Hi everyone,
As many of you readers would know, I had so many questions when I came across the Love Yourself albums that irked and bothered me:
- Why are there so many album covers for each Love Yourself album?
- Why have four flowers on the cover of Love Yourself 承: Her and then not explain what they symbolise?
- What’s the meaning behind the four flowers on the Love Yourself albums anyway?
- What are those Chinese prefixes? And what are their purposes?
- Why do some songs in the first and second albums appear in the third album but not others? Why not have just three unique tracklists for each album like what most artists would do?
- Why do only some songs have both and English and Korean name and some don’t? Why not be consistent and give all of them an English and Korean name especially since they mean the same thing?
- Why is there an Intro and Outro track in the first two albums and not the third?
- Why bother with an “Intro” and “Outro” prefix? No one else in the world does this? What does it mean anyway? Why bother telling us it is the first and last song of the album? What purpose does it serve?
- Why give three songs the prefix “Trivia”? Why Trivia? What is the purpose of this prefix?
- Why name the song 134340 instead of just Pluto? Why would you even think about naming a song based on its planet’s number?
- Why have two hidden tracks when they are not that hidden anyway? What’s the point? What is the purpose of these two hidden tracks?
- Why spend so much time and energy to create a whole Smearldo Flower folklore for one song? What is so important about The Truth Untold?
Why why why why why….?
These irregularities and oddities felt strange and bothered me a lot… and no one including BTS ever really explained it. All explanations I could find felt very “surface level” and only explained one thing, and not everything.
As I believe I have figured it out, I started this blog and have created this page to start consolidating all of the answers as we work through it. This page is a live document and I will continue to update it as more and more things get revealed.
Please note that all of my answers are based on logic and poetic consideration of how BTS love incorporating symbolism into their work.
Question: Why are there three Love Yourself Albums?
Answer: There are three albums because BTS are telling their stories using a trilogy format. The first part is about their experiences of loving “Her”, the second part is about the tears and pain they experienced from loving “Her”; and the third part is about how they realised that they need to learn to love themselves first before they can truly be the best person for “Her”.
To read my overarching theory, click here.
Question: Why are there four album covers for each Love Yourself album?
Answer: Each album cover stands for one letter from LOVE. Further, you would notice that they fit together to form a complete picture, like a puzzle.
Hence, I believe this is a hint from BTS that all of the songs in the Love Yourself albums fit together and form one full beautiful picture… if you figure out how to fit them together.
Poetically, because of this structure, it means that we must give each song the same amount of love, attention and consideration in order to realise the connection and for the full picture to reveal itself. That is, it requires an OT7 approach.
Additionally, I won’t be surprise if BTS decided on a trilogy format because of its mathematical poetic-ness as 4 (4 letters from “LOVE”) + 3 = 7, and 3 can easily stand for “HER”… like this:
Question: Why are there four flowers on the album covers and what do they represent?
Answer: Each flower represents a story.
The first flower on the album covers is a Rose, and the Rose represents Namjoon’s story.
I have explained Namjoon’s connection with the Rose in this post here.
The second flower on the album covers is a Peony, and the Peony represents Yoongi’s story.
I have explained Yoongi’s connection with the Peony in this post here.
The third flower on the album covers is a Calla Lily, and the Calla Lily represents Hobi’s story.
I have explained Hobi’s connection with the Calla Lily in this post here.
The fourth flower on the album covers is a Plumeria, and the Plumeria represents the end of a chapter and the start of a new beginning for BTS.
I have explained this in this post here.
Question: Why is there an intro and outro track for the first two albums, and not in the third?
Answer: This is because the intro and outro tracks are used mark the beginning and end of the first trilogy, and the beginning and end of the second trilogy.
Since BTS incorporated the four relevant songs from the first and second trilogy into their third album, they can’t have Euphoria (being the first song in Love Yourself: 結Answer) as the intro track because the true intro track (i.e. the beginning of the third trilogy) is Epiphany.
The outro track for the third trilogy is simply Answer: Love Myself.
If you’re not sure what I mean, please read this post discussing the pattern and the order of the songs in the Love Yourself albums.
Question: Why do some songs that are in the first two albums appear in the third album and some don’t?
