#yall i love happiness so much skjskjdskj

[fmdjoosungarchive]

location: home studios, gold star studios

date: ~late 2019, july, august, october 2020

word count: 1805

tldr; verification for sung’s song everythingoes. full lyrics & production, shared composition credit with @joohwanfmd.

it was funny, looking back on it, that this was the only song that managed to make it onto the album that he’d written with someone outside of the album, with no intention of it being on anything. seoul was something he’d been writing on his own, and had been so long in the making that nothing else could possibly top it, but this, it made sense to change up.

as the song that was the most different in message than everything else, it made sense that the feeling, the sound, was different too. he’d picked it out from his saved library, when the concept came to him.

sung wasn’t sure if using the idea was a good one, but in case he did want to use it later on, he ought to have it on hand. everything he’d started writing thus far was... pretty dreary. there was more to them than that, of course, he’d been introspective, and philosophical, and everything else he could think of, however, they followed the same theme of expressing emotions with no necessary ending. there was no hopeful message tacked on at the end about how he used to feel those feelings but has since move past them, because that wasn’t his reality. the reason sung wrote the songs that he did, was because he didn’t want to present the notion that feelings had to be eliminated. they were real, and just as important whether they came back around again and again, or were there one day, and gone the next. sung often said on his radio show that he finds the best way to deal with emotions being to let yourself actually experience them. to not shy away, or shove them down, and instead, sit in those feelings, breathe them in, so that when it’s time for them to lessen, you can truly feel lighter.

while sung didn’t want to ruin the messages of other songs, he also wasn’t sure if he wanted an album that was solely about sitting in those negative emotions. they wouldn’t last forever, no matter what they were. even the feelings that came round and round, would need to leave in order to come back again.

an english phrase came onto sung’s radar from a book he was reading on the subject of feelings moving on. he’d been reading a translated version of the book, but the translator had kept in the phrase, “this too shall pass.” they’d explained what it meant through the original author’s words, and over time, it became something that popped up in sung’s head, again and again. round and round. like his feelings, it circled, even during said feelings. once, during a particularly bad spell of negative emotion, sung had sat himself down to write out positive affirmations to himself in a notebook, as his therapist suggested. originally, it started as specific to the situation. his self worth had been bottom of the barrel, and affirmations were easier, in situations like that. yet, what ended up helping sung the most was as he turned to scribbling out in his terrible latin alphabet that phrase he’d read, this too shall pass.

the struggles he was facing wouldn’t disappear when the emotions lightened up, no, that was a journey to take on bit by bit, but, the feelings would pass eventually. he could fill his lungs with pure air once again, when his emotions had had their time. it was a comfort, to sung, to remind himself of that.

that concept had been what he’d taken in when looking through his old compositions. sad on the side of his desk was that notebook, open up to the page with his affirmations, and rows and rows of his english phrase.

he’d liked this composition a lot when he and hwan had started it together. it wasn’t all that complete, like most compositions without melodies or ideas behind them were, but it sounded like something that could fit into what had been building up of his album. there was a specific sound to everything he’d been doing, and that composition sounded like it could be easily molded into it.

the feeling was different, though. many of his other songs sounded like the lyrics, for as shaky and unsure the compositions of them were in order to encapsulate feeling. he wasn’t super sure on where he was going with that sound, or if it would stay in the months to come, but for then, sung liked it. this instrumental, he supposed, could fit into the idea of matching a song’s concept, and because the concept was lighter, so was the composition.

it reminded him of the feeling of walking into a greenhouse, being surrounded in light shifting through the windows in geometric shapes, and breathing in the beauty of what the natural world brings to us. bright, high plinks through every line was like reaching out to those streams of light, and touching something warm, cozy, and filled with pixie dust.

