevitable. memories are what is left to hold onto. seasons change, just like we grow up or change. things in our lives will run their course, especially relationships. we learn from them, and even if we don’t want them to -- they leave scars... no matter how much we plead. but the reality is, we can retreat to whatever place in our mind or memory that we need to in order to repair ourselves to try again.

performance: the main video that is available online for autumn leaves is a performance from HYYH on tour. i cannot pinpoint the location of the filming, but it is the same as it was when i saw BTS live in 2016 in macau for HYYH the epilogue on tour. you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrM53Y9hHV0&ab_channel=lestwins1524

the performance is very much understated but beautiful. vocals and raps are delivered with more emotion than was captured in the recorded version. members do not perform any choreographed dances, but lights and graphics highlight each member as they come into focus to deliver their portion of the song. it’s beautiful and it’s just what was needed to portray the emotion and depth of the themes in autumn leaves.

in my own personal experience, seeing this song performed live was incredibly profound. the entire arena was silent. all eyes on bangtan and listening for each of the incredibly raw verses to be peformed. the crisp emotion laden in the vocal line choruses. the song is beautiful. it’s somber and mature. it exemplifies the drama of the HYYH era -- with lyrical and performance genius that is unparalleled. i’ve uploaded to this post my horrible video but i hope you enjoy ~~

tl;dr: autumn leaves might seem like another breakup song, but there’s more to it. it beautifully emphasizes the power of memory, time passage, and the desire to hold onto past versions of themselves. which for many listeners is far more profound than just a breakup -- there’s so many times when we need to leave behind moments in our lives, friends, family members... and while we want to hold onto something that is familiar, we can’t. they’re leaving, we are moving on... seasons come and go no matter how much we wish they’d just stay constant. dead leaves fall away, even when we’d wish the summer and spring would stay, they can’t. life is cyclical in nature. which harkens us back to the themes in spring day as well. the sun will always come out, the seasons will change... but we have to confront the fact that sometimes we will experience pain, loss, and change.

#bangtan #bts #lyrics #analysis #army #autumn leaves #bts army #hyyh #most beautiful part of life

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