KIMSEJEONG’s and TXT’s Related Life Lessons

What Door and The Name Chapter: FREEFALL have in common

KIMSEJEONG’s album Door and TXT’s album The Name Chapter: FREEFALL tell very different stories, but they have a surprising amount of thematic overlap. Both albums channel a profound sense of in-betweenness, as the main characters move through a chaotic and uncertain period of life, but both albums also find silver linings in getting lost. Below are just some of the many ways these albums belong in the same thought-provoking conversation about childhood, change, and taking chances.

Door Summary

After the jaunty, Irish-rock “Voyage,” KIMSEJEONG delivers a jazzy delight in “If We Do,” which cleverly compares aspects of a relationship to music genres: Jazz is chosen as the descriptor for brunch dates, rock is chosen for days when a couple argues, and she describes getting lost in someone’s “acoustic” eyes. The third track is an ode to a warm embrace, a piano ballad called “Sea of Hope.” The guitar-and-percussion-focused “Between Summer And Winter” is followed by the most down-the-middle pop offering, “Destiny,” and then “Top or Cliff,” a climax with a fittingly dramatic music video. The witty and retro “Jenga” is about an in-between phase, much like “Between Summer And Winter.” Its comparison of an unsturdy relationship to a game of Jenga is both playful and foreboding. The songs that follow “Jenga” also convey multitudes, and she seamlessly shifts from conveying more sorrow than hopefulness to vice versa. Stirring slow songs, “Indigo Promise” and “Send A Letter,” come before the rejuvenating finale, “In the Rain,” which is about reconnecting with her inner child. “In the Rain” reflects on the days when a young KIMSEJEONG excitedly ran outside to let rain wash over her, not worrying about grabbing an umbrella before basking in the then-novel sensation. As she got older, that sense of wonder at a natural phenomenon was replaced with caution. Of course, it is not bad advice to remember things like “Grab an umbrella before you go outside when it’s raining”! But there is a sad side to the guardedness that replaces innocence with age. KIMSEJEONG hopes to reignite the aspects of a child’s mindset that left her throwing caution to the wind and in awe over the little things in life. 

Interestingly, “In the Rain” comes after “Over The Rainbow,” a song that can be interpreted as being from an elderly person’s perspective. “Over The Rainbow” is a touching plea to be remembered long after leaving. Whether she means “leaving” as in leaving this Earth or just a certain location is up to interpretation, but either way, she describes the legacy she hopes to have long after her physical presence is out of the picture (“The beautiful times we had / I hope to leave them like a watercolor… May my fleeting memories / Not become wounds”). A look back on her life before she goes to the “other side of the rainbow” leads into an ode to youth, not as much symbolic of the circle of life as it is symbolic of a journey’s start mirroring its end. Reconnecting with her inner child is like restarting a clock, regaining a sense of security and peace that has left her as she has aged.

Overall, Door varies in style and substance in ways that accurately capture the variety of complex feelings present throughout one’s life, and the album offers extensive commentary on childhood, adulthood, and the benefits of seeing the two as intertwined.

The Name Chapter: FREEFALL Summary

The Name Chapter: FREEFALL picks up right where The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION left off. The latter ended with “Farewell, Neverland,” and the former’s opening track brings to life TXT’s experience plunging headfirst into reality. It is an unforgiving fall, and TXT’s palpable pain has a fitting musical accompaniment in this angst-driven rock song.

The following songs weave together strands of hopefulness and wistfulness. In “Chasing That Feeling,” the group sings about preparing for the worst in a cold, cruel world (“I prepared to die”) while still hoping for the best (“Though it hurts a little, burn and fall like a shooting star”). In the aching yet encouraging “Dreamer,” they express a firm belief that they do not have to fully sever elements of childhood from adulthood (“An adult who doesn’t dream and a boy with nothing but dreams / Between the common fork in the road, I’m gray”). They further make peace with living in an ambiguous, flawed world in “Deep Down,” in which they redefine their “horns” as “crowns,” and “Happily Ever After,” in which they find an upside to life not being like a fairy tale (“Wow / The unknown ending / That’s why my life is even more beautiful”). The final two tracks (excluding pre-released singles), “Skipping Stones” and “Blue Spring,” thank loved ones for helping them see their personal “horns” in a positive light and for sticking by their sides during tough times.

When listening to The Name Chapter: FREEFALL from start to finish, audiences are in for a much more nuanced emotional ride than they were when listening to the Neverland-set The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION. TXT’s “TEMPTATION” era basked in the “sugar high” of Neverland, one that wore off quickly and revealed a hollow core. They realized that Neverland keeping them in a permanent state of childhood was a curse disguised as a blessing, which is why they agreed to say “Farewell, Neverland” and fall back to reality. They acknowledged this transition would be brutal, but they recognized the rewards that reality can offer are far more vast and long-term than anything Neverland ever could. 

