All You Need to Know about BTS SUGA's D-DAY!

The last chapter of Agust D’s trilogy has finally come out, and we have to talk about it! After Agust D and D-2, it is now the time for D-Day, plausibly the last chapter for SUGA’s alter ego, Agust D.

The album, as per usual, is highly personal, emotional, and raw, everything we wanted and waited for from SUGA!

The album came out on the 21st of April with the title track MV, Haegeum, and was followed, just three days later, by the MV for the b-side AMYGDALA. Both songs are powerful but in very different ways.

If you want to know more about SUGA's new album, D-Day, then keep reading this article! And if you want to know much more about your favorite K-Dramas and K-pop groups, check out the other articles on Daebak.Co!

Let’s start by saying that if you want to hear Yoongi himself talk about Agust D's D-Day, the best way to do it is by watching both his interviews with IU, which came out a few days before the release of the album… 

…and his interview with RM, who, for one episode, took control over the popular SUGA talk show Suchwita!

The album's opening track, which shares the same name, D-Day, is a great way to open this album.

The lyrics, in fact, are both directed to the listeners and to SUGA himself. In the song, he keeps repeating not only that D-Day is coming, which could be seen as a bad omen, but also that he and we must be ready for what it will bring.

Then, SUGA talks about various themes that he will, in fact, address later with other tracks, like letting go of the past, the fear of the future, and how to take on other people’s hate and get over it.

The song is an encouragement to the old Yoongi and, of course, to all the people who go through difficult periods in their life, but also a celebration for this new album.

Title track of the album and worthy heir of Daechwita, Haegeum’s title, as we already discussed in this article:

Plays on a double meaning; in fact, Haegeum in Korean means both a traditional instrument, the one we can clearly hear in the performance released for ROAD to D-Day (the documentary that was released on Disney+), and something that was, in the past prohibited, but it is now allowed. 

A powerful hip-hop song featuring BTS member J-hope, HUH?! is the diss track everyone thought Haegeum would be.

The song attacks both haters and the media for spreading false information, a topic particularly sensitive for BTS, especially in the aftermath of what happened after their Festa announcement in June 2022.

The most appealing aspects of the song are the two rappers' flow and the excellent production, a perfect piece for when you want to defeat your enemies!

AMYGDALA is the most personal song on the album, even though Yoongi himself admitted, in his interview with RM, that all his songs as Agust D are always quite emotional.

We already knew SUGA could talk about profound and painful memories of himself when he released the track The Last on his first CD, which left a long-lasting impression on many ARMY, and AMYGDALA shares that same powerfulness.

The song retraces very dark moments in SUGA's life, the infamous scooter incident that ruined his shoulder permanently and for which he recently had to undergo an operation, his mother's heart condition, and his father's cancer diagnosis.

These are all traumatic memories that heavily influenced both the present Yoongi and his past self, the one that, even more than his present alter ego, battled with depression and was also having a hard time following his dream of becoming a singer.

But why is the song called AMYGDALA? The song takes its title from a part of the brain, the amygdala, which is the one that deals with trauma and triggers trauma responses.

In the song, SUGA begs his amygdala to stop him from reliving his traumas and save him from his feelings. This idea was inspired to him by the famous Korean novel Almond, whose main character, the amygdala, doesn't work correctly.

The video for this song is available on Youtube but with some restrictions since it is quite a strong MV, so if you wanna watch the video, you can follow this link https://youtu.be/IX1dkYoLHVs.

If you, instead, prefer simply listening to it:

SDL or Somebody Does Love, is a song about reminiscing good times with an ex-lover, someone we haven't met for a long time but who we think about occasionally.

The song is not regretful or resentful; it is full of good sentiments for our old partners; even when things do not end up working out, why think badly about someone we mostly have good memories with?

As Yoongi says in the song: "I mean, nothing works out as you wish. Relationships are tough. 