Answer: This is to, for a lack of better description, break up the puzzle.
Four songs from the first two albums make it to the third album because they are part of Namjoon’s story line and this doubles as a hint for us to figure out where to begin and how to read the songs.
If you’re not sure what I mean, please read this post discussing the pattern and the order of the songs in the Love Yourself albums.
Question: Why do Trivia 起: Just Dance, Trivia 承: Love, and Trivia 轉: Seesaw have a “Trivia” prefix?
Answer: “Trivia” means “the meeting of three roads/ways” in Latin. The “Trivia” prefix exist to draw our attention that those three songs are written purely by Hobi, Namjoon and Yoongi respectively.
This is to hint to us that there are three different perspectives in the Love Yourself albums.
If you look at this track list, all of the songs, with the exception of Magic Shop, were written either solely by Namjoon, Hobi or Yoongi, or a combination between the three rappers.
Thus, when analysing the songs, we must be analyse them in accordance with their respective points of view.
Question: What do 承, 轉 and 結 mean and why are they in the the titles of the albums?
Answer: They are used to guide us and to help us understand the meaning and structure of the Love Yourself albums:
Due to (承)“Her”, BTS experienced a lot of joy and happiness. However, the plot developed and things took aturn(轉) for the worse some time after meeting “Her”.
Because of “Her”, BTS experienced conflict, suffering and “Tears”. However, through their suffering, BTS learnt (or had an Epiphany!) that the “Answer” to overcoming the challenges of love is not about trying to change the other person, or trying to be the perfect person, but about accepting and simply being their true imperfect selves.
Inconclusion (結), the “Answer” to being able to truly love “Her”, is that they must learn to “Love Myself” first.
Question: Why do Trivia 起: Just Dance, Trivia 承: Love, and Trivia 轉: Seesaw have a trilingual prefix of 起, 承 and 轉 respectively?
Answer: Similarly to how 承, 轉 and 結 in the album titles help guide us to understand the structure of the albums, 起, 承 and 轉 are used to guide us to understand the structure of the songs. I discuss them in turn below.
Trivia 承: Love:
As explained in Trivia 承: Love, “Her” comes after Trivia 承: Love.
承 means “due to“.
Thus, it can be read as: Namjoon has/is in “Love”, due to (承) “Her”.
It can also be read within the context of the song itself – that Trivia 承: Love was written about Namjoon’s feelings of love that are due to (承) his lover.
In addition, 承 can also mean “to be indebted to“. If you have read my post The SEAcret “Whole New” side of Namjoon and Tonight (이 밤), you will understand why Namjoon is indebted to his lover.
Trivia 起: Just Dance:
Using the same logic, Serendipity comes after Trivia 起: Just Dance.
起 means “to start“.
Thus, it can be read as after “Just Dance”, start (起) at “Serendipity”.
This is consistent with the conclusion I came to in this post where I discuss how the pattern points us to us starting with Serendipity.
It can also be read within the context of the song itself. 起 is also used as a classifier for groups. In other words, it has the meaning of starting or doing something together.
Therefore, poetically, it can be read as Trivia 起: Just Dance is about Hobi dancing together (起) with his Love, ARMY.
Trivia 轉: Seesaw:
Using the same logic, “Tear” comes after Trivia 轉: Seesaw.
轉 means to “to turn” or “shift/alter” .
Thus, it can be read as after “Seesaw”, things turned (轉) into “Tear(s)”* (i.e. things turned bad and caused tears, and the feelings of being torn apart).
It can also be read within the context of the song itself. We can read it as Yoongi wrote Trivia 轉: Seesaw about how his love for his Love, the BTS Members, keeps shifting and altering (轉), like a seesaw.
Question: Why do some songs have an English and Korean name and some do not?
Answer: The decision to give a song a Korean and English title is clearly intentional, and thus I believe that it must be because it serves a purpose.
For example, in 보조개 (Dimple), the English title gave a us a hint about Namjoon’s lover: That Namjoon’s lover only has one dimple.
Conversely in 전하지 못한 진심 (The Truth Untold), true to its antithesis relationship, it is the Korean title that gives us the clue about Namjoon’s lover.