TXT’s “FREEFALL” era is about how living with both ups and downs is actually preferable to living with just ups. In reality, they appreciate “That Feeling,” the ability to dream and to be adventurous that Neverland gave them, more than they could when it was their sole emotional state. Taking the bad with the good has given them a permanent energy boost, the opposite of the temporary high from Neverland. Overall, The Name Chapter: FREEFALL embodies the harshness of entering a new life phase while never losing sight of the reasons to stay the course, thanks to the lessons learned in previous life phases.

A Shared Analogy

The overall effect of listening to Door is indeed one of going on a “Voyage,” experiencing periods of smooth sailing, turbulent waters, feeling lost at sea, and regaining a sense of safety and stability back on the shore. That sense of stability comes back around with “In the Rain,” an ode to the sense of wonder and innocence that are associated with childhood. Door follows many ups and downs, but it ends in a state of contentment. Similarly, one of the last songs on The Name Chapter: FREEFALL is “Skipping Stones,” about how the act of skipping stones generates ripples in water, but the water eventually returns to calm smoothness. KIMSEJEONG and TXT both use water as an analogy for life: inevitably including disruptions but eventually returning to a tranquil state that makes the in-between disrupted states worth experiencing. Metaphorically, both albums are about venturing out to sea with the belief that not only will they get back to shore safely, but that any risks they take by setting out on their journeys outweigh the benefits of staying on the shore. Both stories find beauty in what happens not at destinations so much as between them. They find beauty in the daunting but rewarding shade of gray between feeling like a child and an adult.

Visual Depictions of Reality and Fantasy

KIMSEJEONG’s “Voyage” music video alludes to “The Princess and the Pea.” She awakens on a tall pile of mattresses, walks through a magical closet, and enters a world of merry villagers. They treat her as the guest of honor, encircling her during their dance and giving her prime placement at the banquet table. The fiddle-filled instrumental, elaborate costumes, and abundance of flowers all add to the feeling of a free-spirited fairy tale, a scene entirely detached from “the real world.” 

“Voyage” is the epitome of levity, while the music video set in the “real world,” “Top or Cliff,” is anything but. In that music video, KIMSEJEONG is an assassin who seems to thrive on danger, until one of the last scenes, when she appears swollen, bruised, shaking, and alone. She wreaks havoc and achieves nothing worth celebrating as a result. However, an epilogue-style scene shows a flicker of compassion and regret: Long story short, the little girl she previously set a bad example for is someone she now returns to in the hopes of offering advice and comfort. Of course, she still has to live with the severe consequences of and guilt from terrible decisions, but it matters that she finds a way to lean into a side of herself not driven by rage.

TXT’s “Sugar Rush Ride” music video shows a thrilling day in Neverland, where their world is a blur of colors and consequence-free fun. This is a sharp contrast to “Chasing That Feeling,” in which the members crash-land into a city, navigate their way through dark tunnels, and never catch the magical sparks they keep trying to grab. The video has a non-ending, where they stand together in the middle of the busy streets and still look lost. 

The relationship between “Voyage” and “Top or Cliff” parallels the one between “Sugar Rush Ride” and “Chasing That Feeling.” Both pairs depict reality and a dream world as polar opposites but reveal a subtle similarity between the extremes: a lingering memory of youthful and more carefree times. In “Top or Cliff,” the hardened KIMSEJEONG reconnects with a young girl who is possibly representative of her younger self. In “Chasing That Feeling,” although TXT never regain control of the magical sparks, their resolve to follow that magic stays strong. In both instances, their music video characters find motivation in the elements from their pasts that have followed them into the present. Perhaps the adulthood/childhood and dream-like/reality-like dichotomies are not as stark as they have assumed.

Conclusion

Door, The Name Chapter: FREEFALL, and both albums’ corresponding music videos celebrate life not being black-and-white. By giving unflinching descriptions of reality, they end up revealing the pockets of magic within the mundane. In other words, juxtaposing time in the “real world” with time in a mental “Neverland” actually reveals a surprising amount of overlap between them. Everyone can find the optimism of a fairy tale’s character and the whimsy of a dreamlike island somewhere within daily life. KIMSEJEONG’s message is that rainbows do not come without rain, and TXT’s is that the joy of skipping stones requires disrupting a stable surface while trusting its stability will come back in due time. Both artists show that finding fulfillment and beauty in life comes not from pursuing perfection, but from finding the good in life’s imperfections, and there is no better theme to use to address this search for the light in a dark world than transitory phases of life.