If the ‘Map Of The Soul’ Era were to be considered journeying through a tunnel of self-discovery, RM’s ‘Intro: Persona’ places itself at the beginning, with RM’s question “Who The Hell Am I” recurring with an unapparent frustration. SUGA’s ‘Interlude: Shadow’ comes somewhere in the middle, where the inner darkness is interrupted by the dim lights of a tunnel, creating faint shadows of fear and confusion because, without lights, shadows simply don’t exist. j-hope’s ‘Outro: Ego’ sits right at the end, where these dim lights are overpowered by a brighter light at the end of the tunnel, a light that shines of self-acceptance.
Listening to Map of the Soul: 7 Album feels like a journey, opening with Intro: Persona, moving through ‘Interude: Shadow’ and ending with ‘Outro: Ego’ (although, technically, Outro: Ego is the penultimate song of MOTS7, the last being ‘ON featuring Sia.’ But I have always preferred considering ‘Outro: Ego’ as the conclusive track that optimistically wraps up the magnanimous MOTS Era).
Interestingly, Outro: Ego samples what marks the official beginning of BTS: their debut trailer, that released on May 27, 2013
We are now going to progress to some steps which are a bit more difficult. Ready, set, and now begin.
Starting the track with the above lines is extremely meaningful given the theme of Outro: Ego. It highlights their beginnings and intentionally creates, and brings to the forefront, a contrast between their past and present. Within its first 30 seconds, the song quickly progresses in tempo, replacing nostalgia with enthusiasm: an emotion so characteristic of j-hope that a listener will always find their excitement build up as they unconsciously sit upright and wait for him to drop the first verse every time they listen.
I go back every day
To the me of the past
To a life where I had chosen to give up
I let myself goBut there are, in the world,
some unchanged truths
The fact that time moves forward
The fact that there are no ifs
The first verses strengthen the sentiment the sample aims at delivering. j-hope says he meets his past self every day: a man from the days of beginning; a person who worries and holds on to his doubts. It is easy to be lost in thoughts that spiral us down towards further insecurities, but j-hope makes conscious efforts, every day, to remind himself of the unchanging truths: time waits for none, and there is no time to remain sunk in questions.
Almost forgotten memories from long ago come to my mind
The devil’s touch and fate’s recall
I’m still curious, why was I called upon again?
Every day, ask me, guess it, whip it, repeat oh
Nothing will change, so in the end
I force myself to lock up my worries, close
‘How much love? How much joy?’
I comfort myself and stay calm, alone
He contemplates why his memories return to him and why do they keep him on his toes. ‘Devil’s Touch’ is an intentional choice of lyric here because this is not the first time we come across it in BTS’ discography. Let’s rewind back to 2016 when BTS were days away from releasing their second Korean studio album ‘Wings.’ j-hope leads the album with ‘Intro: Boy Meets Evil’ and raps about suffering in the clutches of a devil:
“I cry out for a miracle in this reality
I was crazily infatuated with you
A fool addicted to the sweetness, yes a fool
I didn’t want to let go, the touch of the devil
Too bad it’s too sweet
Evil it’s too evil”
Compared to the struggle and the inability to let go that we see in the 2016 track, ‘Outro: Ego’ takes a pragmatic approach. j-hope isn’t complaining; he isn’t worrying either. Instead, he chooses to see himself for who he is. What’s worth noting is that j-hope doesn’t attempt to dismiss his ‘shadow’: the past self or wish to completely dissociate from his past.
Notice the lyric “I force myself to lock up my worries, close,” I’ve always found this lyric to be an apt way to emphasize the fact that you simply cannot lock up emotions. Even if you do, emotions and thoughts resurface; they make their presence known when the situation calls for it, but it’s up to us to decide when to give such feelings the freedom to control us.
And that’s precisely what j-hope conveys. He tells his story not to seek a solution but to inform us that he already has one: to accept the past as it is. A pattern worth observing is how the lyrics go back and forth in talking about the past and then immediately talking about how the past is not worth worrying about.
His encounter with his past is presented visually in the most fascinating way: j-hope is seen losing consciousness and waking up in a hospital. The hospital is symbolic of the unconscious part of his mind. Being awake in a hospital represents being aware of and examining the shadows within. The scene is bright, blue and blurry, representing the confusion that arises when one comes face-to-face with one’s own fears. j-hope arrives back into his ‘Ego’ self once he is resuscitated with ‘love’ and ‘joy’.
