Song You Need To Know: TXT, ‘Sugar Rush Ride’

Now this piece is a little different from the others in the Song You Need To Know series. We usually recommend songs or artists we feel we need you to discover, but if you’ve clicked on this… you probably already know who Tomorrow X Together are. This piece is more about how the popular South Korean quintet have evolved with their latest single “Sugar Rush Ride,” and why it’s a song you need in your life, because it’s part of a larger story that’s worth uncovering.

TXT’s message has always been about the power of youth and understanding the process of making your journey from child to adolescent to adult. Their entire artistic universe works as a timeline of sorts, mapping out the stages of life while wrapping it all in a swirl of dreams and fantasy. It began rather simply with their debut in 2019 with the EP The Dream Chapter: Star and its lead single “Crown.” Filled with color, animation and endearing dance moves, “Crown” was about growing pains and puberty, as well as the feeling of standing out. As time passed and TXT released more music, there was a clear storyline that rose within their work.

While speaking to Rolling Stone India in 2020 about their artistry, vocalist Taehyun explained, “Our intent has always been to tell stories only we can tell through our music. So I think it was only natural that we told narratives of growth from the teenage perspective.” Vocalist Beomgyu added, “Our music has always been about the youth who are living through this generation, including ourselves. We were teens when we started, so naturally, our earliest releases dealt with teenagers living through a complicated and confusing era of their lives.” 

Divided into various chapters, each of TXT’s albums map a different aspect of growing up and dive into fantastical visual dreamworlds while doing so. They started with more innocent, childlike themes that hovered around imagination and growing pains — The Dream Chapter: Star and “Crown” were fresh, youthful and bright, exploring stories about friendship, self-discovery and understanding the world through the lenses of youth. Their second record The Dream Chapter: Magic and its lead single, “9 and Three Quarters (Run Away)” moved on to the next stage: high school, the complexities of friendships/relationships and the need to escape from reality as the process of understanding the world gets more difficult.

The Dream Chapter: Eternity tackled the darkest aspect of life yet– breaking the bubble of youth to confront realities like broken friendships, conflict, a search of your own identity, and even fears like uncertainty, loss and death. Minisode1: Blue Hour comprised songs written from the perspective of a teenager who is “isolated and lost in emotions amid the unprecedented pandemic,” while The Chaos Chapter: Freeze, according to Beomgyu, “features these same teenagers who have grown up a bit and are now facing relevant issues for our current time.”

More recently TXT have begun stepping into the darker tones of life that signal at rebellion and sexuality. Teenage rebellion was the main theme surrounding 2022’s Minisode 2: Thursday’s Child, one of the final stages of all our teen years, while their latest record The Name Chapter: Temptation and “Sugar Rush Ride” are the first steps into adulthood. Seeped in themes that draw from Peter Pan and Neverland, “Sugar Rush Ride” is the band’s acceptance that childhood must end. The music video is the biggest communicator of this message, showcasing the quintet traversing an Eden-like island, similar to the Lost Boys in Neverland. Covered in glitter and honey and showing more skin then they ever have before, the five members– Soobin, Yeonjun, Taehyun, Beomgyu and Huening Kai– aren’t afraid to showcase a more sensuous side of their artistry, performing powerful but sexy choreography to accompany the hypnotic dream pop track. The sets and costumes turn darker and the boys eventually walk away from the island towards a boat, signalling their return to the harsh realities of the world.

Written by all five members, “Sugar Rush Ride” uses its lyrics to convey the idea of want, lust, greed–all part of temptation. Referring to the Devil brings the idea home, that growing up brings with it a loss of innocence and surrender to the darker paths life offers: “I can feel it I can’t resist it/ That sweet devilish smile/ You open my locked door so easily/ Oh my, I see the stars/ The devil said/ Gimme, gimme more/
Gimme, gimme more.” The Devil here can be interpreted as the self, a love interest, or perhaps even life itself, offering a ‘rush’ of the forbidden, a rollercoaster moving through the ups and downs that adulthood promises. This is additionally supported by TXT’s addition of the lines, “Come here, more/ Let me give you a piggyback ride, more,” that originate from a famous Korean folk tale titled Chunhyangga, where the words are the whispers of the Devil. “We made a lot of new attempts this time, fusing different elements in an unfamiliar way,” said vocalist Huening Kai during a press conference about the EP. “We used some parts of Chunhyangga in our lyrics and featured the movements of Korean traditional dance in our choreography.”

“Sugar Rush Ride” and The Name Chapter: Temptation have launched a fascinating new arc of TXT’s journey where they will now likely be led by the trials of adulthood while aided by the maturity that only age can grant. They’ve been a guiding light for young people–particularly Gen Z (of which they are themselves part of)– as this generation struggles to navigate a post-pandemic society and all the challenges that it poses. It’s important to have an artist to grow up with, to hold on to as you find your place in the world, and TXT’s mission to be that helping hand as been their number one mission since they debuted– The Name Chapter: Temptation is just another step forward into to cementing that legacy.