Hey friends, I hope you’re all doing well!
Today’s gonna be a weird post. There, I admitted it. But it’s been something I’ve been thinking about since I got into K-Pop and K-hiphop: what is the weird ass obsession with Don Quixote mentions in their songs? I never really dug deep into the topic, but after today, we’ll know some semblance of why. There’s not really a definitive answer to my question, but there sure are some different perspectives that could sway my opinion one way or the other.
This post will not have a definitive structure, nor will it have any aspect of coherent thought. I’m just going to analyze as much as I can with my simple brain and take it from there. You’ve been warned. I am taking most of my factual research from the article by Park Chul and Michelle Tanenbaum on Don Quixote’s historical impact on Korea, which you can read here. It’s a very interesting read.
Who the hell is Don Quixote anyway?
What, rather than who, actually. Don Quixote is a 15th century Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantas published in two parts: one in 1605 and one in 1615. From what I understand, because I haven’t read the book myself, is that it describes the adventures of Alonso Quijano, an idealistic knight-errant, moving through the imaginative world and into reality. In this instance, I think the novel has a variety of meanings including Freud’s reality principle, tackling chivalric romance, and fiddling with the concept of sanity.
The Historical Context in Korea
So why does this matter? Well, apparently to multiple songwriters in the Korean music industry, it’s a worthy reference to make. I think that because it’s one of the most translated popular novels to be circulated throughout the world, it could even be described as a local reference. I did some historical background on the relationship between Korea and the introduction of the story of Don Quixote to that country, and noticed that it was the first novel to be translated after Korea opened up to the world in 1915. It kept getting retranslated in ways that would appeal to the Korean’s sense of humor, and thus became more and more popular in the 1930s.
Due to Japanese rule, it only made the story more popular due to censorship of actual Korean citizens being unable to express themselves within their own country. After the war in the 1950s, all reflection of international intellectual stories was stopped, but rebirthed in the 1960s with translations for children in elementary school textbooks. This introduced an intrigue in Spanish literature as a whole, even compelling Hankuk University to establish a Spanish program in 1955, which increased in enrollment every year. These multiple translations aimed at children, however, cemented Don Quixote as a frequently cited thing to say in daily life, connotated in negative and positive ways.
In the 80s and 90s, analytical studies of the story had become more popular, and The Korean Association of Hispanists was founded in 1981 to conference and publish a journal four times yearly. This journal made several analytical articles about the Don Quixote story. This jumpstart from vague interest to scholarly-level analytics kickstarted the story into mainstream for study throughout the 90s and early 2000s.
Don Quixote’s impact on Korean literature
It could be said that the influence of Don Quixote on Korean literature in the 1920s concentrated on the themes of “madness” or “eccentricity” because of the decay and skepticism that Koreans felt on account of the loss of their country (Chul, 5). The characters in many early works in the 20’s and 30’s mimicked Alonso’s simultaneous inability to distinguish between dream and reality. However, due to poor translations during this time, it only highlighted the negative traits of Alonso himself and not the entire encapsulation of his character, turning it into something comic and portraying him as an idiot.
However, from 1945 onward, the portrayal of Alonso as a character has been rectified with better translations, especially since many who have undertaken the project have seen his character in a more positive light, subsequently reflecting in Korean literature itself. I’ll quote something that was quoted in the article from Choseon Daily in 2005, because I do think it’s indicative and relevant of the change in Korean’s opinion of the character:
In 1915, the name “Don Quixote” became known to Koreans through the publication of Ch’oe Namsön’s translation from the Japanese version that appeared in the literary journal Youth. It was, in fact, a series of much abbreviated excerpts, with a limited number of episodes. Just as it was then, the part of Don Quixote most cited in Korea today is the scene with the windmills, which Don Quixote rushes at when he confuses them with giants. It is a general phenomenon to view the character of Don Quixote as the symbol of a human being who ignores reality and boldy pursues his ideal, despite the fact that it evidently will be impossible for him to attain. Nevertheless, we encounter two sides in Don Quixote. From a negative perspective, Don Quixote’s attitude of trying to squeeze water from a rock shows his inability to control himself or let go of his conviction that one day his dream will be realized. But in reality, this world usually needs people who rely on this bold courage.
So when you see that and then look back, you think that even though he is portrayed as idealistic and an idiot, the opinion of him has shifted to one of a man who will persevere in the face of obstacles. Though it’s okay to have two facets of your personality like that, in the realm of interpreting and analyzing literature, I think it’s more important to have a positive view of the story’s protagonist so people would take more interest in it. And that’s what happened here.
If you’re interested, however, in other literary works from Korea that take inspiration from Don Quixote, I consider you to check out the article because it lists several examples, and my aim isn’t to analyze and compare/contrast Don Quixote in this post of mine! But I did find it interesting!
And so with all of this in mind, let’s actually get to the meat of my post: Don Quixote’s role in Korean music’s lyrics.
What’s his place in Korean music?