It wasn't right from the start," and probably, when rethinking about someone we still long for, sometimes, we tend to idealize the relationship, but love is hard for everyone, not only us, and it is not right to oppress the other, person, blaming only them for this "failure."

People pt. 2, as SUGA himself admitted, is deeply connected to its predecessor, People, one of the tracks from D-2 that are more popular among ARMY.

In fact, this song too delves into human relationships, their meaning, how they change over time, and how they affect our growth, "Wasn't loved enough as a kid, That's why I'm the cautious type."

People, in particular, focused on how this constant change in the human relationships we hold dear and how they affect our perception of ourselves can sometimes hurt us and make us doubt who we are. Still, we must accept it as a fundamental part of our lives.

People pt. 2 develops the theme even more deeply, adding to the idea of human relationships the concept of what love is to us, going over romantic love and focusing on many types of love, as well as human's fear of loneliness, something that could make us greedy and too rash in our affections, both when young and when we grow old, even if for different reasons.

The official MV:

The live clip from SUGA: ROAD to D-Day: 

In Polar Night (극야), SUGA resumes a topic he also touched on during Haegeum, but in a different way.

The previous song focused on freedom and how "freedom of speech" has become a prison. Here, he delves a bit deeper into the effects of the internet on people's discourses.

In fact, in Polar Night, SUGA decided to talk about polarization, how everything is now black or white, how people oversimplify every problem and easily villainize other people for everything they do or did in the past, a concept quite familiar to those who spend a lot of time on the internet or for those, like BTS, or idols in general, who have their every move scrutinized.

"That interpretation only suits my mood. Truth and lies are up to your taste."

A (sadly too short) instrumental song used to connect, and divide, the album's first part, the darker side of D-Day, and its end, which is, in contrast, exceptionally bright and cheerful.

The production is extremely beautiful, and the song is both melancholy and powerful. SUGA created something almost reminiscent of a movie soundtrack, quite a great way to change the album's mood.

This song, as SUGA explained to RM, is dedicated to the idols coming after him, those who, like him in the past, are pursuing a dream which seems unattainable, especially for the ones who, like BTS, come from poor companies and have nothing.

The K-pop industry is changing for the better, or at least its is trying, but still so many groups debut each year that it’s incredibly hard to get noticed and become famous, so, acknowledging his current privilege, SUGA decided to encourage those after him and he did it by collaborating with one of his life-long idols, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and his friend, WOOSUNG.

The song is very beautiful, thanks to the music, the lyrics and WOOSUNG's incredible voice, currently my favorite track on SUGA’s album.

While BTS’s Life Goes On delves into the after-effects of the Quarantine, SUGA’s Life Goes On, similarly with the rest of D-Day, delves into human relationships, here, especially with a sense of peace.

The song, in fact, talks about drifting apart, not in a sad or disenchanted manner, but more in a mature consideration of how natural, while growing older, it is to stop talking to some people and “go on.”

“This moment when everyone stopped

The porch that looks far away today

Life goes on, life goes on

Life goes on, life goes on

This moment when everyone fell apart

Our relationship is getting farther than yesterday

Life goes on, life goes on

Life goes on, life goes on.”

Thematically and musically, this is the perfect closure for SUGA’s album.

Like every other album SUGA has released, this one is extremely personal and feels more, in some parts, like a diary we are casually rummaging through. 

In response to this, with every album SUGA releases, we can feel an even closer connection with him, especially for the ones, like me, who are closer in age with Yoongi and can, even more, relate with the way he gradually let go of his harshness and embraced a new, more mature, calmness.

This does not mean that the anger is never there, as HUH?! has proven and, as it is only natural for people, but surely this SUGA is quite different from the one who created Agust D in 2016.

It is an immense honor witnessing this growth and growing with him, even more considering how healing and comforting SUGA's lyrics always are for ARMY, and everyone else who comes in contact with them, me included. 

Surely an album worth listening to!