Watch Taeyeon’s Dreamy Video for “Four Seasons”

South Korean pop group Girls’ Generation’s leader Taeyeon made her long-awaited solo comeback today with a brand new single “Four Seasons.” The track is a follow-up to her 2018 solo Korean release “Something New.”

The video stays true to the song’s title and cruises through the seasons of the year; there are scenes with Taeyeon surrounded by bright, blooming foliage (spring), sitting under a fan with a glass of icy water (summer), alone in a semi-dark dining room with wilting flowers (autumn) and standing in a snowy landscape by a bare tree (winter.) In between there are shots of plants wilting and blooming, signifying the start and end of a relationship.

In the lyrics, Taeyeon contemplates the choices that led her to heartbreak, regretting how much she invested in a relationship that ultimately disappointed her. “The four seasons come and go again/I gave you my winter and my summer too/You, who were my world, I want to let you go.” She does come to terms with moving on, but it also makes her question whether she truly loved her significant other at all.

Taeyeon stands firm as one of South Korea’s most powerful vocalists, and “Four Seasons” highlights her voice with a simple melody built mainly of acoustic guitar, piano and soaring violins. It’s a little old-fashioned, reminiscent of ballads in the late Nineties, and is utterly charming in this nostalgia. It’s a completely different flavor from the dark, funk-influenced “Something New” which she references lyrically in “Four Seasons,” and shows off her penchant for genre-hopping with ease.