Tears in the mirror, blue question marks, grey rhinos, and dust – how Blue & Grey contains & beautifully expresses the many meanings of feeling blue & grey [ an intertextual reading of Blue & Grey - thread ]

Disclaimer - all opinions & interpretations are my own! I've limited +
+ myself to BTS' lyrics esp those directly alluded to & those I personally was reminded of, bc referencing any more literature would make this a thesis not a thread ;-; Please add on any songs/lyrics you're reminded of! +
+ In NIve’s behind the scenes video on B&G, he describes the themes Taehyung wanted to communicate when they started working on this song

He touches on my 2 main talking points – how B&G, despite its melancholy nature, is a cathartic song, & how the abstract concept of b&g +
+ allows so many different types of feeling & emotion breathe within this song, rather than the more absolute & restrictive terms of black & white.

After all, there are many shades of blue, & of grey, & the way they are experienced by diff people differ. Within this song their +
+ diff interpretations & experiences feel like strokes of watercolour on canvas, standing out in their own distinctive colours while also blurring together in some places.

And I really think this was the intention – in Taehyung’s Weverse interview, he says, +
+ the lyrics & sentiments evoked through this song really feel as though they create this harmony of colour that’s all these different shades of blue & grey, belonging to diff people but also blending together to create something unique in this song. +
+ It reminds me of Yoongi’s paintings, coats and coats of the same colour mixed & blended out until it’s no longer ONE colour.

The song begins in a heartbreaking way –
“Where’s my angel/ At the end of the day, casting its shadow/ Someone come and save me please/
Is the only +
+ It reminds me of Yoongi’s paintings, coats and coats of the same colour mixed & blended out until it’s no longer ONE colour. The song begins in a heartbreaking way – “Where’s my angel/ At the end of the day, casting its shadow/ Someone come and save me please/ Is the only +
+ It reminds me of Yoongi’s paintings, coats and coats of the same colour mixed & blended out until it’s no longer ONE colour. The song begins in a heartbreaking way – “Where’s my angel/ At the end of the day, casting its shadow/ Someone come and save me please/ Is the only +
+ sigh of the exhausting day”

Taehyung’s warm honey vocals & the emotion within them convey a quietness in this song. The sense of despair is acute but like a whisper, this first verse sounding almost like a prayer, seeking an angel, a saviour to pluck them out of this situation
+ I’ve gone into this a bit in my interlude_dream; reality & set me free thread, but lyrics like these evoke in me a very strong sense of raw, unfiltered emotion. When all options are exhausted & there seems to be no way out, + https://twitter.com/anotherunperson/status/1294968942054617088?s=20
+ when you don’t know what to do anymore, you resort to pleading with some sort of higher power to hear you, save you.

The helplessness of the emotion is further driven in through the expression “Someone come & save me, please/ is the only sigh of the exhausting day.” +
+ It’s not a demand or a scream. There’s something silent & tragic about it, like his b&g feeling are only for him to hear & know, that the only way he can express the exhaustion & pain he’s feeling is with “a sigh” pleading to be saved.

The second verse reinforces that quiet +
+ heartache even more – “It seems like people are all happy/ Can you look at me? Coz I’m blue & grey.” Feeling unseen, feeling as though everyone else is happier, are not uncommon when one’s feeling b&g – if anything, it makes it more difficult to talk about, &
+ the social comparison of seeing how much better someone else is doing compared to you, can feed into those feelings. “The meaning of my tears that are reflected on the mirror/ is the colour that is hidden under my smile, blue & grey” seems to say, that the only one who can +
+ truly see Taehyung’s state of mind is himself.

The lyrics and the sound of the song are heartbreaking, yet why does it feel so cathartic?

In Taehyung’s Weverse interview, he says
+ truly see Taehyung’s state of mind is himself.The lyrics and the sound of the song are heartbreaking, yet why does it feel so cathartic?In Taehyung’s Weverse interview, he says
+ truly see Taehyung’s state of mind is himself.The lyrics and the sound of the song are heartbreaking, yet why does it feel so cathartic?In Taehyung’s Weverse interview, he says
+ Tae speaks about how the first 2 verses explain his state of mind at the time when he was struggling; he also describes how he felt better after he “sent [his] words into the air”, wishing to reach out to others who feel the same way & provide an outlet for those feelings. +
+ It makes me think of 4 o clock, & Tae’s “long long letter” to the moon. His familiarity with dawn & being awake while “the dawn passes/ and that moon falls asleep” pervades 4 o clock & B&G – that similarity reinforced by the blue imagery throughout the song +
+ “the blue light with me/ disappears” + “because just like some movie, just like some line,/ the whole world is blue under the moonlight”

