The art of album sequencing in Love Yourself : Tear by BTS

In singularity, there's this running theme of wondering whether you've lost yourself in the game of love or gained the person whom you have fallen for. There's a struggle within the mind but the voice is "buried in the lake", for love. You run to the lake but find your own eyes +

staring back into yours, as you question if your voice and pain is fake, and if so, what should you do?

As this thought flows into FAKE LOVE, the story delves into toxic aspects of love but you stay, holding on and saying "if it's for you, I can pretend I'm happy even when I'm sad.", making yourself "enact a lie", all in the name of love.

You hope that your flaws and weaknesses would be hidden but in the end, grew a flower that would never blossom, in a dream that would never come true.

The next track is The Truth Untold, a ballad coupled with some of the most heartbreaking lyrics in the album. Continuing the imagery of the flower from the last line of FAKE LOVE, the first line of the song talks of a "garden of loneliness."

The motif "I still want you" connects itself to the earlier song's conflict, showing that even though the love was far from healthy, the yearning for it doesn't fade away quite as quickly as you expect it to. To continue being in love, there comes a sense of desperation which +

reflects in the way you reach for a mask before going to meet the person you want/love. There's fear, not knowing if the person will accept them when they take off this mask.

The last few lines depict how they’re crumbling as they look at the now broken mask. Perhaps after revealing yourself, you were abandoned again. But you still want your person.

As 134340 begins, the idea continues from the last line of THE TRUTH UNTOLD, and a series of questions regarding why they pushed you away come flooding in.
In RM's verse, there's a feeling of realization when he raps "maybe I was never there from the start."

The other person is erasing your existence from their mind and but your thoughts are going in circles around them.
Yoongi's verse is the climax of the story when the two people who used to be in love meet. You, who hasn't yet moved on, feel as though your heart is about to +

explode when you see them standing next to someone else. You let go of them and lost them but worse than that, they erased you and forgot you.

The next song, PARADISE, is a shift in tone as it assures the person that their heartbreak will soon be mended. They urge you to stop "running for nothing" and running away from your pain and say that having a dream, like everyone else isn't necessary +

when all the words that make you who you are, is already paradise.
This thought flows into LOVE MAZE, which starts with them singing about being exhausted due to the chaos, as they're trapped in a maze of decisions. The relationship seems to be coming back to life, as they sing +

about holding on and never letting their person go awry, asking them to not listen to what other people say about them. Instead, they ask them to hold their hand and not get lost in the love maze.

MAGIC SHOP is a song dedicated to army but it still ties up beautifully in the story of TEAR. Whenever you feel weary, they make a door in your heart that you can go through, to a place that will offer you comfort — a magic shop. This traces our thoughts back to the part of the +

story that was filled with heartache and pain.
The last lines are a repetition of the lyric that is so close to our hearts, "So show me, I'll show you."

Airplane pt.2 comes in next, with another perspective to how they got big. After magic shop, this song shines light upon their journey from when they were little boys, only wanting to do music.They travel all over the world, bringing the party wherever they go.But through it all+

they haven't changed, they're the same as before.

ANPANMAN is next up on the tracklist. It's a song about how a superhero gives parts of himself to help others. He's getting scars while doing so but he puts his fears behind him as he fights against the bad guys. Jungkook's verse takes us back to the storyline when he sings +

"Honestly, I’m afraid of falling, of disappointing you. But even if I have to use all my strength, I’ll stay by your side.", hinting at the relationship that once crumbled before him.

The 2nd last song, SO WHAT is another song that BTS sings to remind us of the art of letting go. They encourage us to place our worries aside and scream "so what" whenever we feel like giving up. Worries that we don't have answers to are traps that they ask us to stop pondering+

about. Let go, even though there isn't an answer, and start a fight with all you have inside of you, to continue living without a worry.

After the entire love story that this album follows, they assure the listeners that if they let go of their worries, they'd be able to live the way they want to.

The last song, OUTRO: TEAR outlines the relationship and the love that once was,reminiscing back to a time when things began to fall apart.
In RM's verse, there's a sense of longing.Perhaps if he was more honest and comfortable with his bare face, things would be different now.

The thought soon disappears, when he states that everything has an ending.
The next verse, by Suga and J-hope, is filled with imagery of both the people in love tearing each other down. "I thought we had the same dream, but that dream just became a dream." The heart feels like+

it's being ripped apart, so they settle on setting it on fire. The feelings and pain won't remain that way.

Suga's verse is where he asks the person to step on the pieces of his heart that they were responsible for breaking,and burn the remaining love he has for them. Burn it+

till even the ashes of their love don't remain.
This is the end of the relationship, where Yoongi raps,
"This is the real you, and this is the real me. We saw the end, there’s no more resentment. The sweet dream has broken, I closed my eyes."

J-hope's verse pushes our thoughts back to the entire situation all over again, highlighting the difficulty with which he says goodbye. "You're my start and my end, my new encounter, and my goodbye. You were my everything."

And he keeps going forward through fear, and repeating through it all "you're my tear."

that was my interpretation and attempt at appreciating the sheer GENIUS of bts' album sequencing. i hope u liked reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it