Recently, my favorite Korean TV show is 'My Little Television' on MBC.

One day when I watched an episode of My Little Television in which the singer and leader of rock band, Jang Gi-ha featured, he mentioned that he tries his best to write beautiful lyrics using Korean words and to avoid using too many English or foreign words. Especially, he thinks, "Songs start from words. Lyrics should be delivered clearly to listeners. For that, singers should sing like the way they speak in the daily life."

(Source: http://drz.co.kr/)

Here is the link to Youtube video of Jang Gi-ha's My Little Television episode.

(At first, he mentioned about his girl friend, the most famous K-pop solo female artist, IU. Then, he mentioned something about how to write lyrics.)

If you want to read the interview with Chang Gi-ha about his thoughts on how to write good lyrics in Korean, please go:

http://www.hankookilbo.com/v/215b64b85f204c3781572f56f9e70050

(Interview is written in Korean)

When I heard from Jang Gi-ha that singers should sing like the way they actually speak for a clear delivery of lyrics, that reminded me of Seventeen's recent song, 'Very Nice.'

I was not that familiar with this K-pop boy band before I listened to their song, <Mansae>. I thought it is a very cute, cheerful song with the catchy tune. Moreover, their dance choreography was well blended into the meaning of lyrics. 'Mansae', which means of 'Hooray' in Korean is a good lyric to express a young boy's feeling thrilled when his crush is finally paying attention to him. The dance move for this part of the chorus is same as the posture of hooraying, which I think very clever and cute.

The most clever thing about the lyrics of Mansae is from 1:44 to 1:51 of this video, which borrows the lyrics and melody from the Korean children's game, 'The roses of Sharon have blossomed."

(Source: http://blog.naver.com/3548664/220474879048)

Here is the lyric:

너라는 꽃이 피었습니다 (A flower called you has blossomed)

너라는 꽃을 바라보니까 (I'm only looking at a flower called you)

들었다 놨다 하지 맙시다 애가 타니까 (So don't play games with me Because I am getting anxious)

This part is a little twist of the traditional children's game, by imitating the tone and rhythm of singing "The roses of Sharon has blossomed." BTW, the roses of Sharon is Korea's national flower.

In their next single, <Very Nice>, the cleverness of Seventeen's lyrics became more advanced. 

Here are some parts of the lyrics of <Very Nice> that I consider very trendy, contemporary and reflective of teenagers' spoken Korean nowadays.