But 4 o clock feels gentler, more comforting; Tae has the “you” he addresses in the song by his side. In B&G, the loneliness of his +
+ headspace emanates through how brilliantly they emote with their voices, the melancholy instrumentals, as well as the lyrics, evoking that plea, sent out into the world at dawn while the world rests. The second verse takes on a different meaning with this context, because +
+ rather than bottling these feelings up & letting them fester, when Jungkook sings “Can you look at me? Coz I’m blue & grey”, they are released into the open & disperse with the wind leaving you lighter. Doesn’t it feel like a weight has lifted when you get to admit out loud +
+ something that’s been eating you up? The problem doesn’t go away but having someone hear it & knowing they relate makes it easier to live with. That’s the entire essence of B&G – it doesn’t sting, it aches.

Then we move on to Yoongi’s verse of the song. And I cannot state +
+ enough how much I am in love with this verse. The very first time hearing it, it reminded me of Suga’s Interlude, without even knowing what the lyrics meant. It’s so powerful that just hearing Yoongi’s tone & delivery, could evoke the mood & feel of a song he references in B&G,
+ without yet knowing the lyrics. Again, this illustrates B&G being an abstract concept – this is Yoongi’s personal definition of feeling blue, & to him blue has meant so many different things.

He admits “from when I was young, there’s been a blue question mark in my mind”,
+ which directly calls back Suga’s Interlude, where he raps, “Ey, in my head, these wanderings that are only full of blue” elaborating that “in my mind, living are the self-loathing and excessive pride” whereas in Blue & Grey he wonders whether “the blue question mark that still+
+ exists,/ would it be anxiety or depression”

In B&G, he raps, “Could it be that humans are really animals of regret,” calling back the lyrics in People, where he explains, in a breezy uplifting manner in complete contrast to the mood & tone of B&G and SI, +
+ “When it’s not there, you wish it is, when it’s there, you wish it’s not/ Who said that humans are the animals of wisdom,/ To my eyes, it’s so obvious that they are the animals of regret” +
+ This directly illustrates what he confesses in Suga’s Interlude, regarding the blue wanderings in his head – “I, full of dreams, grew up to have all my dreams realised but,/ at the same time, am living with the thought that dreams are better when kept as dreams” +
+ It’s fascinating how intertextual reading of Yoongi’s lyrics can help recontextualise the already brilliant self-contained lyrics within specific songs. There’s a (well-deserved) universal agreement that People is such a beautifully comforting song, &
+ despite Yoongi often referring to “people” in the third person, it’s deeply implicit that he’s speaking from experience. Through a reading of SI + B&G, we get a more personal insight of said experience – the blue question mark Yoongi’s grappled with since his youth. +
+ SI establishes a theme that is revisited in the very next song Yoongi released, Interlude Shadow – “That my leap would not be my fall” -> “I’m afraid, I’m scared of flying high,/ No one told me/ How lonely it is here/ +
+ (in B&G – “Could it be that humans are really the animals of regret/ or, is it just me who was created by loneliness”) / That my leap can be my fall”

Meanwhile, in SI, Yoongi also tells us “Things might be different from what you wanted (they might)/How you live as well as +
+ what you love might change (they might)” & this sets up the entire theme of People, “People change – like you have/ Living a life in the world, there’s nothing that lasts forever,/ Everything is just a happening that passes by”

Through the interconnectedness of these lyrics, +
+ we get more of a sense of the shape of Yoongi’s blue question mark, where its edges are.

Cross-referencing these lyrics add so much to the individual readings of each song as well – we know, for instance, that the Yoongi within People singing with a smile in his voice +
+ “Why so serious?” is someone who lives with perpetual blue wanderings within his head. The heavy sigh with which Yoongi starts rapping at the beginning of his B&G verse, & the melancholy weight of his delivery & tone throughout it, paints Yoongi’s familiarity with this blue +
+ question mark – it’s not the clawing desperation of trying not to drown in Black Swan, the heady conflict within oneself in Shadow, or the sense of jumping into the deepest part of the water & swimming against the tide in Abyss. I thought about what it feels like for a long +
+ time & the thought of when we first heard a bit of B&G came to me – Taehyung on the boat, idly floating with nowhere to go. The familiarity makes so much sense & just oozes out of this verse; through his music we are aware that what Yoongi defines here as blue are things he’s +
+ known for a long, long time. But this familiarity isn’t hopeless, it isn’t resignation – “I still don’t know, the ferocious blue/ Hoping I don’t get eaten away, I’ll find the exit”

