It might just be a Rose
This post will try to elaborate on the meaning of the song “Rose” by eaJ (Jae of DAY6). This is my 2nd favourite song from eaJ (Number one is… *drumrolls* 50 proof! Hehe). Since today Jae is going to release his newest song titled Pacman, I want to listen more to his older songs now.
Before we go into the real post, please, please, please, listen to this song and leave a supportive comment! It’s a freaking good song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lATuh4bQyYE
For the times when they hit you
Facedown in the ground with the wetsuit
Plant seeds but the tree never grow fruit
Shouting but they all got you on mute
These verses express your unreciprocated, unappreciated, or underestimated efforts. I particularly had a hard time understanding “facedown in the ground with the wetsuit”. Wetsuit, according to Wikipedia, is a garment worn to provide thermal protection while wet. It is usually made of foamed neoprene and is worn by surfers, divers, windsurfers, canoeists, and others engaged in water sports and other activities in or on water. I interpret this verse as telling the story of surfers who tried hard to surf but reach the ground (the sand) again and again, facedown (failing). The next two verses are pretty apparent. The “never grow fruit” and “got you on mute” parts are so deep. You keep failing to get a good result and people just don’t want to listen to your concern.
When they got you thinking maybe
It could be me that’s the crazy
all the tears bled up
on the climb up
dry up into nothing
“I thought I have a chance at winning because they seem to support me. Am I the crazy one here? Is it an impossible thing to wish for?” That’s the expression that I get from the lyrics. You tried so hard to reach the top, you shed blood and tears, but they evaporated into thin air like no effort has been made at all.
Nothing you understand
Nothing makes sense but
Trying to give us a disclaimer that this “logic” might be hard to understand, it might not make sense at all, but if you just try to accept that…
Don’t you know that nothing’s really ever beautiful
We’re all just broken windows
What you see depends from where
you set your eye
Accept that everything has a lot of different sides to it. The view from the top of the mountain that you once tried to reach may not be as beautiful as you anticipate it to be. When you get there, you might think that “Oh, so this is it. It is not as beautiful as I thought it would be” and then you realise that the journey to get there is actually more enjoyable than being on the top. The word “window” is frequently used to describe “eye”, right? And “eye” can be used to portray “perspective” too, so, basically the chorus tells us that everything can be perceived differently, according to our perspective. Nevertheless, we are the broken windows, we cannot see everything from every angle. We gotta choose.
I could see my
blood on the floor
Or it might just be a Rose
This is the most fun part. Here, Jae mentioned the “Rose”. The music video itself shows sequences of Jae trapped in a desert, looking up to the sky while holding a rose. At this point, you probably realised that this song was inspired by Le Petit Prince.
In the end, it also shows “Asteroid 325” which is the first place that Le Petit Prince visited after leaving his home. This asteroid was inhabited by a king who has nobody to reign over. I am not sure why Jae chose to put Asteroid 325 instead of the Prince’s home, though. I re-read some lines from the book to find out why and this was told at the beginning of the book:
I knew very well that in addition to the great planets — such as the Earth, Jupiter, Mars, Venus — to which we have given names, there are also hundreds of others, some of which are so small that one has a hard time seeing them through the telescope. When an astronomer discovers one of these he does not give it a name, but only a number. He might call it, for example, “Asteroid 325.”
Could “Asteroid 325” refer to something that you have a hard time seeing because it is too far away?
Anyway, what does the last verse mean? There are many different interpretations running in my head right now and it’s difficult to pick one. I read an interpretation about the “Rose” character in Le Petit Prince, here it is:
Although the rose appears only in a couple of chapters, she is crucial to the novel as a whole because her melodramatic, proud nature is what causes the prince to leave his planet and begin his explorations. Also, the prince’s memory of his rose is what prompts his desire to return. As a character who gains significance because of how much time and effort the prince has invested in caring for her, the rose embodies the fox’s statement that love comes from investing in other people. Although the rose is, for the most part, vain and naïve, the prince still loves her deeply because of the time he has spent watering and caring for her.
Source: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/littleprince/character/the-rose/
You know, Le Petit Prince left the Rose at his home and traveled to other planets, only to find out that on Earth, there was a garden filled with roses. However, he was later told by the Fox that “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye”. He realised that his Rose is the most beautiful, precious, and unique because he decided to invest in it and give it a meaning.
Meaning is the key. After the hardships, you feel like you are bleeding, your blood is dripping on the floor. When you take a look, it is indeed blood, but you decide to see it as the “Rose”, a beautiful thing that you gave meaning to.
In the end, you can finally see the silver lining among the clouds, as you stare at the place you’ve always wanted to be.
P.S: I think you can also decipher the “Rose” as something you treasure and you hold dearly. You mistakenly see the reddish thing as blood, while it is actually the Rose. Which interpretation of the “Rose” do you want to believe more?
