#i started this year with Spring Day. made it my lockscreen (with Euclid). even made a whole post about it. and now it's all coming back

[moonchild-in-blue]

Some more thoughts on Caramel, but this time isn't so sad - more hopeful than anything I suppose.

I mentioned before how the general thematic parallels BTS' Black Swan, but after letting it sit for a while, this is actually Interlude: Shadow, almost to a T. I'm mostly musing out lout, and this is a bit all over the place with prose and comparisons, so. It's going under a cut, feel free to skip it if you'd like.

(but if there are any ARMYs here in the Sleep Token side... pls walk with me on this 🥺💜)

So. Caramel. A song about the dark side of fame, and the subversion of a lifelong dream turned into nightmare. About the loss of privacy and identity, about being under blinding limelights; about the steep price artists (in this case Vessel) pay for recognition.

About being hurt by very hands that raised him up. Exploitation, gossip, entitlement, etc etc. Icarus suspended near the sun, burning but never falling.

Interlude: Shadow is about exactly that. About reaching the top and realising how lonely and precarious that position is. A barbed wire tight rope over an expecting amphitheatre.

You don't need to listen to the song, but I'd invite you to take a look at the translated lyrics.

Suga references several lyrics of past songs (most notably, their debut song No Dream), where they used to dream about the life they now have, about being able to make the music they want and having it be listened and received by millions - and how bitter that dream has become.

Both Caramel and Shadow talk about the fear and anxiety felt while being on such an elevated stage. The fall is too high, the expectations are too much - but so are the blessings received.

There's this recurring theme of - "I got what I've always wanted, so it'd be selfish of me to complain. I'll endure and smile and dance through it all, because the other option is to turn away from it all."

The key difference in them is that Shadow, like its name, focuses on the two conflicting personalities of the artists - the person they are on stage, the person they are beneath that mask, and how those two co-exist together. Who is the shadow and who is the self (which was the whole theme of their Map Of The Soul series).

Meanwhile Caramel seems less like a me versus me case, and more of a me as a whole versus the audience. Who I am, and who I am forced to be. Which I guess are two different sides of the same problem, simply from different perspectives.

(Black Swan is more about the loss of love and passion for the art stemming from the pressures of fame, which do see a little bit here but not quite. I won't be surprised to find this theme in other future ST songs though. It certainly points that way)

Now, Shadow is almost entirely focused on that - the dark side of it all, the struggle, the fear. The Map Of The Soul series (Persona, and it's successor Seven, where Shadow is from) is a complex exploration of the various sides of "the self", and how that applies to artists (obviously BTS but any creative will relate to that A LOT).

As such, the hopeful, preserving sides are confined to different songs - the most prevalents being On, and We Are Bulletproof: The Eternal.

Both of these mention how, despite it all, they reached their destination and will continue to walk alongside their fans, through blood and pain and agony. They promise us they will stay and endure, and ask us to do the same along them.

(for context, this album came out early 2020, after many talks of a possible disbandment given the amount of pressure and scrutiny they were facing for becoming too famous too fast. You see the connection.)

THIS is the message that prevails above all, and the more I listen to Caramel, the more it dawns on me that same urge to stay and carry on together.

So stick to me Stick to me like caramel Walk beside me till you feel nothin' as well

Even when he's free-falling, even if he feels trapped and backed into corners, the thing that stands out, very name of the song, is Caramel. Stay with me. I'll continue to dance, but do it with me. Come to the show, sing along. Stick to me.

And. Ugh. I don't know man. There isn't really a poetic way to end this, not groundbreaking final conclusion. Just. Yeah. It's the same as it always has been. We're in this together.

It's hard on his end (and while I am focusing on Vessel, this absolutely does equally applies to the four of them), and because it's hard, he asks us to accompany him. There really isn't much we, as fan, can (or should) do aside from showing up and singing along - both literally and metaphorically. It's a "My struggle is my own, but thank you for listening and sitting beside me".

That's what's it's all about. Connection. Mutual understanding. Crying together and shaking some ass. As much as I feel for him as a regular person deserving of privacy and respect, I'm grateful for being able to enjoy the music and have fun with the rest of this community if you will. By putting out a song as direct as this one, they are trusting us with their struggle and vulnerability, so the best thing we can do in return is simply show up where it matters.

To circle back to that BTS connection, Caramel is MOTS all in one. The ugly and the good all together. And much like them, it all goes back to their core foundation of doing it all together. It's Young Forever. It's Spring Day.

Pass the end of winter's cold Until the spring day comes again Until the flowers bloom again Please stay, please stay there a little longer