Blue Alert – Yoon Hee & Do Joon Young’s theme song

Every time Yoon Hee and Do Joon Young meet for their trysts, a haunting, whispery jazz tune in the vein of Billie Holiday plays in the background while they sip wine and make out…here’s more about Blue Alert, their theme song.

Blue Alert is a song written by Leonard Cohen and his partner Anjani, put together by Anjani from Leonard Cohen’s notes.

The version in the show is by Madeleine Peyroux, an American jazz/blues singer, also known for sounding like Billie Holiday.

I thought the song title and lyrics were really interesting. It’s called Blue Alert — @h2ogirl’s colour analysis was jumping out at me here. Blue – as in the emotion blue, the emotional state of so many of the characters in this drama and also blue, as in the consequence of love affairs.

The song starts off with the line, ‘there’s perfume burning in the air’ – remember Dong Hoon’s line in Episode 6, when Yoon Hee returns from her campfire tryst with Do Joon Young?

“What’s that smell?”

The “she” is later described as wearing a pleated skirt – “the edge of her pleated skirt”. Yoon Hee always, always wears pleated skirts when with Do Joon Young. She stops wearing them after they break up.

BLUE ALERT

There’s perfume burning in the air
Bits of beauty everywhere
Shrapnel flying, soldier hit the dirt 

She comes so close
You feel her then
She tells you No and No again
Your lip is cut on the edge of her pleated skirt
Blue Alert

Visions of her drawing near
Arise, abide, and disappear
You try to slow it down
It doesn’t work

It’s just another night I guess
All tangled up in nakedness
You even touch yourself
You’re such a flirt
Blue Alert

You know how nights like this begin
The kind of knot your heart gets in
Any way you turn is going to hurt

There’s perfume burning in the air
Bits of beauty everywhere
Shrapnel flying, soldier hit the dirt
Blue Alert

She breaks the rules so you can see
She’s wilder than you’ll ever be
You talk religion but she won’t convert

Her body’s twenty stories high
You try to look away, you try
But all you want to do is get there first
Blue Alert

You know how nights like this begin
The kind of knot your heart gets in
Any way you turn is going to hurt

There’s perfume burning in the air
Bits of beauty everywhere
Shrapnel flying, soldier hit the dirt
Blue Alert
Blue Alert…

—

Do Joon Young and Yoon Hee talk about the song, and we find out that she didn’t use to like this song – but after they start their affair, it becomes her favourite song. Interestingly enough, the song that Yoon Hee used to prefer, is the much more straightforward “Smile” by Charlie Chaplin.

Check out other theme songs here:

Ji An and Dong Hoon’s theme song “Dear Moon”

Dong Hoon’s love song to Ji An “A Very Distant Place”

Dong Hoon and Yoon Hee’s Theme Song “The Sound of Silence”

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