Music Videos into Stories: "Wild Flower" by RM
Can we imagine a music video into a story? Take one.
There’s something I’ve been wanting to try for a while, probably ever since my days on Vocal Media when I wrote about what music videos and songs inspired me. (That was probably a precursor to Songs into Stories.)
What’s that idea, you ask? It’s basically where I reimagine music videos into stories.
You may say that may defeat the purpose—aren’t music videos already stories?—but I want to attempt to reimagine these music videos into my own stories.
First up? “Wild Flower,” a solo song by RM (frontman for BTS), a song I listened to a few months ago while going through the band’s solo projects on YouTube. Immediately as the song began, I started to cry. I still don’t know exactly why. It was just so beautiful that I couldn’t stop the tears.
To get an idea of what I mean, you should start by watching the video.
Here’s also a taste of the (translated) lyrics in case you don’t want to watch the video:
I yearned for the flames
I yearned for a beautiful fall
Even before the start, I imagined
An end where I could applaud and smile
That's what I wishеd for
When everything I bеlieved in grew distant
When all this fame turned into shackles
Please take my desire away from me
No matter what it takes
Oh, let me be myself
Oh, every day and every night
Persistin' pain and the criminal mind
Nights the beating of my heart kept me up
The mournful crescent moon hung beyond the window
I do wish me a lovely night
Over my status is an oversized life
Desperately holding onto a balloon drifting by
I ask where you could be right now
Where you go, where's your soul
Yo, where's your dream?
What story am I imagining?
Hello, Mr. Death.
Maybe I’m jumping off the back of my fascination with the narrator of Death in The Book Thief (which I discussed here), but I see RM standing there in that field of flowers and think how ethereal he looks. To me, he’s a man who has been on the brink—and slowly he’s moving away from the precipice.
The music video begins with fireworks—a new beginning. Death looks up at them, fascinated, because he finally feels a sense of peace with what he needs to do in the world. He has the heavy burden of reaping souls from their mortal shells, but he has done this work all his existence. It’s time to accept what he is.
There’s not pain. There’s acceptance.
No hero, no villain.
He’s lost in wonder, the purpose of his existence, as he wanders across a barren landscape that transitions to other places—even the heralded Tree of Life waits in the distance—and he’s an angel lost to time, so long missing that he has no name. His very life has meant that he has touched souls at a distance, but he’s never held someone close. A part of him yearns for something—something he can’t name.
A flower without a name.
Death wanders. He meets people in various locales. He sees people living their lives. No one realizes who he is, but he still walks through their lives without touching them. He’s a ghost in his own skin.
But then he meets a family that changes his life. An alcoholic father, his rebellious daughters who are struggling through adolescence, and the gaping wound of the mother that left them too soon.
Death feels a pull towards them. He’s the one who took the mother away, after all. He feels as if he needs to make reparations in some way. Again, without telling them who he is, he creeps closer to the family as a worker in their household.
In this way, he tries to make amends to at least one family touched by his powers.
But he slowly begins to fall in love with one of the daughters—a young woman with deep eyes and secrets of her own. It’s new to Death. He’s never felt this way about anyone.
It’s a slice-of-life coming-of-age narrative for a character like Death. Isn’t that something?
I’d love to write it.
I imagine him going from a closed-off individual—so detached from everything that he’s numb to the world—to someone whose existence is defined by how he helps this family cope with their troubles.
Is that insane I came up with that story from a music video that has nothing to do with that content? Perhaps.
RM has gotten some flak for his voice—as if it’s not up to par compared to the other members of BTS—but I find it beautiful. He’s something, truly, and I look forward to hearing what he does in the future. If his other songs are as beautiful and full of meaning, I’d love to hear them. He’s a boy made from poetry for sure.
We need more beautiful art in the world.
We need more stories out in the world.
Hello, Mr. Death—coming to a new releases shelf near you.
Did you enjoy the intro to this new project, Music Videos into Stories? Then please follow along for the journey. I promise it will be an adventure!