This is a recurring statement of resolve throughout Yoongi’s lyrics – in SI, he references +
+ Never Mind [ “Yeah so, are you gonna move? We’re too young to drag out feet, so let’s try crashing into it” ] and Tomorrow [ “Though the dawn right before the sunrise is darker than anything, never forget that the stars you longed for only rise in the darkness” ] +
+ Tomorrow & Never Mind revisited years later in a song that is revisited again in 2020, [ SI – “What else will be there if I run unceasingly toward the end of the tunnel” -> B&G – “I’ll find the exit” ] helps us realise that the blue question mark isn’t the only +
+ thing Yoongi’s familiar with; he has also never let go of his resolve of moving forward *inspite* of these wanderings in blue. And Yoongi promising to find the exit feels like an answer to Life Goes On where Tae sings – “There’s no exit in sight/ Would there be an exit at all”;
+ the type of feelings Tae confesses brought about the creation of B&G. And yeah – Yoongi wished to extend the theme of People in his LGO verse, as well.

This is what I mean by my earlier description of B&G as a painting with the colours of many artists coming together while +
+ standing apart. Yoongi’s distinct interpretation of blue stands out here compared to Taehyung’s, but it also blends and melts into the edges of the overall song & the theme of BE. In fact, in describing his curated room for BE, he describes blue as an important colour to him, +
+ , draws attention to the many different types of blue within the room. He himself is in velvet, his outfit & the couch in the middle reflective, appearing many different shades of blue to the eye. There are other reflective objects within the room – the mirror, which Yoongi +
+ cites as the most significant object in the room. All these blues & all their meanings are contained within him – the person whose existence is complete within this mirror.

It creates the impression that as many as there are shades of blue, there are myriad meanings for it. +
+ The wanderings in his head, the question mark, are blue, but he also describes blue as a healing colour to him, & in Telepathy raps “hey, let’s leave for the blue ocean,/ the blue ocean where we used to romp around together" +
+ – combined with the motif of the island, blue here is positive, the warm welcoming shade of our shared memories. https://twitter.com/anotherunperson/status/1331574657837744129?s=20
+ Next – “I just want to be happier” – which immediately reminds me of “set me free” again, the purest rawest expression of sentiment. Just like that song, it’s like one’s been whittled down to the bare bones of an emotion & logic has frayed away, leaving you with your deepest +
+ desire in its naked form. It’s heartbreaking, in every way.

“Please warm me who is cold” then reminds me of Snow Flower – “Please feel the warmth next to me/ Please hold me with your cold, gentle hands”. Given that Taehyung references B&G in this song [ “In this cold season,/
+ your coming to me is a special event/ to the warm you who will melt my blue and grey”, + confessing B&G helped him process his difficult emotions & overcome them, SF’s honey warmth feels even more lovely.

His pleas for warmth have been heard, & rather than an angel coming to+
+ solve all his problems, it reflects more what he described about hearing each other out & finding catharsis through sharing – the “you” in SF is still cold, however Taehyung not only treasures their company and states his assurance that their warmth will melt away his +
+ blue & grey (note he says they’re not gone already), but also offers his own warmth in return. It’s so wonderful looking back at B&G in retrospect after SF

The following verse switches from first to second person – “The sound of my heart breathing faster that I felt while +
+ walking on the cold winter streets,/ I would still feel it,/ Don’t say you’re okay,/ Because you aren’t,/ Please don’t leave yourself alone, it hurts me so much.” This immediately makes me think of Promise. +
+ I’m linking a thread bc this one is so ridiculously long already, but the lyrics that come to mind: “Since when have you been hurting me” – Even you don’t know” + “Promise me now,/ Even if you feel alone many times a day,/ Don’t throw yourself away.” + https://twitter.com/anotherunperson/status/1315661085693755392?s=20
+ We know that Jimin addressed this song to himself, & perhaps because of this context, or because of the deeply introspective nature of B&G, I read this as addressed to oneself – addressed to the person in the mirror right at the beginning of the song. admitting you’re not okay,
+ so that you can move toward healing, which isn’t possible when caught up in denial & repressing one’s feelings. And just like Promise, bc of the use of the second person, it can also be interpreted as addressed to us, the listeners – fulfilling Taehyung’s intent of helping us,
+ our blue & grey feelings seen, & finding comfort in the company, in the knowledge that someone cares & that our B&G feelings aren’t an “echo that is colourless”. This is so powerful, esp in a song that characterises a state of mind as colours. To have ones plea of help feel not
+ only transparent, but also an echo – a reflection of sound, let’s put it – is heartbreaking imagery & shows how hollow & abjectly lonely it can feel when one’s caught up in their head in b&g emotions. It makes the following verse & the second-person switch even more impactful +
+ Hobi’s verse reminds me of something he said in their WSJ interview this year – that his approach to lyricism is often research-driven. His interpretation of feeling grey is characterised as “a grey rhino” – a concept describing a slow-moving but obvious danger that is ignored.
+ The metaphor “a grey rhino comes toward me,/ absently, I stand with vacant eyes” is so powerful, because it gives figurative shape to this concept & by extension Hobi’s numbness & apathy, his definition of grey. The image of a giant creature dangerously hurtling toward you but
+ not even being able to perceive the danger, not frozen in fear but rather numb of feeling & without the desire to move aside, drives home just how lost Hobi feels here. The lines “The road that I always walk along, the light that always shines on me,/ But, the scene that feels
+ unfamiliar today for some reason” reminds me of his words during the Youth Day Ceremony speech – perhaps this gives us insight into Hobi’s grey feelings. (Also, while I was researching the grey rhino concept, I came across the Black Swan theory –
+ highly improbable events which come as a surprise and cause major changes, often rationalised in retrospect. i.e. the literal opposite of grey rhinos. It blew my mind)

