How do you remind yourself that life is worth living?
You listen to songs like Our Summer, which is one of my favorite songs ever. It makes me yearn for something ethereal. It makes me want to stay in the moment.
It is a memento vitae (Latin for “remember that you live”), something that reminds you that you are still alive.
Despite its EDM genre, Our Summer is just as good as an unplugged acoustic or an a cappella song. This means Our Summer is not defined by its genre, but by its message.
What do you feel when you listen to Our Summer? I will tell you mine and you can tell me yours! You can message @moament034, comment below, and share with your friends.
Special thanks to @TranslateTXT for the English lyrics and for being the pillar of Moaville. The translation captured the little fluttering moments of youth without cringe or redundancy.
Also thanks to @txtlyricism for featuring the song back in October 2021’s #MOAMusicMonday. Thanks to songwriters Adora, Hitman Bang, The Futuristics, Delacey, Jesse St John, and Shae Jacobs.
Today’s essay is slightly different from our analysis on Ghosting. I wrote this a long time ago, so much of the essay is written as a direct response to the lyrics in the perspective of a fictional narrator. I don’t plan to rewrite much, because it captures my state of mind just as Our Summer captures Tomorrow X Together’s debut days.
I have decided to slowly write in-depth about TXT lyrics. Most analysis will be on individual songs. Later songs will contain more layers, since they’re based on earlier discography. If certain pattern and commonality exists, I will single them out too. Let’s see how that goes!
This essay (3k words or 10 minute read) includes the following:
Direct response to the lyrics as a fictional “I”.
Michael’s personal thoughts on the song.
TXT perspective.
Themes, motifs, and other fancy stuff.
Responses from MOAs, resources, etc.
Enjoy the official music video below! The boys made it a selfie version.
Under the blazing sun, it’s sticky
It’s melting, the grey-colored forest of buildings
The never-ending final exam
Tossing and turning, the sleepless noise of the ashy city
Look at the restless energy of youth tossing and turning, because summer is getting near. So much excitement is brewing.
Musically, the beat is in steady fours and has a slight shuffle (like 1-2-345) near the end of each phrase, as if to emulate heartbeats that are getting excited for the promised summer with that promised someone.
Finish all the exams and now I am free! Well, not completely... Cram schools, part-time jobs, or just day-to-day boredom all make summer days not as fun as the rosy view. Even characters in anime often have boring summers, so they look forward to that special trip. But at least I will have some moments to remember: time spent with friends, desserts eaten, movies and TV shows watched, etc. Being immersed in boredom makes special moments even more special.
Summer is still part of life. Oh well, you win some and you lose some.
But what truly makes summer great to us is a sense of freedom without responsibility looming in the back. To many adults, summer is extra torment with the horrible heat and work. To us, it’s the promised land after dreaded schooling.
The concrete jungle city runs against our sense of freedom, but who cares about how hot and sticky it is outside, when I can be indoors with air conditioner and cold drinks!
The illusion of you that appeared in an instant
Shines bright like magic
The sound of breaking waves
Your smile when your hand reaches out to mine
Mirages are miraculous because they are both real and fake. Thinking of you in an instant is not too shabby for not having you around. You are bright like magic, since anything about you makes me smile.
What does it feel like to have someone constantly on your mind? If only if I have twenty pages of space to pour my emotions out!
Going to the beach is never a small event. Remembering the moment you turned around, gave me your hand, and pulled me closer to the waves, I could not stop smiling like an idiot. The sense of hope and youthful longing (can I even call it love?) can melt me away any day.
The music of this verse is building up towards the chorus, with keyboard harmonization (and no drum beats until “the sound of breaking waves) making the moment seem even more symbolically significant. We know by the end, something big is going to happen.
What unfolds in front of my eyes
Is the milky light in the galaxy
The golden season bloomed
Like our summer
No matter where I am
No matter what season it is
If we’re together
Feel like summer
And here it is, the golden chorus. Starting with the classic rock drum transition (dun-dun-dun), the electric drum set has the constant high hats and bass drum, which create a steady pace that seems to capture the moment.
Summer means escape. Summer means memories. Summer means forever. It's golden and forever golden. We stay gold in summer (S.E. Hinton's Outsiders).
The milky light is both in the galaxy and in your eyes. Think about the beautiful webtoon Love Is Cherry Pink. This feeling of tender lightness is fizzy like lime soda. I can never get enough of it.
No matter what, I'm never forgetting this feeling. It's not just romance. It's pure elation. At the end of the day, you are the reason I feel that way. Just like the galaxy out there, there is nothing I cannot do with you together with me.
Your refreshing scent, your sparkling eyes
Make my heart sway
Reality loses its strength, even the world holds its breath
This moment becomes eternity
My love for you and this sense of elation are all that's driving me forward and nuts at the same time. The faint but nice smell of your soap (or is it detergent?) lingers in on my fingers and on my mind. I love your sparkly eyes that are keen to curl into crescents and open wide when you discover wonders in tiny things.