every moment was a building block to the next, as well. that might have been what sung was the most excited to continue to build on, with the potential it held to create really powerful moments towards the end utilizing lyrics to bridge the two together. joohwan was particularly helpful in creating that sound that sung had liked so much. if it was only him working on it, it might not have sounded as powerful and grand as it did at that moment, because he wasn’t as comfortable using guitar in his music as hwan was.

while sung worked mostly on his own, there was benefit to working with others, in cases like that. whatever this song ended up being wouldn’t be the same without hwan. -and that was where he stopped. sung had only managed to figure out an alternative to straight plagiarizing the phrase this too shall pass, to use in the song, when his mind had drifted far enough away that it refused to work further without hwan by his side. this was their song.

at least, that was his brain’s original plan. sung ended up getting back to the song a week and a half later, to write out more lyrics, vague ideas of what to write for a short verse on the song. probably around the bigger building sounds, so he could figure out where to punch with the most important lines. or before it. or coinciding with the change. clearly, he wasn’t sure yet.

the song sat unfinished for a while, as sung was determined to work with hwan again, and mixing two busy schedules wasn’t easy. eventually, the heavens smiled upon them, and they were able to meet up to rework the song, and figure out what they might want to do with a melody, if much of anything.

having ideas about where to take the song next when he came in helped a lot in getting the juices flowing. they settled on the rap verse taking the listener into the most explosive parts of the song, and reworked the composition so that it slowed down right before, for that extra impact when the heavy guitar came in swinging. there was some cleaning to do, largely sung sitting there incrementally changing the tiniest details of the mixing so that it was more smooth, and there was the melody to ‘write’ if it could be called that. they didn’t have the time that day, but sung planned on recording two different versions of the song, one with him on the majority of the track, and one where hwan was the star of the track. that meant, unfortunately, there wasn’t much vocal prowess that could be utilized on the song, at least not without ruling out himself as a contender.

he’d been working hard with his vocal lessons for the opportunity just like this, though, and maybe... maybe gold star would let him.

the session was succinct as could be, in and out with loads more written and finished enough that sung could finish mixing on his own at home. he could remember hugging hwan goodbye, promising they would meet again as soon as they could for recording.

it’d only taken sung a couple of days to finish off the main portion of the song. he couldn’t feel comfortable shipping it off to the general public yet, not when he’d only just started figuring out where he was going with the album as a whole, but everything was laid out for when that day came.

and came it did. recording with hwan went about as smoothly as it usually did when it came to being with friends. they understood each other more closely, and sung could prod out the parts of hwan’s voice he wanted most more easily. although, it did set some worry, in sung’s head. hwan had a much better voice than him. why wouldn’t the company want him instead, especially since he was already going to be on the track anyway, why not the whole thing?

worries plagued him enough that he didn’t send the song in for review to the company until he’d re-recorded his parts probably fifty times, and until it had hit the first of october, his last chance to add new songs for consideration. more than any other, with all of the changes he’d made thus far on other tracks, as well as the addition of that track, sung was nervous. he pressed the send button on the email with his eyes covered, and promptly distracted himself as much as humanly possible, until he received a message back.

it took a day.

there were notes, lines to change, sounds they didn’t like, suggestions of things to add, and under everythingoes was... nothing. not a single issue. sung had no clue how to express everything he was feeling inside. and so, he danced. music came flowing out of him into his limbs, as he shimmied and waved around the studio. the next thing he did was text hwan, then daisuke, to share the news.

from then on, the track stayed almost where it was. sung matched the production to fit the style of the album, cleaned it up. the biggest change came at the very end, when he was putting together his final tracklisting. at the end of the song, as well, when the guitar cut out, and the instrumental cut to the bare bones of piano, sung decided to tie everythingoes into forever rain, a song that held meaning almost opposite, but complimentary, to everythingoes. forever rain started with rain, and everythingoes, song of cyclical emotion, ended with it, too. rain comes, rain goes, but that doesn’t mean rain won’t come again, nor does it mean the rain in your heart is a bad thing. flowers will bloom one day.