Intro : Persona

Korean

나는 누구인가 평생 물어온 질문
아마 평생 정답은 찾지 못할 그 질문
나란 놈을 고작 말 몇 개로
답할 수 있었다면
신께서 그 수많은 아름다움을
다 만드시진 않았겠지

How you feel? 지금 기분이 어때?
사실 난 너무 좋아 근데 조금 불편해
나는 내가 개인지 돼진지
뭔지도 아직 잘 모르겠는데
남들이 와서 진주목걸일 거네
칵 퉤

예전보단 자주 웃어
소원했던 Superhero
이젠 진짜 된 것 같어
근데 갈수록 뭔 말들이 많어
누군 달리라고 누군 멈춰서라 해
얘는 숲을 보라고
걔는 들꽃을 보라 해

내 그림자
나는 망설임이라 쓰고 불렀네
걘 그게 되고 나서
망설인 적이 없었네
무대 아래든 아님 조명 아래든
자꾸 나타나
아지랑이처럼 뜨겁게
자꾸 날 노려보네 Oh shit

야 이 짓을 왜 시작한 건지
벌써 잊었냐
넌 그냥 들어주는 누가 있단 게
막 좋았던 거야
가끔은 그냥 싹 다 헛소리 같아
취하면 나오는 거 알지 치기 같아

나 따위가 무슨 music
나 따위가 무슨 truth
나 따위가 무슨 소명
나 따위가 무슨 muse
내가 아는 나의 흠
어쩜 그게 사실 내 전부
세상은 사실 아무 관심 없어
나의 서툼

이제 질리지도 않는 후회들과
매일 밤 징그럽게 뒹굴고
돌릴 길 없는 시간들을
습관처럼 비틀어도
그때마다 날 또 일으켜 세운 것
최초의 질문
내 이름 석 자
그 가장 앞에 와야 할 But

So I’m askin’ once again yeah
Who the hell am I?
Tell me all your names baby
Do you wanna die?
Oh do you wanna go?
Do you wanna fly?
Where’s your soul?
where’s your dream?
Do you think you’re alive?

My name is “R”
내가 기억하고 사람들이 아는 나
날 토로하기 위해
내가 스스로 만들어낸 나
Yeah 난 날 속여왔을지도
뻥쳐왔을지도
But 부끄럽지 않아
이게 내 영혼의 지도

Dear myself
넌 절대로 너의 온도를 잃지 마
따뜻히도 차갑게도 될 필요 없으니까
가끔은 위선적이어도 위악적이어도
이게 내가 걸어두고 싶은
내 방향의 척도

내가 되고 싶은 나 사람들이 원하는 나
니가 사랑하는 나 또 내가 빚어내는 나
웃고 있는 나 가끔은 울고 있는 나
지금도 매분 매순간 살아 숨쉬는

Persona
Who the hell am I?
I just wanna go I just wanna fly
I just wanna give you
all the voices till I die
I just wanna give you
all the shoulders when you cry

Persona
Who the hell am I?
I just wanna go I just wanna fly
I just wanna give you
all the voices till I die
I just wanna give you
all the shoulders when you cry

English

Who am I, the question I’ve asked all my life
The question that I probably
won’t find the answer to for the rest of my life
If I could explain a guy like me
with just a few words
Then God wouldn’t have bothered
to create all that beauty

How you feel? How do you feel right now?
Honestly, I feel so good, but I’m a little uncomfortable
I still don’t know whether I’m
a dog or a pig, or whatever I am
But other people come and hang a pearl necklace* around my neck
Ach-Ptui*²

I smile more often than before
The superhero that I wished to be
Now I feel like I’ve really become one
But the further I go, the more they have to say
Some say run, some say stop
This one says to look at the forest
That one to look at the wildflowers

My shadow
I wrote and called him ‘Hesitation’
After he became that
He never hesitated again
Whether it’s off the stage or under the spotlight
He keeps appearing
As heatedly as the waves of heat above the road
He keeps glaring at me Oh shit

Hey man, why did you even start all this?
Have you already forgotten?
You just loved the fact
That there was someone who listened to you
Sometimes it all just seems like gibberish
You know that stuff that you say when you’re drunk, it all seems childish

Who am I to make music?
Who am I to be truth?
Who am I to have a calling?
Who am I to be a muse?
The flaws that I know I have
Perhaps they are all that there is to me
The world doesn’t care at all
about my inexperience

I don’t even get sick of these regrets anymore
I wallow in them disgustingly every night
I can’t turn back these times
even though I keep twisting them like a habit
The thing that raised me back up again and again
That first question
The three letters of my name
The word that should come in front of them, But

So I’m askin’ once again yeah
Who the hell am I?
Tell me all your names baby
Do you wanna die?
Oh do you wanna go?
Do you wanna fly?
Where’s your soul?
where’s your dream?
Do you think you’re alive?

My name is “R”
The me that I remember and that the people know
The me that I created myself
in order to spill out what was inside of me
Yeah, maybe I’ve been deceiving myself
Maybe I’ve been lying this whole time
But I’m not ashamed of it
This is the map of my soul

Dear myself
Don’t ever lose your own temperature
Since there’s no need to become hot, nor cold
Sometimes I might pretend to be good, sometimes to be bad*³
But this is what I want to hang up on display
The scale*³ of my direction

The me I want to become, the me that people want
The me you love, the me that I create
The me who is laughing, the me who is sometimes crying
Who, even now, is living and breathing every minute, every second, this

Persona*⁴
Who the hell am I?
I just wanna go I just wanna fly
I just wanna give you
all the voices till I die
I just wanna give you
all the shoulders when you cry

Persona
Who the hell am I?
I just wanna go I just wanna fly
I just wanna give you
all the voices till I die
I just wanna give you
all the shoulders when you cry

Translators’ Notes:

* A reference to the phrase ‘casting pearls before swine’.
2. Sound effects of gathering spit, then spitting.
3. A play on words. ‘위선’ means ‘hypocrisy’ or ‘pretending to be good’, while ‘위악’ is its opposite, meaning ‘pretending to be evil’.
A few lines below that, ‘척도’ is a ‘scale’ or means of measuring something, but it can also be separated into ‘척’ and ‘도’ which would turn it into ‘the amount of pretense’.
4. The informal word for ‘I’ in Korean is pronounced ‘na’, which is also the final syllable of the word ‘persona’.