The music reverts back to the spaced-out drum beat, because recounting your features makes my heart beat so strong, everyone in the room can hear me.
Of course reality would lose its strength. Why would the world not hold its breath when everything in my life is only about you? Hell, it’s not cheesy. It's eternal. It's just what it is. Even Shakespeare acknowledges that, right?
Under the hot sun, you and I now become ‘us’
Above the grey-colored city, the blue waves spill over
Us. What a beautiful world. What a loaded word.
What does it take for two people to come together and be greater than the sum of their individual parts? With the blessing of the sun, we collide our personalities, sense of joy, and all the happy moments we each carry and share together. Is it a moment of Icarus, or have we flew past the pinnacle of Greek tragedy?
You decide.
Now we are higher than the skyscrapers in this depressing city. We are at peace with all the sorrows in this world. We are forever calmed by the blue ocean waves. We will let the waves wash over ourselves to stay cool, jubilant, and bubbly. Sure, it sounds like a bunch of meaningless symbols and motifs, but who says we are wrong?!
The electric keyboard is slowly building up tension, with the revert track getting louder and louder to create a gust of wind blowing through as to help us soar in the sky.
What unfolds in front of my eyes
Is the milky light in the galaxy
The golden season bloomed
Like our summer
No matter where I am
No matter what season it is
If we’re together
Feel like summer
And ta-da, the drum transition again to our golden chorus. Second time is the charm. It drives the nail deeper.
But here is the thing. You may not be here with me in the future. That's why I remember you and all the moments I spent with you. I just have this longing sense that we can always go back to the old days even after we part our ways. At the same time, it's a promise I make you (and hope you can give me in return).
So this heartbeat is not just how I'm feeling in the past or even right now. It's how I want to feel in the future, when it comes to you. The synthesizers are mimicking your whispers and the clear humming is waking me up from this daydream.
Even if autumn, winter, and spring come
If we’re together
Above the golden sand and the summer sea
The hot sun
A classic EDM beat (a string of thirty-second notes followed by eighth and sixteenth notes) means my heart is now beating irregularly. I seem to be deep in my thoughts and feelings. Softer harmonies in the background are perhaps my psyche consoling itself.
To heck with autumn, winter, and spring! They are lovely, sure, but being with you overrides any season I'm currently in. Autumn foliage, snow country, cherry blossoms, I don't care. We will always be free and happy together, even just the memories of you. You can always imagine me on the beach, wearing the light-washed jeans and white shirt with sleeves rolled-up. I will always remember you in your white dress and beige hat with that lovely hummingbird pin. (Or whatever images I happen to burn into my soul depending on our appearances)
Summer is where it's at because you are in my summer. We are together and that's all that matters.
It’s our summer.
Within it, the promise of eternity shines brightly
If I imagine it, if I keep believing, you’re there
Now you are no longer with me, but I promised you and you promised me. Our promise lasts to eternity. It will be the guiding light in my life, my true north star, my Polaris. No matter where I am physically and mentally, you will always be there at the same place. All I have to do is to keep believing in it. Even during the darkest moments, I will reach for your fingertips and tremble when they brush against mine.
The slight change in shuffling beats seem to signal one last time of reminiscing.
What unfolds in front of my eyes
Is the milky light in the galaxy
The golden season bloomed
Like our summer
No matter where I am
No matter what season it is
If we’re together
Feel like summer
Third time is the charm, or shall I say the curse? With the vocals lifting higher and higher, the synthesizers getting stronger and stronger, my memories seem to be set in stone instead of being constantly overwritten with real memories of you, until it slowly fades away.
And sudden silence for five seconds. You are gone.
But every summer is still our summer. Right??
Whew. It's so difficult to express the thoughts of a helpless romantic! You can treat the previous section as a cheesy plot in a rom-com drama.
Our Summer is actually the first song that got me interested in TXT right after the debut. Sure, the entire album is refreshing and unique, but something about this "expected” EDM song different. I’m an admirer of Taylor Swift’s All Too Well for the same reason.
There must be a story behind the lyrics.
I know the background to Swift’s song, but I don’t know what happened to the songwriter(s). Did Adora have something going on? Or Hitman Bang (who is honestly a romantic who looks like a benevolent uncle)? Or the other writers (though I don’t know how much they contributed)?
I find the lyrics delightful because you can read it three ways. In the past, in the present, and in the future. It can be remembering that past memory. It can be cherishing the present moment. It can also be reserving another chance to live through this experience again or even being reunited with that special you. Or perhaps all three are happening... Since the promise is till eternity and you are as captivating as the galaxy, there is no reason to not believe in the power of such longing love. It reminds me of this fan-fiction, which goes in-depth to describe the process of longing for someone you love (please read at your own discretion, though I think it’s really good).
