iuEnglishLyrics.com is a personal project intended to help non-Koreans follow the lyrics of IU’s songs.
IU's clever choice of word sounds and expressive singing were all I needed to become a fan of her songs. But people kept saying how good her lyrics were, so I googled for english translations, subtitled videos, and lyrics videos – and felt I then understood less than by just listening to IU sing! Most are confusing because:
- Poetic expressions are translated into prosaic business english
- The translations do not try to match the phrasing of the music
- Phrases are rearranged needlessly, even between lines, so they don't match IU's emotion
- They often contain some strange English, which can break the spell of IU's words
This is one person's attempt to avoid those failings, while keeping the lyrics as close as possible to the original. It's an impossible balance between matching the meaning, the emotion, the musical phrasing, and, where possible, the sounds. As I am British, I am sure there will be cases where I have misunderstood some Korean idiom or reference and, maybe, used an English phrase which is not widely used internationally. Hopefully, someone (ideally Edam Entertainment) will be inspired to do better! © 2021-2025 iuenglishlyrics.com
Titles like this: in 2025, I put even more effort into following the original word order, rather than using typical English phrasing, and in almost all cases it matches IU's singing better, as well as her meaning. (Also added annotations, hopefully helpful.)
(IUteamstarcandy has many helpful translations of IU material, including lyrics – though not attempting to match musical phrasing.)