A song finished the day before enlisting — JEONG SEWOON's 'Too Much'

At night the decisions you made during the day come back up. Not as why did I do that, but as was that me. The two questions look similar and aren't. The first is regret; the second is a check.

The song JEONG SEWOON released on July 28 works on the second one.

A song released by someone who isn't here

On the day it came out, the person who sang it wasn't around. JEONG SEWOON enlisted as an active-duty soldier in the army on June 23. And he finished mastering this song the day before he went in.

Mastering is the last stage of making a record — setting the final level and balance of the sound. Having finished through that stage means he left the song in a state where it could go out on its own while he was gone.

Not because he couldn't cope

What the song is about is choices, and the direction is a little unusual.

When we decide not to do something, we usually give one of two reasons: we were afraid, or it was beyond us. Both are explanations on the couldn't side. This song offers a third. Not that he couldn't, but that it didn't fit him.

That difference feels large at night. What you've filed away as couldn't stays with you, as if it will have to be done someday. What you've filed as didn't fit doesn't. There's nothing to go back to.

The title 'Too Much'

The title means excessive. What was excessive?

Too much gets used to blame the thing, and to blame yourself: that was too much, or I took it too much to heart. But there's a third use — it was too much for me. It says nothing about good or bad, only about size.

Put that way, nobody ends up in the wrong. The sizes simply didn't match. Among the sentences we use to explain ourselves, few are this quiet.

Tonight, try it like this

Leave one light on. Played loud this song's sentences scatter; played quietly it stays a long while.

And bring to mind one thing you decided not to do — something you filed away as given up because you couldn't. Set it down again and ask whether it really was a couldn't, or a matter of size not matching.

That the singer isn't here right now makes this song a little different. It came out with no way to sing it on stage, no way to read the response and decide what comes next. So it doesn't try to persuade. It's closer to something left behind.

It'll be here until he's back. Worth taking out a few nights in the meantime. On a night for setting down the things that didn't fit, a song this size is right: 'Too Much'.