[News] The truth behind the grunt in IU's title track, 'You and I'

Questions regarding the grunt that was inserted into IU's title track, 'You and I', have finally been answered.

While listening to the song, one would hear a grunt that sounded like 'ah-euk' made by a voice somewhere between male or female. Queries about this strange noise were prevalent among IU fans too, such that if you searched "You and I" on the portal site, related search words like 'grunt' and 'grunting noise' would appear.

On Jan 11th, composer Lee Min Soo told 'Sports Seoul', "The grunt is really IU's voice. It wasn't accidentally included, but rather, something intentional that the producer, lyricist and others agreed upon right from the start."

According to Lee Min Soo, "The first reason for including it is due to the switch from one spatial-temporal time frame to another. 'You and I' is a fantasy story about the time travels of a teenager to the distant future. It is also about how IU is turning 20."

He said, "The 1st verse represents the past, 2nd verse the present, and 3rd verse the future. Because of that, the last part of the chorus which goes, 'Please call out my name', is slightly different each time. In the 1st verse, 'Please call out my name' has feelings of hope, the 2nd has feelings of annoyance because of like 'Hey you, I said call out my name!'. The 3rd is like, 'Please call out my name heuk heuk heuk', feeling slightly sorrowful. In order to portray the frustrated and annoyed feelings in the 2nd verse, we needed to have this grunt."

As for the second reason, he expressed, "If you listen to 'You and I', you would realise that there are really a lot of high notes. So as IU keeps hitting the high notes over and over again, she reaches the climax and the feelings of frustration are released through this sound of exclamation."

Lee Minsoo's last reason was that, "We needed a dramatic device" and "It was a turning point we needed in the song structure. It could become boring, so we had to have a sudden change by temporarily going off tangent."

Also, "Honestly, during the promotions for 'Good Day', many focused their attention only on the 3-level vocal booster, but there were also negative views about some other parts in the song. IU asked me, 'Will we have something else that will come close to the 3-level vocal booster this time?', but I wasn't too stressed about rivalling 'Good Day' with this card of mine. IU also said, "We'll be able to overtake the 3-level vocal booster" and liked the song and the feedback from everyone was good too, but even though I threw in the so-called killer move, I'm feeling a bit sorry too."

[The grunt sound can be heard around 3:50 mark]




Translation: squishyblob @ weheartiu
Source: Sports Seoul Sharing is sexy