Destroy My Eyes (Sistar's ALONE over on the Jukebox)

[koganbot]

Korean girl group Sistar begin their latest single with this arresting couplet:

"I don't wanna cry
Destroy my eyes."

At least that's how a few people heard it on the Jukebox. Great line, even if it's not what Hyorin was actually saying.

Here's the vid, if you'd like to mishear for yourself.

Watch on YouTube

(We also talked about "Alone" on a "Volume Up" thread.)

Comments

Lautréamont to thread

[koganbot]

Actual words were "I don't wanna cry/Please dry my eyes." Interesting concept there, too, Hyorin asking someone else to achieve her eye-drying.

Re: Lautréamont to thread

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Toni Braxton again: un-break my heart, un-cry these tears. Weak Sapir-Whorf -- I think this idea doesn't come up very much in English songs precisely because it is ungrammatical, whereas Japanese grammar has the "you doing something for me that puts me in your favour" concept built in, and so it comes up in Japanese pop songs. Not sure how Korean handles it, though.

Re: Lautréamont to thread

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Ungrammatical in the sense that in English, you would say that Toni is the only person who can un-cry her tears (even if that were physically possible), because she was the one who cried/authored them in the first place.

Re: Lautréamont to thread

[koganbot]

Well, you can ask someone to mend your heart (probably a buncha r&b doctor songs promise just that, but once again I don't have them at the tip of my pen), or as in "Venus In Furs" you can ask someone to cure your heart, but neither of those quite carries the sense of un-breaking, of reversing the film and undoing the carnage.

Cliché sighted?

[koganbot]

Haven't trawled the Web yet for alternate English translations; the translation that's around gives us another potential sighting of the concept cliché:

"I fell for your frequent cliché lie again."

As always I'm skeptical of translations and don't know if this is some translator's idea or is a case of genuine self-consciousness. Or neither. The Hangul line I'm seeing (though of course I can't vouch for it), "참 뻔하디 뻔한 너의 그런 빈번한 거짓말에 또 속았어," is rendered by Google translate as "Then you see the obvious ppeonhadi frequent lies and tricked."

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

I think "Alone" is a sincere song - made out of actual songwriter emotions and not written to request - because Hyorin never looks very pleased to be singing it (she keeps the same smile on she had for Push Push and Ma Boy and So Cool etc), because Sistar's other songs on the album are on the same thing (including Lead Me which has the line: "Oh baby please love me, hug me, kiss me/Baby come on, lead me, hold me, control me"), and because Brave Brothers' songs for his other group are also about the same thing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTTJJVQhRWo).

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Also Brave Brothers clearly got the stock footage of Las Vegas from friends/ex-colleagues at YG Entertainment (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw_VYLARMnE).

[christophe andersen (from livejournal.com)]

When I hear this song, I definitely don't think "sincerity". To me it just sounds like a well written electronic dance/pop/r&b song with decent vocals. It's probably the first Sistar single I've heard that I like. I would compare it with the second tier of Kylie Minogue songs (the good ones that never really take off in that undefinable way the best songs can). Even with the top tier songs sincerity is not much of a necessary component for it to be a great song, though it can certainly help take it to the next level (Paris Hilton's "Jealousy" comes to mind). With "Alone" I hear nothing personal and no real emotion. Then again, I only understand the English lyrics and those too I often mishear if I notice them at all.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to track down who said - revelatorily, to me - that "Alone" is in fact basically the Stones' "Miss You." XD;

They're just like streetcars

[koganbot]

Wow! That's interesting. Each is a groove built around a four-bar minor-key repetition, two bars on one chord and two bars on another. I will point out, though, that they're not the same chords: "Miss You" goes (over 16 bars) i–iv–i–iv–i–iv–i–iv, while "Alone" goes i–v–i–v–i–v–i–v, which is actually a more significant difference than that appears: beyond the rhythm, going from i down to v is another feature that marks "Alone" as reggae. I wouldn't be surprised if a whole lot of reggae songs from the late '60s on used just that pattern. But as a matter of fact, none spring immediately to mind! — though parts of "Simpleton Badness" and "Screaming Target" run fairly close, while not sticking exactly to the two-on-two-off pattern.

"Miss You" sticks to its pattern till you hit the break, whereas leading into the break, "Alone" throws in some chord changes (a VI and a V (major)) before returning to i (my apologies if none of the numbers communicate anything). So "Miss You" is relatively more committed to groove and "Alone" is relatively more committed to song. But there is a feel in common between the two, the dance into sorrow. Also, I think "Alone" beats "Miss You," which is saying a lot, "Miss You" being important, one of the first songs where the Stones finally worked their way successfully into a Seventies groove.

NSFW

[koganbot]

YouTube comment regarding SiSTAR's live presentation:

"Do NOT show up to work like this."