Jimin Closer Than This - Tumblr Posts

“Cause anytime you want me, i’ll be right here where you call me.. i could never let you go..” ✨🐣💜

Poderia fazer uma header com esses?

Olá anjo! Tudo bem? Desculpe pela demora, eu estive meio off de um tempo para cá, precisei de um tempinho para mim mesma, mas já estou de volta! Aqui está sua header (caso ainda queira) fiz com muito carinho mesmo! 💜💜

*Closer Than This* Thoughts...

Links included.

As all of the BTS members have now gone to the military, old & new content continues to be released. With that, more has been revealed & discussed about Jimin’s difficult start. [See my Chameleon Park Jimin posts in the archive for a detailed overview.] Recently, I was reminded of an older conversation Jimin had with Suga about his voice. Jimin was explaining to Suga that he had repeatedly told ‘them’ (the company?) that he wanted to sing. He said that he even wrote his own lyrics for them to hear [in order to convince them (?)]. He explained that they kept telling him to rap, even though he felt he couldn’t.  He then declared to Suga that, as a result, he couldn’t (he felt) do either one. And this conversation was happening as they were already in the throes of publicly performing, with Jimin being debuted as a main singer. Hm? Trained as a rapper but debuted as a singer. Your guess is as good as mine. 

In a new group documentary, Beyond The Star, BangPD (creator of Big Hits & BTS) said, in so many words, that he knew Jimin was undertrained ("incomplete") since he had only recently arrived at the company, & that he was reluctant to debut Jimin at that time with the newly forming group, BTS. Others were insistent that JM be included. A few years later, while in Hawaii, V read a publicly-shared letter to JM, where he said back then the company had pulled him in for a meeting and asked if he would like JM to debut with the team. V said he was happy to be able to tell them that he would love to have a friend as good as JM on his team. It sounds as though the company may have had a meeting with all of the members & had asked about including JM, so their comments, as well as whoever else was insisting, were instrumental in allowing undertrained JM to debut with BTS. RM says in a recent interview that if JM had not been included, it would have been “a disaster”. I agree because JM ended up being, and still is, a defining factor and stand-out in the group. He had the unique talents and willingness to sacrifice a lot in order to bring attention and variability to the group.

I feel that JMs start, which put him behind from the beginning, created a feeling in him that he constantly needed to be proving himself worthy.  His talent and input was often dismissed and brushed aside because his status wasn’t taken as seriously at first as it should have been & because his talent hadn’t been trained and fostered to show the extent to which it would eventually grow. He often was not even officially credited for contributions we later happened to find out through comments and conversations in passing. For example, RM sharing that JM had the original musical concept for Fake Love, Jin mentioning that JM actually came up with the melody for Blood, Sweat, & Tears, and JM himself explaining that he wrote the bridge for Dis-ease. Jimin also came up with the visually-gratifying hat trick done with JK for the Bulletproof, pt 2 stage, in which he also did the memorable aerial flip over JHope in the choreography.

In BTS’s book, Beyond The Stage, it was explained that JM nervously answered BangPD honestly that he didn’t like a part of the song DNA that BangPD, the boss, had written. When BangPD re-wrote it, as a result of feedback, it became one of their first bigger hits. Jimin often suggests changes and ideas that become valuable and noteworthy.  This creativity was shown in his own documentary for the making of his first solo album, FACE, as well as in the behind the scenes footage from his #ThisIsJimin dance series and from both of his album’s dance videos.  In same conversation mentioned above, BangPD was reflecting about how differently (badly?) things might have gone if he had been stubborn and kept JM back - for good reason. While the group would have suffered, JM might have been spared the injuries, humiliation, and frustration he endured by being debuted without the full preparation he needed. However, JM made the best of it, and the rest is history still being written. BST would not be the same without any one of them and might not have been as successful as they became if one had been missing.

How does this relate to Closer Than This (CTT), you ask?  I’m glad you asked.  Well, CTT is a beautiful song that was written by Jimin at the same time he was creating his album FACE.  The opening scenes of the official video showed the same timing and surroundings where the “Smeraldo Garden Marching Band” (Jimin & his production team) created the outstanding album. The translated dialogue showed, “This really is a fan song.”  With that said, I was never fully convinced that Letter is a fans’ song [See my Letter post in the archives], and I am going to share the unpopular opinion and say I’m not fully convinced CTT is only a fans’ song either.  I think JM is a wonder at creating melody, and I believe he is also a wonder at writing lyrics that have meanings with multiple interpretations.  There may have been a need to develop this type of thinking in visual and lyrical senses, based on his life circumstances and maybe on his own poetic way of thinking. 

