Lee Juck

The follow-up single from Panic's first album. After the title track was passed over, it came back to life through radio requests and rose to the top of the chart shows in 1996. It is like the monologue of a young man who pictures the distant sea from inside a narrow daily life.

• Because Kim Jin-pyo joined at the very end of the recording sessions, only Lee Juck's voice is on the original. On television stages, Kim Jin-pyo played the saxophone (a wind instrument).
• The song opens calmly, in the first person, as if confiding the events of a day, then widens its feeling toward a dream in the refrain (chorus). The clear voice of Lee Juck at about twenty carries that arc.
• Though it was not the title track, it climbed belatedly to number one on the strength of radio requests. It was, in effect, a song the listeners chose before the broadcasters did.
• Singers such as Jang Na-ra and Taru sang it anew (remakes), carrying it across generations.

A song from the Carnival album, with lyrics by Lee Juck and music by Kim Dong-ryul. At first it was just one track on the album, but ten years later Insooni's remake made it widely sung once more.

• Lee Juck's lyrics rest on Kim Dong-ryul's classical ballad melody. It is the point where the two men's very different colors meet in a single song.
• A ballad that begins quietly, like a vow, and builds its sound toward the latter half. The feeling soars highest in the final refrain.
• It voices, in the first person, the resolve to guard a dream to the end in the face of a world that mocks it. That is why it has so often been sung at graduations, cheering stages and singing competitions.
• Insooni's 2007 remake, with a more forceful vocal style than the original, changed the grain of the song. Listening to the two recordings side by side reveals how differently the same words can sound.

The title track of his first solo album, “Dead End.” It was the first song he put his own name to after stepping out of Panic's shadow.

• A ballad that holds the feeling of recalling a past love amid a rainy landscape. It begins with a tightly held-back voice and lets the emotion loose in the refrain.
• True to late 1990s studio recordings, it sounds like an arrangement that spreads wide around keyboards and strings.
• Where the rest of the album is experimental and rough, this song wears its most accessible face. It is interesting to consider the song's place within the album.

The second track on the second album, “2 Juck.” Though it was not the title track, it became Lee Juck's signature song. It is a racing rock number that captures the moment of meeting someone and feeling one's heart soar into the sky.

• A band performance at a fast tempo (the speed of a piece) storms in from the very start. The band instincts honed in the Gigs years seem to flow into the song's energy.
• In the refrain the melody climbs high and bursts open. In concert it becomes the passage where the audience jumps and sings along.
• Many people believe this was the second album's title track, but the actual title track was “I Didn't Know Back Then.” It is a case of the public choosing the title track for itself.
• The breathless, driving rhythm and the theme of a heart's flutter interlock, so the listener, too, feels as if running.

The title track of the third album, “Songs Made of Wood,” it won Song of the Year at the 2008 Korean Music Awards. Its quiet gratitude toward the person at one's side became the song of couples about to marry.

• An arrangement pared down around acoustic instruments. It is the song that most clearly reveals the texture of wood the album title speaks of.
• What stands out is its unadorned, conversational way of singing. Rather than big high notes, it is the low, offered phrases that carry the emotion.
• It approaches in the second person, like a confession meant for one person alone. That is why it has long been sung at weddings.
• Lee Juck has said that this song's success was what led him to bind his next album, “Love,” to the single theme of love.

The song Lee Juck and Yoo Jae-suk sang under the name Sagging Snail at the “Infinite Challenge” West Coast Expressway Song Festival. It tells of Yoo's anxious 20s in his own voice.

• Lee Juck opens quietly over piano accompaniment, and Yoo Jae-suk takes up the story. It is a structure in which the sincerity of the confession stands ahead of vocal skill.
• It is a first-person telling in which the singer opens up about days gone by. Young viewers living through the same anxieties at the time took it as consolation.
• A serious song emerging from the laughter of a variety show left, if anything, a deeper resonance. It is a scene from the early 2010s, when TV broadcasts led straight to music streaming.
• A new live version was released to coincide with the 2020 reunion performance on “Hangout with Yoo.” It is worth listening side by side to hear how the two men's voices changed over 9 years.

The title track of his 5th album, “The Meaning of Solitude.” Lee Juck said he chose it as the title track because it was a ballad that felt true to himself. It reportedly rose by word of mouth to the top of the major digital charts.

• As the title suggests, repeating the same word three times shapes the rhythm of the whole song. In the chorus, that repetition builds the emotion layer upon layer.
• It begins by calmly laying bare the heart of a narrator who gets through a breakup by lying to themselves, then bursts open in the high notes of the latter half as if collapsing.
• After its release it reportedly climbed the charts by word of mouth until it reached the top. It was a rare sight in a period when so many new songs were consumed and forgotten.
• The story goes that the composer Jung Jae-hyung wept on hearing this song.