Our Ballad Season 2 - Episode 5
The song is known as the title track of an album Cho Ha-moon released in the late 1980s. Cho, who had been the vocalist of Magma, a band that emerged from the University Song Festival, sang it himself. A confession offered to someone who understands a wounded heart, it has endured as one of the defining ballads of the late '80s. Jo Jang-hyuk later sang it again on I Am a Singer 2.
- An opening that begins calmly over acoustic guitar
- A range and urgency that climb step by step toward the chorus
- Keyboard and string arrangements typical of late-'80s ballads
Cho Duk-bae wrote both the words and the music, and Byun Sung-yong handled the arrangement. Namuwiki lists it on the 1991 album Cho Duk-bae 3.5, but some press reports introduce it as a 1989 release, so accounts of the album and year differ. The song captures the flutter of the moment a lover enters one's heart. In 2005 Jo Sung-mo sang it again as a duet with Cho Duk-bae, and it was later remade by Turtles in 2006 and by Song Ha-ye in 2016 (for the soundtrack of the drama Witch's Castle).
- An unhurried tempo suited to Cho Duk-bae's low, gentle voice
- A melody that flows like speech before opening wide in the chorus
- A warm, unadorned arrangement of guitar and keyboard
The first to sing it is said to have been Lim Hyung-soon, vocalist of Five Fingers. It became widely known in 1992, when Byun Jin-sub recorded it as the title track of his fifth album. The lyrics are by Noh Young-sim and the music by Kim Hyung-seok. A song of longing for a lost lover's return, it is the one Byun Jin-sub himself names as his most frequently remade. Kim Soo-young and many other singers have since sung it.
- A lyrical, piano-led intro and Kim Hyung-seok's signature chord progressions
- A melody that ranges widely before peaking in the chorus
- The contrast between restrained verses and an explosive chorus
This is the title track of 愚 (U), the fifth album Yoon Jong-shin released in 1996. Yoon wrote the lyrics and composed the music together with You Hee-yeol, who also arranged it. A buoyant portrait of feeling reborn after falling in love, it is counted among Yoon Jong-shin's signature songs. A You Hee-yeol version (2003) and a Monthly Yoon Jong-shin "repair" version (2013) followed, and in 2017 Red Velvet remade it for SM Station.
- An opening and chorus melody that stick after a single listen
- Backing harmonies featuring Jo Kyu-chan
- You Hee-yeol's bright, rhythmic '90s pop arrangement
The song appears on I'm an Adolescent, the album Kang San-eh released in 1994; the album's title track is You Can Do It. The track listing credits Ha Jae-bong as lyricist. A plainspoken song about gazing at the one you love, it sits on the lyrical side of Kang San-eh's rock- and folk-based music.
- A modest rock arrangement built around acoustic guitar
- An unadorned, composed vocal tone
- Emotion that builds as a repeated melody slowly rises
A digital single Roy Kim released on October 16, 2024, with words and music by Roy Kim himself. A ballad framed as his own answer to the question of what love is, it entered the Melon chart's top 10 after release and reached No. 1 on the daily ballad chart.
- A verse unfolded over piano accompaniment, as if spoken
- A structure in which the title's question recurs in the chorus and swells
- An arrangement that keeps adding instruments, building all the way to the end