On Saying Your Own Life Has Blossomed
Maijin's 'My Life Has Blossomed' arrived yesterday.
Saying a life has blossomed is usually something you say about someone else. That person's life has blossomed.
Saying it about your own life is a different act. You are the one delivering the verdict.
What arrived yesterday
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Artist | Maijin |
| Song | 'My Life Has Blossomed' |
| English title | My Life Has Blossomed |
| Release | August 29 |
| Note | A live-version video was released alongside it |
Speaking in the completed form
The title says 'has blossomed'. Not is blossoming, not will blossom.
The completed form means it is done. So the title is a sentence reporting something that already happened — a confirmation rather than a hope or a resolution.
The English title, 'My Life Has Blossomed', is present perfect: a state that began in the past and reaches into now. Both languages picked the same tense.
When you are the one assessing yourself
The judgement that a life has blossomed normally comes from outside. Words like 'successful' or 'it worked out' are things other people say.
Say it yourself and the posture changes. It amounts to declining to wait for anyone's recognition. You decide whether things came good.
A sentence like that sits opposite modesty. It is not quite boasting either. Boasting is aimed at an audience, while this is closer to a note to oneself.
What the flower image requires
Blossoming takes time. There has to be a stretch of sowing and waiting first.
So the metaphor presupposes a preceding period. Unless there was a time of not blossoming, 'has blossomed' does not mean anything.
That is likely why the title is in the completed form. It is not saying things are good now; it is saying the bad stretch was crossed to get here. The sentence points at the time before more than at the present state.
Releasing a live version alongside
The song came out with a live-version video as well as the music video.
Putting out a live take at the same time is what you do when you are confident in the song. It sets the edited recording next to the sound made in the room.
For a song that says a life has blossomed, having footage of the sentence actually being sung suits it. It is one way of showing that the line is a state rather than a claim.
Tonight, like this
Start with the recording and decide whether the sentence is a boast or a confirmation. The weight of the voice will tell you.
Then watch the live version. Whether anything changes when the same sentence is sung in the room is the thing to check.
Last, look at the tense again. 'Has blossomed' presupposes the time when it had not.
To assess your own life, you have to have come through what came before it. 'My Life Has Blossomed'.
Share
NONOL Editorial
The NONOL Magazine editorial team — we hear it first, then pass it on.
Keep reading
Before 'Strange Muse': an NMIXX starter guide, from 'O.O' to 'Heavy Serenade', where the genres switch
Ahead of the sixth mini album on October 19, we picked six title tracks from NMIXX, a group that mixes two or more genres in one song. For each, we noted what gets mixed and the music-video moment where you can see the seam.
NONOL Editorial·
8 chart songs someone else sang first: 'Heavenly fate' starts singing 14 seconds sooner, 'Don't you know' goes five semitones down
Of the 100 songs on the Bugs weekly chart, eight were new versions of songs another singer released first. We measured tempo, key, length and the time of the first lyric side by side with the originals, and the eight split into songs that kept the frame as it was and songs that reworked the opening, the beat or the key.
NONOL Editorial·
The second time, the eyes really close: rewatching HWANG MIN HYUN's 'OUR' music video
Twice the backing cuts out after '잠시만 눈 감으면 넌' (if I close my eyes for just a moment, you): the first time the eyes stay open, the second time they really close. The one person walking among shadows flips, at 1:28, into one shadow among people.
NONOL Editorial·