On 'days you stop like me,' it really stops for 3 seconds: KIM JAE HWAN's 'Call It Love'

Today's NONOL PICK is 'Call It Love', the title track of KIM JAE HWAN's single 'Love, From Here', released on October 7. According to the Bugs album notes, KIM JAE HWAN wrote the music alone and also played guitar on it. The lyrics were written by KIM JAE HWAN together with Kim Eana. The notes describe the song as quietly repeating a small hope: that someone who left as if the time together had never been love might one day call that time 'love'. We picked it because the song really stops where it sings about stopping, and starts again at its smallest when it starts over. Times follow the official music video. The song in the video is the same recording as the track, so subtract about 2 seconds when listening to the track.

0:04 · A minute and 36 seconds opened by guitar

The video shows a bus stop at night with almost no sound for about 4 seconds, then opens the song at 0:04.8 with the first guitar sound. For the next minute and 36 seconds, you can barely hear any drums. They hit only a few times at 1:02–1:04, as the first chorus begins, and only keep a steady beat from 1:37, when the second verse starts. The drums are at their busiest at 2:44, in the wordless 'la la la' passage.

0:57 · Pages turning on '멈춰 선다' (I come to a stop)

At 0:57, as the lines before the first chorus, '하루가 이렇게 흔들리면 / 멈춰 선다' (when the day shakes like this / I come to a stop), come to an end, the pages of a book left open on the sofa turn by themselves and stop at 0:59 on a page with a pressed blue flower taped to it. When the first chorus begins at 1:02, the petals lift off the page, and that is exactly when the drums sound for the first time, just a few hits.

2:16 · Water, fire and snow over '조용히 지워 가고 있어' (quietly erasing)

When the second chorus begins at 2:16 with '이미 새겨진 날들을 조용히 지워 가고 있어' (I'm quietly erasing the days already carved in), waves wash across the floor of the room where KIM JAE HWAN sits on the bed (2:17). While 'la la la' continues from 2:44, the back of a person gazing at the sea at night vanishes from the edges as if burning, until the screen goes black at 2:55, and from 2:58 snow covers an amplifier and a stack of books.

3:03 · Three seconds after '나처럼 멈추는 날이면' (on days you stop like me)

When the bridge, '가끔씩 내가 떠오르면 / 나처럼 멈추는 날이면' (if I come to mind now and then / on days you stop like me), ends (2:57–3:02), the sound almost dies away for nearly three seconds from 3:03. It drops about 30 on the loudness scale (decibels) from just before, which to the ear is close to silence. On screen there's only a shelf covered in snow. At 3:06 the last chorus, '이미 떠나버린 그 맘을' (the heart that has already left), starts over with just the guitar and the voice.

3:16 · The drums return on '이렇게 떠올려 주겠니' (will you remember like this)

The last chorus has different words, too. Where the first two choruses had '이미 새겨진 날들을 조용히 지워 가고 있어', it now goes '이미 떠나버린 그 맘을 다시 돌릴 순 없지만 / 하나씩 지워져 가는 것들 / 이렇게 떠올려 주겠니' (I can't turn back the heart that has already left / but the things fading one by one / will you remember them like this). The bass returns at 3:14.8, and the drums at 3:16.4, just before '이렇게 떠올려 주겠니'. Meanwhile the picture stays on KIM JAE HWAN, sitting in a room where snow is falling.

3:36 · Back to the bus stop at night

When the last '모를 거야' (who knows) ends at 3:36, only the guitar remains, for about 10 seconds. In the meantime the video returns to the same bus stop at night as at the start, but this time snow is falling. At 3:44 a person holding a white envelope walks past the bus stop, and the words 'Love, From Here' appear at 3:49. Apple Music

The credits list Lee Byung-hoon (이병훈) and KIM JAE HWAN on guitar, Jung Jae-hoon (정재훈) on bass, Park Yong-hyun (박용현) on piano and drum programming (drums arranged on a computer), Yoong String (융스트링) on strings, arranged and conducted by Park Hyun-joong (박현중), and Kang Butter on backing vocals. The single also includes 'It's You', which likens feelings for fans to love, and 'No Limits for Us!', whose lyrics KIM JAE HWAN wrote alone.