We're alive cause we're not alone: NMIXX's Song 'Run for Roses'

In the rapidly-changing K-Pop world, it might be a little bit late to write a blog article about the song Run for Roses from NMIXX. To be fair, I got to know the song a few months later than its release, and I got so resonated by the song. I don’t know music theory well (I learned some by myself, but forgot all), but I hear the song as my favourite mode, Phrygian, and it is one of the most addictive musical modes for me.

I also have to mention the amazing vocals of the singers, which to be honest, surprised me a lot. NMIXX was not one of the K-Pop groups that catched my eyesight before the song except for the leader, Haewon, is known for being the meme queen in K-Pop. But the mid-alto leading tones of Bae, and the notes resembling a violin glissando from Lily was so amazing, not to mention other members’ singings.

But the musical mode and the talent of the singers is not the only thing I loved about the song. The repeated message the song gives, “We’re alive cause we’re not alone”, is similar to what I see the life and its meanings, along with a lot of people including contemporary philosophers. I personally do not know if Young K from the boy band Day6, who wrote the song, intended to express that deep message with this song (although I know he is one of the best songwriters and artists in K-Pop), I personally believe the true meaning of any form of art lies on the percieved meanings of the work it portrays, more than the intention of the artist.

Indeed, we’re alive because we’re not alone. I sense the main message of the song is more like “we need to go together in this adventure of life”, but my context is more focused on, at least for humans, the meaning of this emerged (or supervenient, meta-layer, you name it, but you know what I mean) consciousness from nothing but the combination and juxtaposition of materials is, in both the emergence of itself and the phenomena from it, on the relationship with other entities that might exist or not in this universe or the namespace our input devices (senses) can possibly detect.

I’m not talking about the middle age or after (East) Asian notion of emphasising the relationship among people; I am saying everything is contextual, especially in our subjective world and the position of our consciousness. The context itself is what makes us live, that is, what makes our consciousness emerge from nonexistence of such thing, and what generates the meaning of our lives. In that sense, we are alive because we are not alone. I mean it.