Battle of the B-Sides:: DIA: Waiting For You

 The actual proper name of this song is "널 기다려", so if you're looking for it, that may be what you need to look for.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, welcome, everyone! This one came to you from from the big Roulette Wheel I made (which, if you're looking for it, the link is in the Junk Drawer page). This is one of the songs on there that I've never heard before, and, if I'm being honest, there are only two songs that I know I've heard by them because one is in my big The Jams playlist: Hug U. The other one was shared as the extra stage from The Show. So, I'm kind of excited about this because I know that this group gets recommended to me often from the various algorithms. If you're also unfamiliar, we get to explore them together!

So, DIA debuted in 2015 as a seven member group, but they've had a few different lineups over the years. For this album, the line-up was Eunice, Cathy (now Huihyeon), Jenny, Yebin, Eunjin, Chaeyeon, and Chaewon (now Eunchae). The current six-member line-up is, as a group, on hiatus, while the members work on solo activities. As long as the members continue to say they're not disbanded and the company doesn't give notice, I'm willing to believe that. Hope springs eternal.

Waiting For You also exists as a member solo version, probably originally because she was composer and lyricist for it: Baek Yebin. The other lyricist is Ki Huihyeon, also a member of the group. The only things they've been involve in have been their solo stuff or their group stuff.

Hey, so when was the last time you heard a harmonica in a K-Pop song? Because I'm not sure I have yet (if you know of others, please leave a comment, y'all do not know how much I love harmonicas).

I had the mental equivalent of slamming the yes button on The Voice almost as soon as this song started, and if this was for a regular review, I'd have thrown it into the yearly playlist of songs that I loved just as quickly. As it is, it has now been added to not just The Jams playlist, but also My Faves and The Soothes. I really like either very short playlist names or like I'm titling a song for Fall Out Boy. 

We'll come back to the harmonica in a moment, because otherwise, I'll spend my entire time talking about it.

Picture this. It's been a long day. Things haven't gone your way. Maybe there was a cloudburst at noon that you got caught in. Maybe you snagged your shirt on a branch because the tree decided to attack you. And now it's late, dinner is cooking on the fire (and you're choking occasionally when the breeze pushes the smoke in your direction so you're trying to talk with watery eyes and knowing you're never going to get the smell out of your hoody), and someone pulls out a guitar and someone else pulls out a harmonica.

That is the essence of this song, combined with the emotional weight of the lyrics that allow for a sense of catharsis in the group experience. There is no place for idealism and rose tinted glasses here, but there is a space for comfort after a long, emotional day where things haven't happened as you want them to. It's a song that's saying "I feel this way, and I don't need to feel better about it," which is a form of comfort because acknowledging the weight relieves it, as does sharing that weight. 

"We'll cry together," the song says. 

As a b-side, this song is allowed to be beautiful and quiet and still without the need for spectacle that is required of the title tracks, and that is why I have this segment instead of just talking about the title tracks. Look how beautiful this one is. 

And I don't know about y'all, but a harmonica, when it's played for a song while not in the role of a dancing song (especially line dances), gives the song such a lonesome feel. Ignoring the way my soul resonates with harmonicas for some unknown reason (definitely not unknown; I was raised on country music, remember?), the harmonica is one of those instruments that's really easy for you to bring with you out into the middle of nowhere to play at a campfire, a lot easier than a guitar, anyway.

The rapping is soft and heartfelt. The vocals are simple and pure. Well done, Yebin and Huihyeon. Well done. You two wrote a lovely song.

Is this the first busking performance I've shared for one of these posts? I think it is!

I know you can't see how high my eyebrows just went up my forehead, but one of them is actually playing the harmonica!

If they're playing the instruments live, I'm willing to believe that their vocals are live, and if their vocals are live, they sound so gorgeous. We've got some lovely, lovely vibrato, but honestly, that pales in comparison to the chorus when they're all singing together, or mostly all singing together. Again, this is a singing-around-a-campfire song. 

It's a really cute moment at 2:42 when she bangs on air drums with the beat of the guitar. It's very cute and I like that little wiggle of enjoyment. 

And at 3:10, that member doesn't require subtitles to see her delight when the kid goes over to the guitar. And you can literally see her thinking "I can't. I have to stay put," because she twitches to go over, then steps back behind the harmonica player. Of course, less than five seconds later, she's going over to the kid.

The only one who doesn't migrate over to the kid is the harmonica player, and then once the song ends, they're all cooing over him before they send him back to parent or older sibling or whoever was in charge of him. 

You know what? It's actually pretty amazing that we've got performances of this song. It's always an uncertainty with b-sides. But, man, V-Live was such a rich archive of randomness back in the day. It's a bit of a shame it's not around anymore.

Ignoring the audio quality of the ten-year-old V-Live, this is what DIA would have been like as a band, with the addition of some other musicians to help round out the sound. It's a very nice little performance, and I'm glad I found it.

And last but not least the official performance for the album's release, with the harmonica being played live!

At 1:42, we've got some singing along when it isn't her part. The enjoyment is what we're looking for, and even though this isn't a big song, I love that we're still getting that. And for the record, my cat came and tried to lay on my keyboard while I was watching this one. So although I don't have a lot to say about it, other than it's just so soothing, PJ does by his purring and his attempts to literally get as close to their voices as he could.

Which is funny because he's not the cat that normally likes vocals like this. Normally he prefers heavier rapping and louder music (Stray Kids and BTS seem to be his favorite), so this song won even him over.

Thanks for reading, everyone! I hope that if you also came and discovered with me that you also enjoyed the song, and if you already knew about it, I hope you enjoyed this on that end of things. It's such a pretty song, and like I said earlier, it's already been added to a few playlists. I'm very pleased with April for giving this song to me. 

If you've got a song you'd like me to cover, I'd love to have you tell me! Let me know either via comment or by using The Form. Either way will work. See you next time!

Previous: "Ghost" by Baekhyun (EXO)                                                            Next: "Love Shot" by EXO