As of many different Korean streaming sites, there are over 260 songs with Don Quixote in the title and 160+ songs with it in the lyrics. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but compared to other countries that do a couple of songs within other decades, this is an exorbitant amount. Even more curious, the vast majority of the songs’ genre is Khiphop, even though many other genres such as rock, R&B and ballads are also included in the count. Even before knowing this, I heard a very small pool of these songs mentioned in Khiphop so much so I named my Korean rap playlist “Don Quixote.”
I suppose that in rap, though, it’s easier to throw out references of pop culture because of individual lines or bars. With songs, it’s harder to do that without fitting into the framework and storytelling that the song has.
It’ll be absolutely impossible for me to analyze the lyrics of every single song that popped up when I searched for the term Don Quixote in Korean streaming services, so I hand-picked some I already knew and some that were suggested to me to cover here in this post.
First, we’ll start with one of my favorite BtoB tracks: Thriller. In Ilhoon’s rap after the first chorus, translated is the line “I’ll be your knight, I’ll be your Don Quixote.” Since Don Quixote is a knight-errant, it’s almost as if they’re romanticising the nature of the character into a chivalrous savior, which is congruent with the modern day Korean view of Don Quixote’s story. I also see parallels of fairy tale in this story, so it’s very rooted in a dream-like world that mirrors the story. This is further rooted in the line from the chorus, “I’m flying like I’m dreaming, fly high high high.” And even though madness is “knocking at the door,” he’s working hard through it to become the princess’ knight. Even though this song came out in 2013, it’s still modern, okay!!
Next up we have Super Junior’s A-CHA, which is also one of my favorite tracks by them! I honestly forgot that this song had Don Quixote in it until my Reddit post asking for help. Sungmin sings the line, “You are like a tornado and I’m a
Don Quixote who jumped into that tornado.” This reflects the “going in blind” kind of nature of Don Quixote. The rest of the line kind of fits in nicely with the song since they’re singing about a girl that’s about to dump the guy even though he still loves her and is trying to do everything in his power to save the relationship.
Dean’s D (half moon) was another song I forgot about, but the mention of Don Quixote doesn’t come until Gaeko’s rap verse. Seeing a trend here? We’ve only had one line that was sung so far. The line, written by Gaeko himself is: “Just like Don Quixote, I’m crazily dreaming of your love.” Another reference to Don Quixote being dreamy and chasing love.
Many other artists devote entire songs to Don Quixote, like Seventeen and 3Racha. Seventeen’s song talks about the entire character of Don Quixote and feeling like him. The song explains that although Don Quixote knows of the reality, he wants to continue living through the vibes and works through his fear to become a better man. The song also references La Mancha’s windmills, which Don Quixote mistakes for giants and picks a fight with. 3Racha’s song talks more about the dreamy Don Quixote mixed with the bravery as well as mentioning other characters from the book.
Buzz’s song titled Don Quixote, this time a K-rock entry, details the entire journey of Don Quixote, from the windmills of La Mancha, mentioning Don Quixote’s horse Rocinante, to the thoughts he has on his journey even though it’s hard, mentioning his “feet are broken.” It was the first time I ever heard the song and the band, and I was pleasantly surprised by it. A trot song by Kim Bumryong is also called Don Quixote, but I couldn’t find an official transcription of the lyrics. It sounds very soulful, so I would’ve loved to see what it was discussing!
Some songs have Don Quixote as the song title, but don’t actually make any references to the song. This is the case of P-Type’s Don Quixote and Don Quixote 2. He talks about being a “shabby traveler” which could allude to Don Quixote, but for the rest of the song, it’s pretty vague and arbitrary and could fit to any epic main character. Interestingly enough, the first Don Quixote is his most popular song. Wheesung does go off in it though, I must say.
I’ll cut the analysis short here of extensive note. But some other notable artists that have referenced Don Quixote in the KPOP/Khiphop world include T-ARA, Cheeze, San E and Primary. Most of the songs reference Don Quixote’s character, but some got into the intricacies of the novel, which I liked. I’ll continue to research these songs in my own spare time, as it interests me, but it seems to be a popular reference as a character archetype. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was referenced like metaphors and proverbs are.
Concluding Thoughts
In conclusion, Korea loves Don Quixote. And reading up on the history of it, I completely understand why. It leaves me with one question though that plagued me while writing this: during the Latin music craze of KPOP circa 2017-2018, why wasn’t this referenced more? I find myself questioning the integrity of the songs as a whole due to this because even though the instrumentals were laced with Latin-inspired guitar and percussion and Spanish words were sprinkled into the lyrics, there wasn’t much more than that. It makes me wonder what could’ve been if local references were stuck in there, even referencing a specific country while constructing your song. Oh well, there’s still time to do that.
But the majority of the lyrics I referenced was talking about Don Quixote’s character and relating to it. I suppose it really hit home for a lot of people if it’s in 430+ songs, and makes it a really relevant lesson years later after it was introduced to the country.
What did you think of my little essay about this? I admit it is a little niche and out of the box, but I enjoyed writing it so much! Let me know what you thought about this!
I hope your day/night/morning/evening/afternoon or whatever time it is for you out in the world is wonderful. Thanks so much for checking out my blog! Much love!
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