MOTS: Persona Behind Video - Study Guide

#ARMYStudyGuides are designed to highlight some important information in videos and other sources for fans and researchers to have easy access to information of interest. ARMY Study Guides are summaries, but I hope they will help you find the information you’re looking for. Direct quotes are in quotation marks, the rest is paraphrased, and anything in brackets [ ] are my notes. Click here for the full MOTS: Persona behind video.

Namjoon emphasizes that this is a "personal" behind-the-scenes and as such will include personal thoughts and interpretations of what he's talking about (as in, what he says may not be "correct," but he's speaking as a person who was involved). 

Namjoon wrote more lyrics for this album than any other so far (at this point in time). He estimates he wrote 80-90%, except for Yoongi and Hoseok's parts. 

When talking about personas, Namjoon says: "For me, the persona is the social self. It represents our social mask. A mask could be either good or bad. It is what we present to the outside world as we lead our social and economic life." [Note: This is directly from Jung's idea of the persona--a social mask.]

"So why did we choose persona?" 

Namjoon says that he didn't have it all planned from the start. He mentions that the "Love Yourself" theme became "too grand," and even though "love yourself" is still his life's motto, he searched internally for what they would talk about next. Because "love yourself" became too big, he though they should focus on smaller things. He says: "So I looked into myself. I came back to my inner self. We decided that it was time to find and know ourselves. Instead of grand things, maybe it's time to talk about the smaller things." 

"So how does this connect back to the fans?"

Namjoon said the album was supposed to be for the fans, and explains how this connects together even though the theme of persona is their social masks. He says his persona is RM or BTS. "But the mask and persona itself is ARMY. BTS = ARMY, ARMY = BTS. RM = ARMY. There's something I got through the persona, or the mask. To talk about all the shadows and the good things I've gained, I couldn't help but talk about ARMY." He says that all of the tracks except for "Intro: Persona" and "Dionysus" are their tribute to the fans. He notes the lyrics came organically to him because they are "the most honest things I could say to those I'm thankful to." 

He goes on to say in an era where many people just listen to the music rather than the lyrics, he wanted to go against that trend. Because he originally wanted to be a poet or a writer, the beauty of the lyrics was more important than focusing on making music with good vibes/melody. "The lyrics on this album are more important than any other album." 

He then goes into the track-by-track talk. 

Intro: Persona

Namjoon mentions that it was difficult, but he wanted to fill the entire thing with rap, in a style closer to "What Am I To You?" (as in, older style rather than his more calm style in mono). It's a simple track that depended on the charisma of the performer, so he was under a lot of pressure. He recorded it five times but ended up going with the first recording. 

A Poem for the Small Things

Namjoon says the title was "Boy with Luv" from the start, but he thought that title might be empty to some people, so he liked "A Poem for the Small Things." He thought having both of them together correctly conveyed the message of the song. The staccato notes in the song tripped him up because it was hard to add Korean lyrics to notes like that. He says that only ARMY can understand "I'm flying high in the sky with the two wings you gave me back then" [because he's making reference to how ARMYs gave BTS wings earlier on in their career]. He mentions helping Hoseok fix his rap part and shares a recording of himself rapping it in one of the tracks. Another potential title for this track was "The World of You." 

Mikrokosmos 

He starts off this part by talking about how the song would be "the best of the night" if they performed it live at a concert. The Korean title was added thanks to the other members. "This song means that everyone of us is like the universe," he says. He also mentions that when he worked on the song, he imagined a visual of stars shining within a human body [this makes sense with the Korean title "small universe" and how that plays into the lyrics of everyone containing a universe of stars]. 

Make It Right

Namjoon says there were Korean lyrics for the English parts of the song, but Ed Sheeran (who wrote the song) wanted to keep some of the English. There was an image he had in mind while working on this song of a cowboy wandering in the desert and the sea, "he wanders in the desert to cross the sea to go back to you." The song was meant to be a vocal line song, but Ed Sheeran wanted them all to sing it together, sort of like the feeling of "Spring Day." 

Home

Namjoon describes it as an "old-school" song that sounds like the music he heard while growing up. He also mentions that when they write songs, the lyrics, melody, and sometimes beats are "made by competitions" and the producers take the best of each no matter who made it. The guide version of the song had a melody that was hard to match with lyrics, since "home" and "house" were keywords for the song. It didn't work in English or Korean, so they ended up using "mi casa" because it fit better. He said that "home" means the fans, so wherever in the world fans are, that's their home. Outlining the structure of the album, saying the songs are in this order for a reason, he says: "We start thinking from 'Persona' and realize that we should focus on small things. So, we talk about small things and love around them. Since we talk about love and small things, we realize that each one of us is like a micro cosmos, made of small things. We realize that. However, this micro cosmos wasn't welcomed outside. Later, we realize that the place where we should go is the place where you are, it's home. It's the place where you, the micro cosmos, are. That's the story of this album." 

Jamais Vu

Namjoon says they started making this song with the theme of "game." He likens it to an RPG game where your character dies and you have to restart without the things you had. The narrator is going through the game with the person, but they keep "dying." He wanted to convey a feeling of emptiness. 

Dionysus

Namjoon states his personal thoughts on the song: "The one who was wondering to find himself with 'Persona' became 'Dionysus.' I personally believe that the person realized he is Dionysus." He mentions that he was exhausted from working on other songs, so Hoseok helped out a lot on this track. 

Other Notes

As he starts to wrap up the video, he says, "This album is entirely for you [the fans]. Please keep it like a gift." As well as: "Thank you for listening and enjoying this album. It's pointless to work hard if there's no one who appreciates it. Thank you for listening to it. Thank you for the good records, my friends told me about them." He then thanks fans for getting them to the top 10 on Billboard (they placed 8th). He ends the session by saying “Like I always say, I won’t take it for granted” and that he will continue to pay fans back for their love. The video ends with him answering 10 fan-submitted questions.