A Lyrical Analysis of ‘Strange’ by Agust D (ft. RM): Critiquing Capitalism

On May 22nd of 2020, Agust D, better known as Suga of popular Korean boy-group BTS, released his second solo mixtape titled ‘D-2’. The mixtape explores the personal experiences and world viewpoints of the artist, and on it, ‘Strange’ was released with RM (another member of BTS) as a featured artist.

‘Strange’ is a hip-hop/rap track that means to start a conversation about what is strange and what is normal under late-stage capitalism and current societal standards. The song urges listeners to be more introspective and to question their surroundings more often instead of blindly complying with the established system.

In economics, capitalism refers to a ‘free’ market system in which most of the resources are controlled by private individuals, with little to no government intervention, the main goal being to maximize profit. In theory, capitalism was supposed to free the producers and consumers from artificial interferences in the market so that the demands of the people could be clearly heard and satisfied. Capitalism also breeds innovation, because what would motivate people to be creative and solve problems better than personal gain?

In actuality, the system has mutated to become what we now call ‘late-stage’ capitalism, a term used to highlight the injustices, exploitation, and other modern socioeconomic problems that have developed as a consequence of the free capitalist market economy. And that is exactly what this song will be discussing.

Intro

Everything in dust Do you see? Well, well, well Everything in lust Oh, what do you see?

The melody starts and with it, a distorted voice sings this part, which repeats in the chorus and then again in the outro of the song. The first line can be interpreted in a few ways. The first is that dust is a sign of neglect; things on your shelf get dusty when you don’t tend to them often enough. This could then be taken to mean that people are not giving enough attention to important matters. The second interpretation is through the idiom ‘to leave someone/something in dust,’ which means to leave them behind; to go faster or ahead. In this case, we can take the line to be a reference to how fast-paced modern life has become and how most people can’t keep up. Another way to look at it is as a declaration that nothing matters, everything’s in dust: it's all crumbling and none of it is worth saving.

One final meaning to this line is clarified by the annotations to the song’s genius page:

'In many Buddhism-influenced Asian cultures, ‘dust’ is a common reference to the impurities that cloud our mind. These impurities are often referred to as the ‘three poisons’: greed, anger, and delusion.'

Following this specific interpretation, the line ‘everything in lust’ is pointing out the greedy nature of humanity that most of our current global problems can be attributed to.

Verse 1

The world is a giant system In it, either opposition, war, or survival is inserted Life that we can't refuse With dreams as its collateral, the capitalism injects the morphine called 'hope’

Global economics has made it so that countries are no longer closed systems but rather just a small entity in the bigger picture that is the world economy. That is not to say that globalization is a bad thing, as it has helped with overcoming segregation in many ways by introducing cultures to one another, but the reduced barriers to trade have certainly only pushed capitalism forward.

It is a system that the current generation did not ask for but can’t resist if they want to survive. Our consent to it is implied and manufactured because we reluctantly play the game, but is it truly consent if there is no other option? Or worse yet, if the other option is starving to death?

Collateral is essentially something one promises to give up in case they cannot repay a loan they’ve taken; it is often a house or a land property. The metaphor draws a clear image: you must stake your dreams for financial success and give them up in the case you can’t achieve them. Hope is then compared to morphine, a drug medically used to relieve pain. When things get rough, media will often spout vague nonsense like ‘never give up on your dreams,’ or ‘stay hopeful,’ selling the image of all those who struggled to succeed and were eventually rewarded with wealth and power for their perseverance. However, this view is nothing but capitalist propaganda. The current system does little to lift up the working-class but instead keeps the wealthy in power and sells these faux optimistic statements to keep the working-class hopeful, to keep them motivated and working because their labour is what generates profit for the owners and shareholders of companies. And all the hard workers can really do is hold onto hope that it gets better.

Wealth breeds wealth and tests greed The rich longs even for poverty

Greed is arguably the main reason the capitalist system has become so unethical in its ways. Greed so insatiable that it longs for anything and everything, whatever it may cost from exploitation to environmental damage, and when the well has run dry and there is nothing left to want, it craves the one thing it doesn’t have: poverty.

In the world there's only black and white, those two In an endless zero-sum game, the very end is worth seeing Polarization is the ugliest flower in the world

A zero-sum game refers to a situation wherein someone’s gain directly causes another person’s loss usually due to demand exceeding supply by a wide margin. This part of the verse is meant to highlight how capitalism in its nature pushes for things to be binary; black or white; loss or gain; poor or rich. And the resultant polarization, or "sharp division amongst people", only serves to worsen the class division and income gap. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer; all whilst the working-class get exploited and the chasm shrinks as people join one of the two extremes. There is also wordplay here, as the Korean words for ‘polarization’ and ‘flower’ are homophones.

It's been long since the truth's been eaten away by the lies Who benefits the most? Just who suffers damage the most?

