Battle of the B-Sides:: god: Sing For Me (feat. IU)

 This is going to be an eclectic mix of songs this month. I asked my best friend from middle school to give me a song for this month back in May, I think, and she finally decided on a song in October. This isn't that one. I just want y'all to know that you're going to be getting a lot of songs I just feel like doing and after October, I'm launching y'all into November with a song I love so much. Every time I see either god or IU's names I start singing the beginning of this song. It's fully a vocal stim for me, but it's one of my favorite openings to a song, K-Pop or otherwise. Normally, I'd say something like "I'm pretty sure most of y'all have never heard of them" except god has popped up twice in my monthly recaps for songs I was listening to a lot of that month and they were at KCon LA 2024. Oh, and by the way, you pronounce the group's name as "G-O-D," but you'll learn that from this song. 

god debuted in 1999 as a five-member group under SidusHQ. They were JYPapi's first group, which is a little amusing because the leader is older than him, and also the first group produced by Hitman Bang. This group is the reason why an idol being in a relationship is not automatic grounds for being removed from the group, and they're also the first National Idol group. If you're not in South Korea, I think it's easy to ignore how monumental they were and are, and how insanely popular they still are despite the fact that they debuted before entire fourth gen groups were born. They have the most number of number ones on music shows for a first gen group and are in at least the top twenty for most number of number ones ever. They were also the first group to commemorate their 10,000th day with a concert. 

Sing For Me was released as the ninth track of their 8th full album, Chapter 8, released in 2014 and actually got a daesang for best album that year. Soul Twins (Sirius, Joker, Lee Hyoseok, Martian, Han Suji, Jang Hyoseok, Seo Moon Tak, Girls' Generation, and possibly others) and Duble Sidekick (Sistar, MOMOLAND, JBJ, Girl's Day, GFRIEND, ASTRO, MAMAMOO, NATURE, KARA, Gummy, Ailee, Turbo, CLC, VIVIZ, BAE173, TFN, Psy, Bumkey, Chen, T-ARA, Secret, UKISS, Shannon, I.O.I, LABOUM, Lee Seung Gi, NU'EST (!!!!), BESTie, Jeong Sewoon, MBLAQ, Davichi, 2PM (!!!), SKYE, APINK, MAMAMOO, DIA, Uni.T, n.SSign, Kyuhyun, ZE:A, CLC, XIA, Boys Republic, MAP6, SPEED, UNB, F-ve Dolls, VARSITY, B.A.P, K.Will, G.NA, Sunny Girls, D-Crunch, Jewelry, Dalmation, WSG WANNABE, and Nine Girls) were both lyricists and composers for the song. I had to dig through KOMCA for information on Soul Twins, one of whom is one of the members, which is why that one is so short because my Korean is not good enough for KOMCA yet. Taewoo the maknae is the member that's apparently part of Soul Twins. Referring to someone who is in his mid-forties as the maknae feels odd, but despite the twenty-seven years since their debut and their ages, Taewoo is still the youngest.

"G-O-D"

"IU"

"Collaboration"

Congratulations, you have now been introduced to an absolutely amazing introduction of a song. Of course, the ending of the song is also absolutely incredible because this sounds like they were all in the sound booth together, which happens so rarely anymore. These days, for the best conditions (and this also happens with voice actor recording as well), the recording is done solo, or maybe in pairs if that's what the project will support, but that also means that we don't get fun "bloopers" or interactions in the booth like what we have here. That is a grown man squealing over IU there and it is the funniest thing that makes me laugh literally every time I listen to this. 

IU is such a huge fan of them though that they approached her specifically for this song. I'm actually really grateful for that because this song delightfully is one of the most fun songs, without being campy, that I've heard in K-Pop so far. It's also slow enough and they have clear enough pronunciation that most of it is easy enough for someone whose tongue is less familiar with the Korean language (like mine) to be able to sing along fairly quickly, and that's without having an overabundance of repetition because even in spots where things do repeat, like at the L-O-V-E part at :42 and at 1:43, there are some slight variations, which also makes it fun to sing and perform on their end, and also just fun to listen to. I find it very cool that those parts are almost exactly a minute apart. Very satisfying songwriting.

