#4: Seasons of Blossom: Gaeul's Flower

Behind my most cherished playlist to date

Playlist making has always been a hobby of mine - I love music, and can’t imagine a day without it. I wanted to work in the music industry at some point (mostly just in Korea, for it’s no secret that I love K-pop) - but after meeting proper musicians and music lovers at SOAS (many a friends I’ve made), I realised I do not share the same level of passion and commitment that they live their own lives with. It was a humbling experience, and one that sort of plunged me into an existential crisis for a while, as I began to re-examine my relationship to music.

If anything, I learned that I’m not that motivated to actually be in the industry - but maybe write about it, and get to go to concerts for free (my life’s purpose, if we’re being 100000% honest). Some things are best kept as hobbies, things we do for ourselves and for fun, and I think at the moment music is just that. Whether it transpires into something more, time will only tell.

For a long time, this hobby culminated itself mostly in playlist-making, an aspect of curation I have come to seriously enjoy. The playlist I’ve put the most effort in curating, to date, is a playlist I made for readers of the South Korean webtoon, Seasons of Blossom, to listen to as the story unfolds from one ‘episode’ to the next. (You can find the whole story here in English).

As its title suggests, SoB is a story about youth amidst all its different seasons, and my favourite one so far was about autumn (being an autumn girl myself): Seasons of Blossom - Gaeul’s Flower. Ga-eul translates to “autumn” in Korean, and chronicles the energy this particular season brings in its story about its eponymous heroine Gaeul, who has to confront her torrid past in order to move on with her life as an adult woman. And so comes the notion that autumn is one of change, harsh truths, bittersweet feelings, filled with smoky horizons you have to find yourself out of. There’s a lot of Korean artists on this playlist as it is a fundamentally Korean story, and there is a specificity in the way Korean artists incorporate the mood of the four seasons in their songs, which I wanted to give credence to as you read the story, and experience the seasons come and go in all their cruel beauty.

I loved this story/season so much, being the same age as our protagonist when it was first released, and amidst all the seasons (the reading order goes Spring → Summer → Autumn → Winter), I related to this one the most, even though all the stories are highly relatable, expertly written and drawn to boot. I somehow found the perfect opening track to this story in ‘Golden’ by Harry Styles. Sometime in the fall of 2022, I was listening to this song under a tree with falling leaves and a gentle breeze, and it only reaffirmed how perfectly the song captures the incoming autumn season.

A key element of the story was Gaeul’s relationships, with herself and her love interest, Subin. There’s also a SIDE-B plot following Subin’s younger sister and her romantic life, so in the playlist are some traces of teen angst - a la the edgy sounds and lyricism of Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish and Lorde. BANKS and Taeyeon feature heavily as well, as my go-to artists for “stormy” female-focused tracks, that bemoan lost relationships and trace the feeling of falling in/out of love supremely well.

Gaeul and Subin from Seasons of Blossom by Hongduck and Nemone, on Naver Webtoon

Gaeul and Subin’s relationship goes through some serious ups and downs; it’s fun, it’s flirty, yet it is also angsty and somewhat tragic. When the plot reaches its climax, I threw in some of my favourite artists into the mix, and love how seamlessly one track blends into another as you watch their respective worlds crash and burn: you’ve got the DPR Collective, Cigarettes After Sex, Clairo, and RIO. RIO is a very special artist, and was the face of the soundtrack for the webtoon-turned-Korean drama Nevertheless, and has a wonderful discography that captures the timeless feeling of heartbreak, as if experienced in a jazzy cafe from the 1920s.

Tracks 46-55 were made after the ‘autumn’ part of SoB concluded. Yet, we still see Subin in the subsequent ‘winter’ season, and glimpses of Gaeul, so these songs were added in to capture both of their journeys and feelings in having met one another. My personal standout track is ‘Youth’ by KIHYUN, and this particular line at the end captures the feelings of your early adulthood (or ‘kidult’ period) really well:

I remember when I felt anxious when I was young
The night that I spent awakened, feeling frightened
Wish I could tell myself at that time
That I was already doing well.

Finally, in the end, we have a new discovery of mine, which ended up becoming one of my most played songs in 2023: ‘iloveyou’ by betweenfriends - its lo-fi rawness the perfect soundtrack against the rollercoaster that is your 20s. I conclude the playlist with ‘Gravity’ by my all-time favourite singer, Taeyeon. This song comes from her 2nd full album, Purpose, which remains one of my most highly-rated albums of all time. I got chills when I first heard this title and track, because what is gravity in life and love, and how does it and the people we come across alter our sense of being?

To end, I’ll leave you with these words from ‘Gravity’:

Past the painful times
I finally found my place
Hold me even tighter
For me, who was in danger, you are gravity

Still from TAEYEON 태연 'Purpose' Highlight Clip #1 Gravity, Taeyeon (Credit)

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This was a new kind of post, and I hope you enjoyed it! This playlist is very special to me, which made it really fun to write about, as I pondered each song’s relation to Gaeul’s story, and the philosophical questions it prompted me to consider in this fine intersection of art, literature, music, lyricism, and philosophy.