Umu: LEE HI'S BAAAACK WOOOOOOOOOOOO
Hi everyone. My name is Umu and I'm reacttothek's channel creator.
Daniel: Hi, my name is Daniel, I am one of the reactors on the classical musicians react series on reacttothek.
U: And welcome *snap* to Daniel's and my Lee Hi 'HOLO' reaction.
D: This is her first release in over a year So fans had many different theories about what the music video story line is
and one theory, in particular, is that Lee Hi's actually with her younger self and this younger self had tried to end her lives many times and
the inner thoughts stopped her from taking her life and told her that
she could always save herself from drowning and that being alone doesn't always mean you're lonely because you always have someone that someone is yourself.
U: English lyrics are on and let's dive in. Three, two, one.
D: Very mysterious from the get go, oh.
U: Oh my god chills
Ooh... nice
D: It's a very unique take I think already from the beginning because usually when there's an instrument featured it's in tune,
but this is you know, very obviously an out of tune and under-maintained piano.
U: I love that she's singing in her mid-low range. Just leave so much room to grow range-wise later in the song.
There's the eighth note piano line.
She's slowly inching up her range
Oh we're back down, nice.
D: We have this pizzicato, this very light texture.
Seems like its a ballad to herself, like a love song to herself.
U: It's gone
There's an offbeat distant drum-kit cymbal in there.
D: It's very different physical places.
U: Yeah, the background vocals ascending
And provide some hope *sings along with background vocals* and movement forward
And we're back to the very beginning
*sad Umu noises* Wooooooo
Wow
D: Nice IAC ending, like a scale degree 3 on top. It's a very beautiful ending.
U: I love the piano sound, just to summarize my thoughts after the first listen, and her singing was emotional and the lyrics were beautiful
because you know, it ain't just the lyrics and
Emotions (D: Right) and ones- well actually, it's- a lot- a lot of it is the emotions in one's voice that
you know makes us feel things, but you know, it's the progression it's the instrumentation.
I think also this felt like, because of the compound meter and because the progression, it sounds like something that you would play as a slow dance for a wedding
D: Right, I use the word ballad, I wasn't sure if that's the actual genre.
You know the form, and the type of style that this song was using was very much
yeah, it was like a compound like danceable song
and it made me think about uh, what's that song that we did for your project? Uh- U: Which one?
Remember where you had me come to the river campus. U: Oh, oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah, Elvis Presley 'Can't Help but Falling in Love.'
D: Yeah right so like- U: Yeah 'cause that was *sings part of it*
D: Yeah, and like the vocal style was very much the same, so I think that like this artist was sort of signaling and using this
type of song trope to signal a certain type of like a love song to herself. U: Ooh.
D: And I think that's the immediate impression that I got, which is like
Oh, she's singing for someone but who is it and the lyrics obviously point towards herself.
Yeah, I wasn't necessarily sure if this was about suicide U: Just any time in life,
a lot of people do have some extreme lows and I think this is just a message to herself and to others
who are going through extremely tough times that there will be a time *crying voice* when it stops.
D: No, yeah, I think like...
yeah, which which makes- makes me think that it's- it's a bit different from perhaps like this idea that she's like alluding to suicide because
this is more of like actually an uplifting song, (U: Mhm) even if we think like there are moments in the video where it's like
It's (U: Very dark) very obviously like- yeah, yeah, like telling you like this is dark and I think that's where it's articulating from, like this is a dark place.
But as like the comment that we reference to in our introduction, and also like the way that how everything's placed out
It's like at the end of the day it's like it will pass, and it will be better. U: Mhm
D: And it's a very much of like a you know, self-affirming, self-loving type of song self-care is really important
but like not the type of like superficial self-care where you like, you know like shove
like a pint of ice cream down, you don't like actually- and this might sound like offensive perhaps, and that's not how I really mean it-
but you're not trying to sedate yourself or drug yourself in any way, which has been sort of I think like
the more like earlier sort of thinking of what how self-care should be. It's like, you throw a bathbomb- U: Yeah it's the fast-
D: Yeah, you throw a bath bomb and you just like shove yourself up with food, and you just do it to like make yourself not remember or like make yourself forget, like
it's actually a bad time right now but I think that this song really does like a pivot on that and
sort of reflects sort of the ethos that's going on, which is like, no, it's bad like it sucks, like it's really bad,
but it will be better, even if it's not great right now, and I think she's like really indulging us in that kind of fantasy.
Um, or maybe not fantasy, but like a vision. U: Mhm
D: Of what is to come and what can be done in the current moment even when you are sad (U: Yeah), that's my sort of take on it.
U: Yeah, and honestly the changing of textures I think also really helps that, like we have some,
when in the versus, the piano is, you know mid low range *sings the piano in the verse*
and then when we move to the chorus, it's really high in the register *sings the piano in the chorus* it's moving faster
and then second verse, we switched to pizzicato which is a much lighter, you know, um, gentler texture so just like
continuing to change and her just moving starting s- low in her register and then moving up and like there's always some motifs of ascent throughout,
that I think also really paints the message, you know of hope and like there will be, you know, light at the end of the tunnel.
D: Right, that's like really interesting. I didn't even notice like I guess like the progression of ascent that you just mentioned within- through like textual means.
Um, I just perhaps it's intuitive, um in some ways where we like
you know, you hear the piano and it's not as high. But yeah, like, you know visually
also, it really mirrors that because you see how like, you know
there's like a up and then there's like a, it's like a decrease in like even like the
The color scheme (U: Ooh) of the visuals. It's like- it's like it's- it's really dark in the beginning, it gets brighter, and then it gets dark again (U: Mm) because she's like in that pool and then
she wakes up, in the moment of waking up, it's not even like a
a passive sort of like oh I'm- I'm waking up. It's more of like a it's kind of eye opening with agency,
it's like I'm going to wake up and then she wakes up and then she gets on that playground and then, you know, we see it become brighter.
U: Mm D: I thought what's interesting too is how we talk about uh ascension, (U: Mhm) but then- you know throughout the (U: Mhm) video
Um both through the visuals itself, and also the the texture and mood
Um, but then at the end we see how this feather that was floating from
You know the beginning of the music video it actually (U: Oh it lands) lands.
U: You know the feather could have landed like in the middle of the freeway, in a dark place,
but it lands gently on a bright piece of grass like you're falling but hey it's gonna be okay D: Like landing might not be as bad.
U: Yeah. D: Unless if you're like a human being dropping from like a helicopter. U: ssSHHH
Pull your parachute man! D: You're like it's gonna be fine, it's like no it's not gonna be fine, but you know what? It's gonna be fine U: I believe I can fly~
D: You're- it'll be fine though, you know what I mean It's like it's like, you know when you're like not feeling that great sometimes what you don't want to hear is it's fine.
U: Yeah, mhm. D: Like sometimes what you want to hear is like yeah, you're right. It's not that fine (U: Mhm). It's not good (U: Mhm, yeah). But it's still okay.
Like that's- (U: Mhm) that's sort of like what you want to hear. I feel like that's essentially what it means to like, live life, you know.
U: All right. Well, thanks for everyone for joining us and we hope to see you later.
Bye bye~ D: Bye