“My heart won’t stop racing. What should I do?”
Every person has a memory that sticks to them, like a movie they can replay in their heads at will. My life then, my friends… my memories of those simple days were blurry like shadows in the water. But there was something that happened one day, which I remember clearly like it was yesterday.
The very first highlight of my life took place in my brother’s room. This experience is probably the reason why I like to secretly hide in TOP hyung’s room nowadays.
The cassette tape player placed on my brother’s table was his most prized possession. To the six-year-old me, this was a doorway to figuratively traveling all over the world. Being five years older than me, my brother was already in the upper levels of grade school then. He was very interested in music and had very high standards in selecting his music. He is currently studying musicals. He had a special relationship with music ever since he was little, wearing his earphones every day, bobbing his head and tapping his feet. This made me even more curious about the music he was listening to.
One day, I secretly borrowed my brother’s cassette tape player while he was sleeping. For a moment I just froze there as I listened to Michael Jackson, bringing me into the world of black music, and to the revolutionary Seo Taiji and Boys, enlightening me. For someone who was supposed to be listening to children’s music at that age, I was completely moved and taken over by the beat and the feeling.
Naturally, I followed my brother in terms of my musical taste. I remember my sunbaes telling me stories about how they listened to Guns N’ Roses or Deep Purple music because of their hyungs in senior high school or in college, and how this awakened their instinct for rock and roll and heavy metal. I guess it’s the same for me.
After that I would often listen to music all night long until the sun came up. In the daytime, my brother would monopolize the cassette tape player, so I could only self-study at night. I didn’t understand English so I had no idea what the lyrics meant. Occasionally I would write down the rap lyrics based on what they sounded like in Korean, under the light of the reading lamp, so that I could sing along to the songs. I was afraid someone would hear me or the music so I often hid under my blankets.
Currently, I still like R&B, Soul, Pop, Rock and Roll, and Hip-hop music from artists like Brian Mcknight, R.Kelly… I studied different aspects of music. I must have listened to Stevie Wonder and Boyz II Men’s music repeatedly hundreds of times, to the point that the cassette tapes had to be replaced.
At that time, the thought of becoming a singer didn’t once cross my mind. But I felt then that music must comprise half of my DNA.
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Translator’s Note: This is Part Two of Taeyang’s Shouting Out to the World, a translation from the Chinese translation of Shouting Out to the World by Big Bang China. This is merely a fan translation and is not affiliated with YG Entertainment or the publisher Sam and Parkers. This should only be for the fans’ personal use and should not be reproduced, modified, redistributed for any commercial purposes. Please do not take out/repost elsewhere without the translator’s explicit permission.
HOW CUUTE...OMG...OUR SUNSHINE'S STORY IS SO TOUCHING!! HE STUDIED UNDER HIS BLANKETS BECAUSE HE DIDN'T WANT ANYONE TO LISTEN TO HIM?!? HOW CUTE CAN THIS PERSON BE? HE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND ENGLISH OMO!!!!WA...WE HAVE TO REREAD THIS FOR A FEW MORE TIMES!!! OUR ANGEL!!!
TAEYANG always VIP*.*
Great views on that!
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