Pre-Chorus 1

In a sick world, a person that is well Isn't it strange how they are treated as a mutant In a world with its eyes closed, a person with theirs open Isn't it strange how now they are made blind

In a world where it has become normal to turn a blind eye to all these issues, he says, isn’t it strange that those who do care are treated as unordinary? People who see the world’s economic, social, political, and environmental decline, who try their best to stay educated on such matters and to speak up about them when relevant, isn’t it strange that they often get dismissed for ‘trying to be woke’ or for being ‘too political'?

Don’t be discouraged by those who claim that just speaking up does not make a difference. The recent generations are far more knowledgeable about these topics than the previous ones; when more people are aware, more are likely to lend a helping hand when they can, and less are likely to abuse their powers when given the chance.

You aren’t cool for not caring; humanity’s problems are your problems too.

There are no answers, isn't it strange?

Verse 2

You think you got taste? Oh babe, how do you know? I mean for God's sake Everything's under control

The choices you’ve been given Are all preferences controlled by the capital People talk 'My feed explains me' No matter how much money is in your grasp Everyone's a slave to this system

RM’s part starts here and it's really quite menacing. You think you’ve got taste? Well, believe it or not, everything around you, including your own thoughts, is being controlled by big corporations. How much of your interests, beliefs, and preferences are actually yours and how much of it is just the media you’ve consumed, blended together to become the blob that is your personality? This verse is meant to bring to your attention online trends and aesthetics. Capitalism thrives through online mediums with ads and content, tailored to profit off their target demographic through algorithms that are scarily good at identifying patterns. This isn’t meant to dismiss the things that make you feel individual, but it is rather a call to be more sceptical and conscious when it comes to things you choose to strongly identify with; to be aware of their sources and the reasons behind them.

The line ‘everything’s under control’ can also be taken as exasperated faux reassurance. It sounds like someone telling you that everything’s fine and you should calm down. A dismissal of concern in a way that asks you not to question authority and to instead just conform to it.

The next part shifts the lights on the rich from being the exploiters to being the exploited, too. Because capitalism feeds off the materialistic and is there a better demographic to rob blind through gentle brainwashing than the group with the most money? Humans have managed to create a system where everyone gets exploited to some extent and it is unclear who really wins.

Now even you won't know Oh baby, what's your name? Polarization, the flower that's already bloomed A round nail that has been hammered into a square hole Even so, I roll on, somehow, like this In each of their chicken coops, everyone claims they are fine

‘A round nail that has been hammered into a square hole’ reverses the idiom ‘square peg in a round hole,’ which is an expression that describes someone who cannot fit in. A round nail in a square hole, however, can probably fit. This can then refer to trying to fix a problem with an unfitting solution, or for someone to try and blend in even if it goes against their nature. The reversed phrase can also refer to being stuck and unable to move in this huge established system where your perspectives as a singular person are tiny and insignificant.

And then, he finally reveals what his entire verse has been building up to: no one is okay under capitalism, but they are all expected to act as though they are. People are losing their sense of identity and being under the constraints of the system. To fully expand on this, I’d like to use excerpts from an amazingly written article titled ‘Capitalism and Mental Health’ by David Matthews:

‘(...)the social, political, and economic organization of society must be recognized as a significant contributor to people’s mental health. (…) As the Marxist professor of social work and social policy Iain Ferguson has argued, “it is the economic and political system under which we live—capitalism—which is responsible for the enormously high levels of mental-health problems which we see in the world today.” The alleviation of mental distress is only possible “in a society without exploitation and oppression.”

(…) It is only for a fortunate minority that work can be considered pleasurable, while for the majority it is a thoroughly unsatisfactory experience. (…) Rather than being an opportunity to fulfil passions, Baran and Sweezy argued that leisure has become largely synonymous with idleness. (...) The purpose of both work and leisure, they claimed, largely coalesces around increasing consumption.

(…) With little likelihood of the working class instigating revolutionary action, the potential reality is a continuation of the “present process of decay, with the contradictions between the compulsions of the system and the elementary needs of human nature becoming ever more insupportable,” resulting in “the spread of increasingly severe psychic disorders.”’

Pre-Chorus 2

In a sick world, a person that is well I don't think it's strange that he is treated a mutant In a world with its eyes closed, a person with theirs open I think it's more strange that only they have theirs open

This acts as a direct response to Agust D’s pre-chorus. Here RM states that he does not in fact think it’s strange for the minority of people with a functioning moral compass and general awareness of today's issues to be treated as mutant because, as discussed earlier, it has become more normal to just ignore it all and pretend it’s not happening, but instead he thinks it’s odd that they are the minority in the first place.

It’s the kind of world where a dream has become an option, but

Although it likes to present itself in that light, capitalism does not run on passion or ambition. It runs on labour that does not get paid nearly enough relative to the value they produce. It runs on obsessive management and analysis of the consumer behaviour to run the most effective marketing campaigns to sell the products made by the underpaid overworked labour with a discernible profit margin. Dreams are optional. We’ve deciphered all that, so what now?