JEON JUNGKOOK IS often referred to as ‘황금 막내’ or ‘golden youngest’, due to him being both multitalented (a jack of all trades if you will) and the youngest member of BTS. ‘gold’ is a word that has often been associated with him, as a result of his victories and his success in his pursuits.
gold, as you know, is a highly valuable commodity often used in jewellery because of its bright, shining quality. jungkook took this word that quite evidently means a lot to him, through being constantly attritbuted to him, and used it to tell the story of his life so far.
‘when my mother conceived me she dreamed of golden rain, and everywhere a droplet touched turned into pure gold.’
my first thought was when reading these lines was that to jungkook’s mother, his birth was something beautiful and miraculous to her, like ‘golden rain’. he’s priceless to her. alternatively it also mean that, from the time he was born, jungkook’s mother has big aspirations for him and imagined him achieving great things.
however, i also thought that maybe his mother’s dream was a prophetic one. i can’t help but think that jungkook’s mother dreaming of ‘golden rain’ when he was born was a vision of his bright and beautiful future. that his life was predetermined to be ‘golden’.
i also wanted to mention the gold standard: back in the 20th century, money derived value from being tied to quantities of gold. going back to the big aspirations i mentioned before, it implies jungkook was fated to have a fruitful and successful life, in a monetary sense.
‘when unable to do anything, i met you in my golden years and i began to glow and shine’
the line ‘when unable to do anything’ tells us that jungkook was at a point in his life where he felt lost or purposeless, where he felt he couldn’t do much or achieve anything.
that was, until, he met ‘you’ — the ‘you’ being his members — in his ‘golden years’. ‘golden years’ usually refer to a period in life where people flourish, and recall as a memorable and beautiful moment in life. jungkook associates such a time with meeting the his fellow members. he ‘glow[s] and shine[s]’; adjectives associated with gold. jungkook is beginning to reach his potential.
‘at first i became the gold,’
here, jungkook finally refers to himself as ‘gold’. he’s claiming the title so many refer to him as, and it seems he fulfilling his golden prophecy; ‘[becoming] the gold.’
‘…but as time passed and i looked around, everything else had turned to gold.’
these lines are a direct referral to the beginning of the poem and to jungkook’s mother’s dream, further suggesting that it was in fact a prophecy. jungkook has now become the golden rain his mother dreamed about, and everything he touches is turning to gold. as he looks around to see ‘everything else has turned to gold’, jungkook seems to realise how precious, valuable and beautiful the things that surround him are. this could refer to his beloved members, his fans, his newfound fortune or just his life as a whole. not only has jungkook found gold in himself, but gold is present everywhere in his life. it also seems to me that jungkook is describing his journey of self love and finding love in all aspects of his life. he has learned to both appreciate himself and everything in his life.
‘i hope i’ll never lose this precious golden gleam.’
this concludes with jungkook being at a point in his life where everything is ‘golden’, his destiny fulfilled. you can envision it, can’t you? the constant repetition of the word gold casts a soft amber hue in your mind; a beautiful image of the sky right before sunset, perhaps, the light it casts into your room through your window. jungkook’s life, in his eyes, seems to be permanently adorned in this light, surrounded by the people and the things he loves. ‘precious’. it’s no wonder he wishes to hold onto that feeling forever. who wouldn’t?