Our Summer elicits nostalgia, which is a different feeling for everyone. Mine involves the humid heat, air conditioning, iced watermelon, cicada chirps, anime and video games, reading books, and exploring my cities (Shanghai, Tokyo, and Los Angeles). These things are great, but what really powers the good feeling is knowing that there is nothing to worry about. The future is too far to think about. The past is already long gone. Let's just be happy where we are right now!
The caveat to all this wonder is that the summer will eventually end. I cannot remember any summer elations after 2017. Not coincidentally, that was when I had to face the world on my own in many ways (much more than just going to college). While I can never go back to youth as I'm forced to grow out of it, I will forever treasure the moments I had and remember how they felt.
It's a treasure that resides in each and every one of us.
And repeating this song many times somehow transports me back to time on an island, when I would walk along the beach at the end of each day, feeling the calm, letting the ocean wave nourish my soul, and feel slightly less depressed about the way the world seems to end. If it's coming to an end, the beach is not a bad place to be! And now two years later, I am happier than ever. Thanks to TXT and this song, I can find strength even during winter, spring, and autumn. I can remember all those little moments rather well...
I cannot not talk about TXT’s relationship to this song.
If I can ever ask the members a question about Our Summer, it will be if there is any special memory to the song.
Because it’s such a TXT song that TXT didn’t write. Given what we know now about their lyricism and sensibility, this song seems very much possible in their hands, right?
On the other hand, what if the members get another chance to write a song like this? Soobin will probably blow our mind with some heavy hitting words (like Suga did with Trivia: Seesaw). Yeonjun will probably make it as danceable as he can, strong beats and all that. Beomgyu will probably make it contrasting and multi-layered. Taehyun will probably turn it into an anthem of some sort. And Hueningkai will probably make it extra poppy and well, extra.
Watching the music video is another walk down the memory lane. They were all so young. Everyone has their bangs cover almost their entire forehead. Soobin had orange hair and more baby fat than now (and he grew taller too?). Yeonjun was still cute (instead of being 80% hot now), not yet flirty (at least on the outset). Beomgyu had his iconic blonde chestnut style. Taehyun hadn’t become everyone’s benchmark for boyfriend (all the qualities are already there though). And Hueningkai is still as cute as he was.
Now they’ve all grown up. And so have us.
Those were the happy times, perhaps a simpler time for TXT. Debut was really tough, but they were doing well as a rookie group. Their U.S. showcase was successful (and One Dream documents the whole journey beautifully). Their future trajectory is so full of promises. Everything seems to be on track and going well. In the video, they were having fun around Chicago, just enjoying each other’s presence on their day off. The cartwheels, the beach scribbling, the little games they play, all were so innocent and pure.
Then late 2019 and 2020 happened. Without going into the details, early 2019 became an anchor all members could never forget. Each additional year that is not “normal” (which will never be normal now) makes The Dream Chapter: Star era even more meaningful. It speaks volume when Soobin’s favorite song is still Our Summer. And MOAs have pointed our how We Lost The Summer is a follow-up to Our Summer. Perhaps antithesis is more appropriate, given how the two songs are so opposite in messaging.
There is also a certain theme in the song.
Boy and girl vs. the concrete jungle motif often exists in young-adult literature. If you think about it, stories take place in cities. Cities bring convenience and economic developments, but they also swallow the slow pace of the countryside (or a village by the ocean). In exchange for all modernity offers (e.g. video games, TikTok), kids must go to school and undergo the stressful arc that is called growing up. They go from carefree (full of sparkly eyes) to feeling weighed down (like those teenagers in K-drama Extracurricular).
Perhaps no story stresses this more than Neon Genesis Evangelion. You get this strange feeling watching the story, when all the skyscrapers get swallowed underground to make space for giant death robots to fight enemies to death. It is even more unsettling when you realize a group of fourteen-year-olds are the only ones who can run the last hope of humanity and doing so will make them lose their humanity and torture their psyches and bodies over and over again...
There are other elements and motifs to the song, but you can interpret them at your own pace. Think about seasonality, the infinite expanse of the universe, the concept of time and memory, the duality of the sun, woes of education, the forever serenity of water and the ocean, and most importantly, human emotions.
It’s time to share some resources on Our Summer.
First, Adora’s cover! She is one of the songwriters, so it’s super refreshing to get her take on this. I also can’t forget how Beomgyu mentioned his time with Adora and how intense he felt about recording the music.
Our friend @txtmvstills has a cute poster and a cafe remix for the song!
Parallels between Our Summer and Cat & Dog!
And here are three lovely comments from MOAs. You can search for more using this link (for #MOAMusicMonday) and this one (for all tweets).
I hope you enjoy reading this essay on Our Summer! It's been three years since this song. I find the original cover, the acoustic mix, and the selfie cam super excellent. It may be one of the best future nostalgia songs of all time.
Let’s end with a nice performance in the LA showcase (man it’s been almost three years… I want to see them in person…). The boys have grown, all of them.