 As the song plays, the video then displays a collage of memories: photos, videos, drawings, and animations. I have heard only one other person say this, but if you go back to Jimin’s Japan travel vlog from 2017, you see drawings he did and/or included for the visuals.  I wondered if the similar drawings you see in the CTT video aren’t done by (or inspired by) Jimin as well.  The part that relates to this writing is when he included images of himself, crying on stage in (I think) Brazil because he wasn’t able to sing well due to illness then the overflow of emotions when fans helped to fill in and sing for him.  I have said in previous posts that I look forward to the day when Jimin is described without always referring to the struggles he had.  If you read my Chameleon Park Jimin posts and the start of this post, you see many of his struggles were created by external factors & forces, although there were internal issues for him to overcome as well, as we all do as we grow up.

I would have thought JM would have been bothered by those images or that moment, but assuming he had full creative control of the video, he included that moment as part of this story. I can’t explain how proud I am of that choice and decision.  Jimin had told us a while ago in a VLive that he doesn’t mind his mistakes and that he learns from them and moves on.  There was a time when he seemed in doubt of his skills, was suffering in pain, and hadn’t matured to a place of understanding that mistakes do not define you - especially if you don’t allow them to.  At that time mistakes seemed to weigh heavier on him.

I should have known better than to doubt Park Jimin because he has always been so open (sometimes too open imo) about his struggles and what he felt were his shortcomings.  He never shied away from or denied them. He only said he would work harder and do better, which he certainly did.  This is one of the many reasons I admire him so much. 

In spite of his and BTS’s achievements and success, JM still shows that same humility and wisdom in being willing to grow and improve.  He recently said that he is going to take training back to the start, specifically for singing, in order to strengthen the skills he already has. I imagine he is working to be more confident in his live singing and perhaps to be certain he is using healthy singing techniques in order to ensure consistent live performances and to avoid vocal injury. 

As is Jimin, his emotional acuity allowed him to know that he needed to address the military absence head on and acknowledge our concerns and sadness. While he is the one actually enduring the difficult situation, he also realized that he needed to leave us with encouragement and comfort too. The song, Closer Than This, is a catchy bop, as people call them, that shows off JM’s vocals, songwriting skills, and musicality. Even though it is reminiscing throughout and addressing the fact that he will need to be gone for a while, it is also hopeful and appreciative.  It really was the perfect balance and was presented at the perfect time after their departure and at a perfect time of year.  

Even though it appears that CTT was written and developed before JM was presented with Army’s gift song Love Letter (LL) for BTS’s Festa 2023, the 2 songs work perfectly together. They have similar reminiscing themes, showing memories from the past.  They are both beautifully performed songs that have an underlying sadness but with an overlying sweet, hopeful, encouraging concept. While the one from fans (LL) tells BTS, we’ll be here waiting for them, the other from Jimin (CTT) tells fans he’ll (they’ll) be back and he’ll (they’ll) never let us go. It was a much appreciated gesture and gift from Jimin, who is known to be a very generous, thoughtful, and empathetic person.

I wish all of them well in completing their military service and look forward to their successful return. 

*Closer Than This* MORE Thoughts...

Links included. (Note: This is not about the song Closer Than This but adds to a topic brought up in that previous post.)

In my first Closer Than This post I said: As all of the BTS members have now gone to the military, old & new content continues to be released. With that, more has been revealed & discussed about Jimin’s difficult start. After completing the post, that thought remained on my mind. Eventually, the reason for my reflection became more clear.

I recently rewatched Jimin’s appearance on Suga’s show, Suchwita. During the conversation with Suga, Jimin said, “I was in a rush.” when he was explaining why he worked so hard, would cry before performances, & was frustrated when BTS was starting out. When I first saw the show, I thought JM meant he was in a rush only because he was anxious and impatient to very quickly be a big deal (for lack of a better term), but then I remember watching JK watch JMs episode of Suchwita and went back to watch that too. JKs reaction to that part of the conversation always stuck out to me, but since he didn’t elaborate, I wasn’t sure what his reaction meant, so I pushed it to the back of my mind - until now.  

This time when I heard JM & Suga’s conversation, in light of the things I have recently seen & have been reminded of, I realized Jimin likely meant he was in a rush due to the limited time he had to prepare to debut. He was the last to arrive as a trainee and only had a short time before the actual debut. Ooooh! That makes more sense with all of the information coming together in my mind. 