And one of the coolest things about this song is that we switch genres there at the end as well. We've got a gospel keyboard going on with an acoustic guitar while they're scatting like this is a New Orleans jazz song. All that's really missing from the entire song is a sassy clarinet or saxophone. Instead, we get quite the energetic piano with a steady drum to just gently provide support underneath everything. 

That does mean it's got this old choir style that I'm very, very fond of, and that's not even counting how amazing this combination of voices is, but nowhere is that more obvious than at 3:06 when we have all five members of god singing (even leader and rapper Joon) while IU gets the classic choir position of the soprano with a descant. Those aren't ad-libs. That is a proper descant.

And now for the lyrics. I found a link that includes the ending bit so you can read the lyrics here (I had to run a bunch of it through Papago; also the credits list is different than on Namu Wiki so I don't even know anymore) and there are very few color-coded lyrics options for this song, so I'm having to use this video (thank you KSECTOR LYRICS for doing this, even though the song was seven years old when you did this!) for who is singing when.

I love the playful interplay between Danny and IU, and his line where he's like "Look, I used to have acne on top of my acne" just makes me laugh. Obviously, they're very concerned with maintaining their idol image. Also, where he's like "Please just call me Danny, don't call me sunbae." The actual lyrics of this song are just a conversation in spots between god and IU, and I love that. This song literally could only have been made by these six. I also really like where Hoyoung makes the comment about "I remember when I was twenty-one", which was back around when he debuted regardless of whether we're talking about his international age or his Korean age. 

I also really like the tossing the ball back and forth, so to speak, between Joon and Kyesang and then when they rap together, it's so nice. This is just a fun song. 

This has actually been performed live, albeit without IU. You're going to get two different fancams from, I think, the same concert, (possibly? or possibly not because I'm not sure that Kyesang is wearing the same top) (note: same concert, different days, the last person's fancam of it is here and I highly recommend you watch both because you get better close-ups of the goofballs) but they're in two very different styles and perspectives.

So, what this person did is with the IU parts (that the fans were singing because if you notice the lyrics on the screens, the god parts are in white lyrics and the IU and thus the fan parts are in blue, is some parts of the video) is they spliced the concert audio with the official audio for IU. 

And Hoyoung is conducting and at :20, he seems so utterly delighted when he pulls out those in-ears to hear the fans sing. He is hyping their fans up like he's at their concert. And Taewoo at 3:22 is like "Let me hear y'all!" but by holding his hand to his ear instead of actually saying it. And Joon at 2:13 giving a "Wow" and the thumbs up of approval is a bit like getting approval from your dad (he's actually just about my mom's age, so that's an apt comparison). The members are just vibing for the most part and enjoying the fans enjoying the song.

And for most of this song, Joon and Danny only have one in-ear in.

As a side note, do y'all know what the god light stick looks like? I'll probably bring it up at a later date because they've released like five songs about them or the fandom color and one of those got a music video, but back before we had light sticks, fans used to use balloons in the respective fandom colors (and fights used to break out over if a balloon was the correct shade of yellow, for instance, which I think is why there's still some lingering tension over bringing another artist's light stick to a concert, even though most of the artists these days don't care and actually seem to enjoy seeing different light sticks). Which is why god's light stick is in the form of a sky blue balloon. Which means that even in the era of the light stick, they're still holding onto those roots, and the fans are still waving sky blue balloons.

That's so sentimental. I love it. And this fancam has such a good vantage to see the members' movements and the synchronized light stick movements in the crowd. Ignoring, for a moment, the massive amounts of stage presence this group has that smacks you in the face even when they're just wandering about on stage, I'm kind of jealous that I wasn't there because there's something really special about going to concerts where people have been fans of the artists for over twenty years. Even when they're hyped up, there's a comfortable ease there. There is literally nothing for these fans to prove other than "I'm still here for you".

