IU Drops Emotional New Single ‘Eight’ Featuring BTS’ SUGA

South Korean singer-songwriter IU has finally unveiled her brand new single “Eight” featuring BTS rapper SUGA. The emotional single which is about growing up and turning 28 was produced by SUGA and written by both him and IU.

The music video for “Eight” begins with IU activating a mysterious machine that plunges her into a dreamscape built of what seem to be memories. There are clips of her roaming through a large house by herself, interspersed with different animated forms of her in both 2D and 3D, perhaps insinuating that those are different versions of herself she is able to see as she gets older. Throughout the video IU dotes on a little gecko, who also makes an appearance with each different version of herself. SUGA does not make an appearance in the video.

In terms of lyrics, “Eight” is a heartwarming look at the eternity in one’s memory, where time has no impact on moments that mean the most, “We are under the orange sun/Dance together without shadow/There is no fixed parting/Meet in that beautiful memory/Forever young.” In our memories our youth is forever, the happiness of each moment everlasting and unchanged. SUGA echoes sentiments of youth and everlasting memories in his verse he compares revisiting memories together to meeting on islands of time. No matter how far life takes two people, they can always ‘see’ each other again within their memories. SUGA’s production on “Eight” invokes a sense of nostalgia–the blend of pop and rock highlights IU’s breathy vocals and is reminiscent of music from the late Nineties or early 2000s.

Thematically, “Eight” follows in the footsteps of  IU’s 2017 single “Palette,” where she discusses turning 25 and finding more of her own identity as an adult. The single had featured rapper and producer G-Dragon, a friend and figure of guidance in IU’s life, giving her advice about enjoying her youth and the process of growing up. “Eight” focuses on what she and SUGA are feeling as they both turn 28 (in Korean age, which is often a year or two apart from international age calculations) and what a person chooses to cherish as they get older.