However, Suga continued in Suchwita as though Jimin meant what I thought the first time. He said, according to translation, Jimin always wanted to look so cool & confident right away but that passing time would have helped with that eventually.  Well, when you’re a new band, trying to succeed, you don’t know how much time you have to improve. Will the band end or continue? Will you personally be kicked out or be kept? AND you don’t want to be the reason the band doesn't make it. Jin even said that he practiced additional time so he wouldn’t hold back all the others, who seemed so talented and advanced to him. So when JM & Suga were talking about this time period, and Suga is referring to the older conversation I mentioned in the previous post, where he had spoken with Jimin in the car years ago, it pretty much matches the idea that in spite of how it exactly happened, it ultimately ended out that JM complained to Suga about being trained to rap when he felt he wasn't very good at it, and he really wanted to be a singer. Suga ultimately advocated to the company for JM to become a singer.

However, my point is that Jimin had the opportunity during Suchwita to set the record straight about his start --- but he didn’t. I have been frustrated & disappointed lately about how Jimin’s origin story is continually not fully and clearly told so people understand not only how difficult his beginning was & why he had some early hiccups in his performances but also so people could see how huge his development and accomplishments truly are, considering all that happened since then.

JKs response (specifically at 25:07)  confirmed that, like the Dumpling Incident between Jimin and V, there is more to this story.  JK sort of Hmf’d and said, “Ah. What is he talking about? Ah, Yoongi hyung really…” according to the translation.  My impression then and now is that JK wasn’t fully buying how Suga was explaining the situation either.  

If you recall, earlier this year there was a big complaint by fans about a segment of the BTSIsland game “In the SEOM". JMs game character was complaining about struggling with performance and Suga’s game character was rather unsympathetic with its response. He told the JM character that he needed to practice more, and if he had time to feel down, he had time to practice more. He also said that if the JM character didn’t improve, they might have to leave him on the island and basically move on without him. Fans felt the scene misrepresented the “real” relationship between Suga and JM.  The game generally takes events that really occurred and acts it out in the game/cartoon environment.  I haven’t played the game at all, but I have seen snips from it, and this appears to be how it works.

In the real life conversation between JM & Suga in the car, this part of the conversation has JM mentioning JK’s voice and Suga’s response is that if JM wants to sing like JK, he has to work harder.  Working harder doesn’t help much without training and instruction (which JM may have just started getting AFTER debut). Remember: JK had had more training than JM up to that point due to the JM rapper fiasco and JKs training happened while they were not busy working and performing. Suga’s comments to crying JM back then at debut time had been pretty much “Who is this guy? Get up there and sing. Get better later.” So I’m not so sure that the cartoon was meant to disparage the events that actually happened back then, and it actually may have been more accurate than fans felt comfortable hearing.

We know that Suga is a straight shooter when he speaks and can be very direct and blunt in his communication. His intention may have even been to motivate JM rather than destroy him, but it is a rather sharp and potentially damaging way to accomplish that. I do feel that in time Suga overall was and is supportive of JM and really cares for him in a special way, but they were all young and under pressure and weren’t/aren’t always perfect in their actions or choices, so it is possible that as the group was getting to know each other and tensions were high, the relationships weren’t as informed or kind as they later became. Remember: Jimin arrived late to the program, so he had less time to bond with these new members also.

 In any event, I’m sure there is more to all the stories we know about BTS and their journey, and we are likely never going to know all the details for a variety of reasons. Jimin may have had many reasons for not clarifying the story.  He may have felt it would have been seen as complaining, and it might have ended up creating bad blood with the company to highlight their shortcomings.  It might be that JM doesn’t feel it matters as much as it does to me.  It could be that he was being respectful to Suga as his hyung and on his show. It could be for a reason I don’t know. Also, maybe JK’s reaction indicates that Suga didn’t actually come across as supportive at the time as it was being stated, even though behind the scenes Suga did advocate for JMs singing and position, as is seen in other instances throughout their career.

Anyway, BTS’s story, due to complexity and sometimes lack of transparency, inspires so much thought about their actual experiences but also about how those experiences apply to our own real life interactions and situations. This is just another piece of the huge Bangtan puzzle I have thought about and wanted to organize in my mind.

He really is waving that flag

I mean...

💙🤍💜🤍🩷

Closer than this

Its definitely a fan song.

Mostly.

It's mostly a fan song. About love.

I will never let you go

It's a love song.

But it's also a fan song, right?

We can tell them that, right?

Right???