'Sinabro, andamiro, onsaemiro': four songs LeeYuKa sang on a snow-covered playground

It's Hangul Day, so we're opening the playground with a song whose title is pure native Korean. Singer-songwriter LeeYuKa was the 18th musician on NONOL Live. On a January morning in 2023, with big snowflakes falling, LeeYuKa stood on the playground at Wolcheon Neighborhood Park in Changdong, Seoul. The play structure, a wooden cone-shaped hut with slides attached, was buried in snow, and LeeYuKa, in a cream-colored fur coat with snowflakes settling in the hair, sang four songs. Won Jonghyun on guitar, Lee Hwiyoung on bass and Choi Jangwon on keys played along. The band DABINCHI, featured here on October 5, was the 19th musician, filmed in the snow at the same playground.

0:00 시나브로 (Sinabro)

A single released on March 22, 2022. In the chorus, three native Korean words are sung side by side: '시나브로 안다미로 온새미로'. "Sinabro" means "little by little, without anyone noticing"; "andamiro" means "so much it overflows the bowl"; and "onsaemiro" is used to mean "just as it is." The first chorus arrives at 1:43. Near the start of the lyrics comes '눈보라에 휩쓸려서 사라져버렸네' ("swept away by the snowstorm, gone"), and on this day it really was snowing. After the song, LeeYuKa explained that it was written while thinking about human greed. Even on the US Apple Music store, this song's title stays as '시나브로', with no English. Apple Music

4:18 Unusual

A single released on December 20, 2022, about a month before the shoot. Before singing, LeeYuKa said that working in society and meeting friends and bosses sometimes brought the thought, "Maybe I'm a bit unusual, maybe I'm strange." The song, LeeYuKa explained, was written in the spirit of "but I'm still me." English words like "normal," "perfect" and "stranger" alternate through the lyrics.

7:35 야상곡(夜想曲) (Nocturne)

A song from '유리가면' ('Glass Mask'), the second solo album by Kim Yuna of Jaurim, released March 6, 2004. LeeYuKa introduced it as a song by "a musician I love so, so much." Measured side by side with the original recording, the original is in F minor and LeeYuKa's version in G minor, sung two semitones higher (a semitone is the distance to the very next key on a piano). At the same playground, DABINCHI lowered the cover song '사건의 지평선' ('Event Horizon') by seven semitones; LeeYuKa went the other way and raised it.

11:59 물들어버린 이들 (Turn Out)

Before singing, LeeYuKa introduced it as "my new song that will be released through NONOL." The song, LeeYuKa explained, is about people who were once pure about something and change as if dyed by something, and about how people keep wanting more no matter how much they have. Four months after the video went up, on June 15, 2023, it was officially released as 'NONOL VOL 15'. The English title is 'Turn Out'. Apple Music

The first and last songs were both written while grappling with greed. Introducing the final song, LeeYuKa said this was a chance to think about greed "one more time." Start with '시나브로', sung on a snow-covered playground.