Korean Music Time! #6: Jo Duck Bai - In a Dream (조덕배 - 꿈에)

What, you thought that just because I returned from Korea I was going to stop doing these song translations? Fuhgeddaboudit! I like Korean music and the discovery of what these songs mean too much to stop doing them.

One of my most recent favorite singers is Jo Duck Bai (I would Romanize it as Jo Deok Bae, but the former is how he has it on his Twitter account, so I'm presuming that's his preferred Romanization). His music is really soothing and peaceful. It makes you feel good, you know? I decided one of his signature songs needed to be translated, so that it could be enjoyed by the English-speaking world. Listen and enjoy!

꿈에
In a Dream

(Verse)

꿈에 어제꿈에 보았던
In a dream, in yesterday’s dream I saw
이름모를 너를 나는 못잊어
The anonymous you I cannot forget
본적도 없고 이름도 모르는
Never even having seen you before and not even knowing your name
지난꿈 스쳐간 여인이여
Oh, woman that passed by in my last dream
이밤에 곰곰히 생각해보니
Now that I reflect on it tonight
어디선가 본듯한 바로 그모습
It’s just as if I’ve seen that vision somewhere
떠오르는 모습 잊었었던 사람
The image coming to me of a person I had forgotten
어느해 만났던 여인이여
Oh, woman I met one year

(Chorus)
어느 가을 만났던 사람이여
Oh, person I met one fall
난 눈을뜨면 꿈에서 깰까봐
If I open my eyes I’m afraid I’ll wake up from the dream
난 눈못뜨고 그대를 보네
I can’t open my eyes  and see you
물거품처럼 깨져버린 내꿈이여
Oh, my dream that has broken like a water bubble
오늘밤에 그대여 와요
Won’t you come again tonight?
난 눈을뜨면 사라지는 사람이여
If I open my eyes, oh vanishing person
난 눈못뜨고 그대를 또 보네
I can’t open my eyes and see you again
물거품처럼 깨져버린 내꿈이여
Oh, my dream that has broken like a water bubble
오늘밤에 그대여 와요
Won’t you come again tonight?

I know I described his music as "soothing and peaceful" above, but this is actually one of his more intense songs. You can see that the frantic-sounding chorus is due to his desperation to see the woman from his dreams again.

I'm not really happy with the translation of the first two lines. The second line was actually the last line I translated, because it uses a grammatical form that I was unfamiliar with, and I was only satisfied with it after finding some sample sentences that used the same form. I think a more accurate translation of the first two lines would be something like "In a dream...I cannot forget the anonymous you, who I saw in yesterday's dream." By trying to make the translations match up with the lines as they are printed, they end up sounding stilted in English. The Korean word order allows for a different poetic style.

I wish I knew more about Jo Duck Bai, since it's hard to find information about many of these singers in English. From what I can find, it seems he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage years back, and I think he might have some sort of disability as well, though I'm not sure if those two things are related and I'm mixing them up or what. All the more reason to learn Korean well!