Welcome back everyone to another Mono analysis.

Badbye is possibly my favourite track in this mixtape. This track gives me a rush of complex emotions in a short 113 seconds – sadness, contentment, sorrow, acceptance, heaviness, lightness, shattering, bursting, endlessness, finality and liberation. It’s short, but my goodness does it create a lasting impression of layered stories and emotions.

This post unfortunately requires a trigger warning: Mentions of death, suicide and depression.

New readers, you’re about to jump into the middle of Namjoon’s life and if you haven’t read my previous blog posts where I’ve tied together Namjoon’s story from 2013 up to 2018 through his lyrics (mostly from the Love Yourself albums), you may lack context. In my blog we build on existing knowledge and I’ve designed it to be read in chronological order.

I was able to create the chronology based on two principles:

1. BTS has said over and over again that all of their songs are written based on their past experiences. This means that when a song was written in 2018, it can only be about something that happened prior to 2018.
2. While a writer can write a song for someone else to sing, ultimately they are still writing their own story. It is not possible to write an accurate story about someone else’s intimate life and love for their partner in the first person without their input (e.g. Serendipity).

1. Badbye

In true Namjoon style, Namjoon is exploring two sides of the same coin: Badbye is the antithesis of Goodbye, similar to Hate vs Love, Dying vs Living, Black vs White, Blue vs Pink, etc.

Bad badbye, no goodbye
Bad badbye, no goodbye
Bad badbye, don’t say goodbye
Bad badbye, ’cause it’s a lie*
Bad badbye

*These lyrics in Korean sounds like 그 슬픔만 which means “it’s just sad” or “just that sadness”.

The lyrics can be interpreted in many ways:

• Bad badbye can mean a bad goodbye
• Bad “badbye” can be interpreted as a double negative, which equals to “goodbye”
• Badbye / Goodbye can mean a farewell such as a breakup
• No goodbye can mean there was no goodbye or farewell
• No good “bye” can mean there is no such thing as a good “goodbye”
• No good, bye can be interpreted as a response and farewell. It can sound like someone is saying “This is no good, I don’t like it, bye”.

Further, the subject is ambiguous – It could be about ARMY, his friends, his parents, or it could be about “Her”. I’ve created some interpretations below, so feel free to chop and change things to the interpretations that are most meaningful to you.

Interpretation 1:

Bad “badbye”, no “goodbye”
(Goodbye my friends, I won’t be saying “goodbye” to you)

Bad bad bye, no good “bye”
(I know this is a bad way to end things between us, but there is no such thing as a good “goodbye”)

Bad badbye, don’t say “goodbye”
(“Goodbyes” are bad, so don’t say goodbye when I’m gone)

Bad “badbye”, ’cause it’s a lie*
(Goodbye everyone, I’m leaving because it is all a lie)

Bad bad.. “Bye”
(Everything is just bad. I hate it all. Goodbye.)

Interpretation 2:

Bad “badbye“, no good, “bye”
(Bad breakup. Things were “no good”, so “She” said “bye”)

Bad badbye. No “goodbye”
(Our relationship ended badly. There was no proper “goodbye”)

Bad badbye, don’t say goodbye
(Goodbyes are bad.. I love you please don’t say goodbye, I’m not ready for us to end)

Bad badbye, ’cause it’s a lie
(Bad breakup… because it means everything we said to each other before is a lie)

Bad bad bye.
(This is our bad bad end.)

2. Always

I refer to the following lyrics:

Kill me kill me softly
Kill me kill me softly
Kill me kill me softly
Please shatter me into fragments

Kill me kill me softly (kill me)
Kill me kill me softly (kill me)
Kill me kill me softly (kill me)
Please shatter me into fragments

The contrast in the lyrics here absolutely rips my soul apart. The verse is full of death and the lyrics of “shatter me to fragments” conjures up connotations of pain and imagery of being ripped apart. This juxtaposes hard against the imagery of “softly” and gentle pleading of eAeon and Namjoon, “kill me kill me softly, (kill me)… please…”

If your heart is up for it, I would recommend listening to Always first before Badbye as it allows you to feel just how close Namjoon was away from truly saying bad “badbye”.

The desire to die and for death to come to him is consistent with what we saw in Always, “One morning, I opened my eyes and wished I was dead, I wish someone killed me… Dad please listen to me… die…”. (If you want to read my blog post about Always, the password is penicillin1)

Namjoon’s plead to “shatter me into fragments” is the consistent and poetic reference to “Tear”. For example:

• In Tokyo, we were painted with an image of a dismembered soul “wake up in Tokyo feel like a torso / tore soul.”
• In Moonchild, “It’s okay to shed the tears, But don’t you tear yourself;” and of course
• In (Outro) Tear, “Goodbyes, are for me, tear(s), you’re my tear.“

3. You and I (We)

You and I
Bad try
You and I
And I cry
You know why*
I cry
You know why*

*”You know why” can also be heard as “Your lie”

I discussed in my previous blog post the consistency of a person appearing in Namjoon’s lyrics. Across his discography, Namjoon refers to this person as “You”, “U”, “Her”, and “She” and refers to himself and “Her” as “We” and “Us”.

We also discussed how through the Love Yourself albums, we were able to identify that this person is Namjoon’s romantic love interest, and that at some point around 2014 – 2015, they broke up.

The message “You know why” may be meant for this same special person and we can see how the above lyrics are consistent with stories we identified through the Love Yourself albums.

The lyrics support our observations that Namjoon and “Her” tried their best to make things work between them, but in the end… it unfortunately didn’t work out and it broke Namjoon’s heart “You and I, bad try… and I cry.”

4. Liberation

I want to quickly discuss the musicality of this incredible song.

The change in key and uplifting beautiful melodic riff at 1:15 lifts and opens up the song to create a vast and emotional space abyss. When I listen to this bit, I can’t help but feel like I’m floating in water, flying through air, bursting, uplifted and relieved. I always instinctively close my eyes, especially at the crescendo of “and I cry”.

For a song that is full of death, pain and sorrow, the uplifting melody is a stark contrast that I interpret as a reflection of Namjoon’s emotions at that moment where he imagines his wish being granted and his crystal soul shattering gently into millions of glistering fragments.

In that precious 35 seconds that ends quickly, Death liberates all of the pain and suffering from the living world.

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My dear readers,

This was a dark song and we explored some dark topics today, I hope you’re feeling okay after this. Please make sure you take as many breaks as you need and look after your mental health.

Though death is a dark topic, please remember that it is what makes life precious. We are dying because we are living, and we live because we are dying.

So let’s grow old with BTS together and live well together.

~ ♡ 지

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