The Stories Behind JANE POP’s Songs

The duo shares some surprising facts about where they have found musical inspiration!

“SKYSCRAPER”: This song was made [with] a “post-apocalypse” idea, [a style that] KI-LIM was really into at that time. He [had] started playing a game called BioShock, which is set in a post-apocalyptic world. But after just one hour, he stopped playing, because 3D games make him feel sick. In the end, KI-LIM read the story of the game to feel better! Later, that feeling turned into JANE POP's “SKYSCRAPER.”

“Pulp Fiction”: In the spring of 2020, while sketching out a song, we gave it a temporary title [that was] the same as the 1994 Quentin Tarantino movie. As we kept working on the music [and] lyrics, the title remained “Pulp Fiction.” Somehow, it just felt right to keep it that way when the song was officially released, [although] neither of [us have] ever seen the movie. SAEM gave KI-LIM the movie [on] a VHS tape as a birthday gift, but KI-LIM still [hasn’t] watched it.

“Farewell My Concubine”: At the end of 2018, KI-LIM, who was staying in Australia at the time, started this song. Since Korea is in the Northern Hemisphere and Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, the seasons are opposites. KI-LIM thought it would be cold in Australia since it was winter in Korea, so he packed winter clothes and a padded jacket. However, Australia at the end of the year is blazing hot. It's likely that the warm feeling of this song was inspired by the padded jacket KI-LIM brought!

“I'll wait at the coffee shop with clock tower”: "I'll wait at the coffee shop with clock tower" is a song about coffee and coffee shops. The title was “Caffeine,” but we were worried because “caffeine” is used in many songs; if you search for "caffeine" on the web, [our] song won't even come up! We had to change the title. Plain titles like "cafe" and "coffee shop" [wouldn’t] make a strong impression, [so we thought,] “If [we’re] going to do this, [we’re] going to make [the title] long.” That’s when [we] came up with a title that is sixteen characters long in Korean.

Check out JANE POP’s newest single at the Spotify link above or on Apple Music here!

Answers have been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. Photo courtesy of Chili Music.