Yeah well, I don’t care, it’s all
chosen by my fate so we’re here
Look ahead of me, the way is shinin’
Keep goin’ now
(Ready, set and begin)
The use of ‘fate’ reminds me of that one lyric from j-hope’s verse in ‘Boy With Luv’ (appearing in albums Map of the Soul: Persona in 2019 and Map of the Soul: 7 in 2020):
“Everyone says that I, who was too small,
Became a hero
Oh Nah
I say that something like destiny
Was not mine from the very start
Oh Nah
The world’s peace
No way
The great order of things
No way
I’m just going to protect you, I am
Boy with Luv”
Keeping aside the apparent reference to ‘Anpanman’ (2018) in the above words, when I noticed the use of ‘fate/destiny’ in both Boy With Luv and Ego, I was confused because it felt like they were used in contradiction. On the one hand, we see j-hope saying ‘destiny’ is not his, but on the other, he talks about choices by his ‘fate’. As someone who never realized the difference between the two (and never doubted as both are often used interchangeably), I resolved to search their meanings. Both mean a preordained course of life, but where ‘fate’ unfurls on its own, ‘destiny’ indicates participation, to a certain degree, to shape life up.
Ultimately, both segments of the songs refer to the same idea. In ‘Boy With Luv’ j-hope chooses to protect the one he loves without mulling over his role in the world and his destiny, and in ‘Ego’, he accepts his fate as is, chooses to stop thinking too much of his past, and decides to move ahead. In both instances, j-hope clarifies that he isn’t one to puzzle over the past events since he is well aware of what he wishes to do from this moment on.
Drawing more parallels, the lyric, “Look ahead of me, the way is shinin”, leads us to two other tracks: ‘Answer: Love Myself’ (2018) and ‘Mikrokosmos’ (2019).
“Why do you keep trying to hide it
Under your mask
When even the scars left from my mistakes
Are all my constellations” — Answer: Love Myself“The city’s fire, this city’s stars
I remember the night sky I looked up at when I was young
With the fire of a person, the star of a person
Right here in this place filled with them
We shinin”— Mikrokosmos
‘Love Myself’ says that our scars become our collection of stars, and ‘Mikrokosmos’ says we are the stars that shine brightly in our own cosmos. ‘Ego’ affirms with a similar belief that we are shaped and led by the lessons of our past mistakes, that our mistakes are not something to be ashamed of, but the guiding light that glows up our way, our future. It’s amazing how these three songs blend so well to give one simple message: the shadows of the past mistakes ignite a fire in us so bright that it transforms us into the most radiant star in our galaxy and allows us to shine upon the future path with our own light.
In the video, j-hope is seen driving a vintage car through a deserted land with words like ‘My’, ‘Self’, ‘Trust’, and ‘Hope’ looking like old, abandoned buildings — withered and greyed. But, on the contrary, he is sharply dressed, donning a sparkle in his eyes and a smile on his face. The juxtaposition between a debonair j-hope and a dreary desert serves the same purpose as the Debut Trailer at the beginning of the song: distinguishing the old from the new.
The imagery of desert has been used multiple times in BTS’ art to signify pain, hardships, doubts and fears. The choice of a vintage car to help transition him forward from the shadow to the ego is particularly interesting: A vintage car is old, but still of high value. I have always interpreted this vehicle as j-hope’s life: growing up to embrace every lesson that comes his way and allowing this knowledge to enrich the essence of living. And being the driver indicates being in control. Wherever he may choose to go, whether it be the past, present, or the future, j-hope makes it known that he is the one behind the wheel.
That way, way, way
Wherever my way
Only Ego Ego Ego
Just trust myself
In the chorus, j-hope puts across his message directly: Wherever he goes, he will put his complete trust in himself. The first line of the chorus in Korean is, “그 길로 길로 길로” which translates to “that way, way, way”. In Korean, the word for ‘Way’ or ‘Path’ is ‘길’, which is the title of a hidden gem from BTS’ discography.
