Bossa Nova and Korean indie? Works better than you think.
Rose Motel is an indie band that debuted in 2011. Bongsuki is part of their debut single album, You’ll Never Get Married Like That.
Bongsuki is notable for its lyrics, which were written in a Busan dialect instead of the standard Korean. As a result, the lyrics are somewhat hard to decipher, which is probably for the best as they revolve around a drunk man pleading with his girl to keep drinking just a little while longer. “No, you’re not going home. How can you go home with all these drinks just sitting here?”
At a time when Korean regional culture is slowly but gradually losing its identity (imagine having distinct dialects in a country the size of Minnesota in the Internet age), Bongsuki is a welcome melancholic respite from the Seoul-centric pop culture that seems to get more and more overbearing every day in its artificial peppiness. Even the aforementioned lyrics end on a plaintive note: “Looking for love, looking for a person, even today I’m wandering”.