You know what? Ignore what I said earlier. I'm going to pile in as many of the fancams as I can because I'm starting to get emotional hearing the fans sing to them and seeing how happy the members are from as many perspectives as I am currently doing for this post. Plus, this one gets a lot of Joon and I've got a soft spot for him. This also has quite a bit of Kyesang, who is literally doing the beat at 3:22 for the fans.

He's incredibly quiet, but he still smiles at 3:38 when the fans hit the high note.

Also Hoyoung spends a lot of the song singing all the parts with his mic nowhere near his face. He's really just enjoying himself.

And they apparently weren't expecting the fans to be that good at singing the song.

This one also includes the playing at the end of the concert when we have Hoyoung and Taewoo playing with the fans and getting them to sing for them again.

This was the Busan concert. (This person also uploaded a fancam of the December 7th concert, which you can find here).

I am pretty sure that this person recorded this video with their own eyes because that is some incredibly clear picture quality.

Also, I feel like I need to say it but I'm not going to dig through for proof, but those mics are obviously live and this is live singing. The only time that we might get some proper lip syncing from them might be Kyesang at :46, who is making Hoyoung laugh with whatever it is that he's doing, which could be lip syncing because he's very animated right there, more than he is when he's actually rapping, but he's got his mic down low enough that it probably wouldn't pick him up too much if he was actually making sounds. I don't know. All I know is he's being a little bit of a dork, I say with love, and he's making the second youngest member laugh with his antics.

Hoyoung pulls out both of those in-ears for the scatting part at 3:34 and then proceeds to dance about with his in-ears bouncing to hide inside his obviously shirtless jacket. I kind of wish that the video showed his feet so I could take a look at the footwork, but it's fine.

This was also how I found out that the grown man squealing over IU was the quiet Kyesang, who is suddenly very loud at 4:07, much to the delight of Danny and Hoyoung, who are nearly falling over and falling into him because they're laughing so hard. And then after the fans chant his name, and the drummer picks up the rhythm as well, he gets all squealy again at 4:31 and then just laughs afterward.

IU may have been at the concert, judging by Hoyoung and Joon at 5:01. Which is just a little bit funny and I hope she was as impressed with their fans as they were.

And this was actually not the last time they've performed this song! Remember how I mentioned that they were the first K-Pop group to celebrate their 10,000th day with a concert?

They performed it there. 

This was a Hoyoung focused fancam, and I don't often include single-member focused fancams, but 1) the man looks quite good for his age, 2) he pulls his in-ears out as early as :31, and 3) he is a singular delight to watch just vibe to a song.

Both those in-ears are out by 1:01. He sings along to nearly the whole song and he smiles like smiling is his job and he fully believes in the adage "If you love your job, you'll never work a day in your life." 

And his cute little dancing at 3:56, which feels a little bit like he just couldn't help but start to dance, is adorable. As is Joon doing very similar cute little dancing as they pass each other.

Hold up. Was this the song they closed that concert with?

Ugh, I can't find anyone who posted the setlist. But they're acting like it with all the "Thank you"s that they're doing at the end and the fact that they're walking off the stage.

Okay. Can we take a moment to be just so soft over the fact that this group chose for their last song on a concert to dedicate to their 10,000th day since debut back in 1999 a song that they now sing as a duet with the fans? That's so sweet. I love this song just a little bit more now.

Welcome to November, where I don't think anyone is going to be able to predict what songs I'm going to do. The range is going to be real. 

I'm looking for some songs to do in January and start off 2027 with, or February. So, if your bias has a birthday in January or February, or if a group you love has a debut anniversary in January or February, give me a song to do for them. Or even December. That might be nice for December too. I've got a couple of days I haven't decided on a song for yet. So if you've got a song for me, don't be shy and drop a comment. Or you can always use The Form, if you are too shy to leave the comment. 

Bye, Champions! Farewell! I'll see y'all later!

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