A Song a day: 8th Mar 2014 (情非首爾

The song that I chose for today is “情非首爾” by Hacken Lee. I love this song, but I always found it difficult to translate the title so I was reluctant to made a post about it. The closest translation of the title that I could think of in English is “Love not in Seoul”.

From memory this song was from 2005. It was the time when Korea decided to change it official name from 漢城 (Hanseong) to 首爾 (pronounce as “Shou'er” according to Wikipedia). Thanks to this song, otherwise I think I would still be calling it漢城 today. The lyrics of this song is about the protagonist meet his ex in Seoul. I would be using both Hanseong and Seoul (in relation to “Shou’er”) to refer to Seoul as the song refers to the name change. It starts with saying that during one night in Hanseong, in N Seoul tower, the protagonist bump into her. He wanted to tell her he is not living happily. Hanseong is changing and people are changing, it is too easy to breakup. She asked him whether he knows that its name have been change to Seoul. He asked her casually whether she got time tomorrow. Would it be possible to travel to Myeongdong and Sinchon together again? In the past they were like arranged marriage, now they are like with no passion and worry that they will scratch their past memory. Meeting her again, but hard to start again, does this mean that he is not attractive as before? History is so exciting, there were ups and downs, but it is impossible to change. Perhaps you no longer like to fall in love and got no self-esteem to create your future. So let the Han River separate you and me like it separate the South and North. Hope you will like the song.