Released in the physical copy of their debut mini-album ‘2 Cool 4 Skool’, ‘길’ (Romanized: Gil) is a song that discusses the possibility of living another kind of life — a life that is not dedicated to creating music. They touch upon their emotions of living in a metropolis, Seoul, leaving their friends and family behind in the pursuit of their dreams, the pain and hardships of being trainees unsure of their future. The line of thought expressed in ‘Gil’ reappears in the following verses of Outro: Ego:
It suddenly passes me by, my life as Jung Hoseok not j-hope
It must’ve been without hope, filled only with regrets till I die
My dance only chases after pipe dreams
Blaming my dreams, asking why I live and breathe
Oh my God
The pattern we talked about earlier makes a comeback in this verse. It’s like j-hope puts himself in reverse gear to ruminate on what could have happened. Without j-hope (the stage persona), Jung Hoseok (the man behind the persona) would have regretted a great deal; his love and talent for dancing would have been, in his belief, reduced to a mere hunt for achieving the impossible. His desire for success would have led him to criticize his dreams and question the purpose of his existence. But he immediately makes a U-turn by coming out from a reflective mood to an attitude of acknowledging the present in these following lines:
Uh time goes by
7 years of worries are finally out in the open
All oppression is resolved
The answers of those I trust the most go into my heart
‘Just one hope, just one soul’
‘Just one smile, just one you’
A definite answer to the truth of the world
No part of me changes
Right
This song was released in early 2020, approximately seven years after BTS’ debut. Their journey to this level of global success was not easy, especially as non-white, non-English singers. Oppressions — they faced loads of it. Some stories are known, and many more are hidden within the depths of their heart, but j-hope makes a brief reference to the years of pain with just these two lines: “7 years of worries are finally out in the open; All oppression is resolved”.
j-hope tells us that the answers he found from the people he trusts gives him solace; he points out the need to preserve and cherish his spirit because there is only one j-hope, and even though he changes with time — learning a lot along the way about himself, the past, present and the future versions of j-hope are all still him — which is another reference to Answer: Love Myself
Yesterday’s me, today’s me, tomorrow’s me
(I’m learning how to love myself)
With no exception, nothing left behind, all of it is me
The video accentuates the story of BTS with the use of two other references merged into one: Kingsman and J’s Tailor. The music video team is smart to create a Kingsman-Esque tailor shop and label it as ‘J’s Tailor’. Kingsman is a British-American movie released in 2014 about a troubled young man who is selected as a candidate for a secret spy organization and consequently goes through gruelling training for the same. Kingsman gained immense popularity in South Korea; it became a cultural phenomenon amassing more than $40 million at the box office.
On the other hand, the story of Jay, the man behind J’s tailor, is about being successful abroad. His story started in 1970 doing menial chores at tailor shops, but he eventually mastered the craft and established his own store in the US in 1991.
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j-hope entering a store designed in Kingsman style but titled J’s Tailor is symbolic of BTS’ success in their home country of South Korea as well as rest of the world — they broke barriers at home and abroad; they renovated music against the growing stagnancy of pop and introduced South Korean culture to the rest of us. Here, he puts on a beautiful all-black suit and becomes his stage persona, looking graceful and grand, like he always does during appearances and performances.
As we move towards the end of the song, j-hope is seen driving the streets of his mind, showed as a glamorous neon city. The choir joins him in chanting ‘Map of the Soul, Map of the All’, asserting that this confidence and trust he achieved will guide his soul in all aspects of his life, irrespective of where his life takes him. The song wraps up with j-hope sitting atop his car — to further imply he is the one in control of life — glancing at the city of his mind. He is surrounded by stunning neon words of ‘My Way’, ‘ARMY’, ‘Trust Myself’, ‘Ego’, and ‘Hope’ (which were bleak and faded when he drove through the desert).
‘Outro: Ego’ is joyous in its music and philosophical in its lyrics. It encourages us to treasure our experiences as assets rather than consider them a liability. It teaches us that no matter where we go, we will always be on the right track only if we can remember not to leave ourselves behind. And just like j-hope travels to and fro his past, we too will find ourselves wading in and out of time, reliving experiences that may not bring out the best in us.
Our scrapbooks may be full of memories distinct and vague, but they still remain an integral piece of our present self. So on this note, do listen to Outro: Ego; it doesn’t matter whether it is your first time listening to this or the millionth, as every time you do listen, it feels as exhilarating as the first time.
Credits:
BTS-TRANS Korean Lyrics & Translations : Outro: Ego / Boy With Luv / Boy Meets Evil / Answer: Love Myself / Mikrokosmos