Hobi’s verse & the use of this very specific real world reference as a metaphor also made me think of Sea,
+ where we get the hauntingly beautiful lines, “Is this place that I’ve reached really the sea,/ or is it a blue desert?” In Hobi’s verse, he references the Namib, a real-world desert beside the sea, to flesh out the extended metaphor used throughout the song –
+ like the grey rhino, to me it reflects how Hobi does research deeply into the subject matter surrounding the themes of songs, taking real-world concepts & phenomenon & translating them into potent metaphors, worked into the lyrics seamlessly. +
+ In Hobi’s Weverse interview, he mentioned that he & Joonie worked closely to figure out the exact execution of Hobi’s verse here. And I love that that sense of apathy, different to Yoongi’s tone of heavy familiarity & the undercurrent of resilience, is so present in his voice.
+ I imagine they also worked out the transition between Hobi to Joon because it works so beautifully – like a transition colour going from one shade of grey to another.

Joon’s verse screams “mono.” Where b&g denote the different struggles the guys are experiencing, +
+ Joon declares here that “I feel comfortable with the vast grey area”, calling back so many of the references to “grey” or “ash” in mono. Powerfully, it reminds me of forever rain – Joonie rapping about “when it rains, it’s my world/ I dance upon this city”, drawing a parallel +
+ to forever rain’s “when it rains, I, a bit, feel like I have a friend/ it keeps knocking on my windows,/ and asks me how I’m doing” When he says, “On a clear day, give it some fog,/ On a rainy day, together & always, raise a glass to all these dusts here” in B&G, it reminds me+
+ of his plea in forever rain “Please don’t ask me anything,/ Just keep coming down forever” adding “When you come down, I don’t feel lonely,/Please stay by my side, at least you,/ I want to live in an ashy world,/ Knowing there is no such thing as eternity.” +
+ Joonie, compared to Yoongi’s all-too-familiar journey to outpace the blue question mark & Hobi’s apathy in the face of a rampaging grey rhino, sounds at home in his grey feelings. I relate to the feeling of wanting more rain, to be cut off from the rest of the world,
+ overwhelming & disconnected – it makes me feel safe. I relate to Joon wanting to be hidden away behind fog on clear days, just as in forever rain he says, “I wish it rains all day,/ because then people would not stare at me, yeah/ because the umbrella would cover the sad face,/
+ because, in the rain, everyone is busy on their own”

Once again, Hobi’s shades of grey blend out into Joonie’s and turn into something different. Rather than wishing to be heard or seen, he wants to hide away because in the greyness it’s like he can truly & fully let himself
+ be, as he is in all his greyness, & that’s as much a relatable dimension of feeling this way as wanting the blue & grey you hide beneath your smile to be seen is.

In another song that uses grey imagery consistently, Rain, we see a flicker of Joonie’s familiarity in grey too –
+ altho the grey imagery is melancholy in nature, Joon’s raps “The sound of rain touching the world feels vivid/ I put on a brief smile at the best background music/ I hum like a crazy guy”

For more on Rain, I recommend this excellent thread + https://twitter.com/yoongiteas/status/1296443493674557440?s=20
+ And speaking of “raise a glass to all these dusts here” – in 2016 he posted this on fancafe, reflecting on the nature of dust, & wondering if we were not all specks of dust too, something he brings up in Strange ft. RM “Everything in dust,/ Do you see?” +
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