No. 5· behind-the-music
Admitting Fear Instead of Fixing It — How We Designed "I Was Scared, Too."
A song that does not try to remove a developer's fear of the AI era but admits it first. The design intent of dear(you); track 03, the turn in its lyric, and the place where a seventh slot first appears, read against the lyric draft.
Track 03 of dear(you); vol.1, "I Was Scared, Too." (Korean title: 나도 무서웠어.), is one of the songs on the album that speaks most directly about its own time. Its subject is the fear a developer feels in an era when AI writes code, writes documentation and even reviews it. We want to follow how the song handles that fear, going by the lyric draft. As always, what is actually sung on the recording can be shorter than the draft.
One thing up front. This is a song about AI, and the song itself was made with AI. The music is produced with AI (Suno). Lyrics are AI-drafted and reviewed by a person. It would be stranger to hide that while singing about it.
A song that admits fear instead of removing it
The theme field of the design document begins like this: a fear that anyone living as a developer in the age of AI has felt at least once. It goes on to say that the song does not try to get rid of that fear. It acknowledges the feeling first, and it is a song that passes along one sentence: "I've been there too." The emotional keyword runs from anxiety to empathy, and the mood is listed as reflective, gentle, emotional and hopeful.
The album plan records the same attitude as the emotional center of the whole record: acknowledging the anxiety of the developer in the AI era instead of trying to erase it. If the first two songs asked first and then listened to the end, the third touches the most uncomfortable spot in the listener for the first time. It still gives no solution. The story field of the design document ends this way: the song does not answer that question. Instead, it says that a person who feels this way is not alone.
The scene: what you got used to yesterday looks old today
The scene in the story field is concrete. Another new AI has come out. What you had just got used to yesterday already feels old today. In an era when AI produces code, writes documents, runs tests and even does the review, a thought crosses your mind: will I still be okay?
The first verse draws this unease as an atmosphere rather than an event. A single headline brushed past in the morning made the heart a little restless for no reason. Nothing big happened; something small touched something tender. The verse goes on: the things to learn were quietly piling up, and two short lines give that pile its rhythm.
One more. And one more.
Those four words show, in sound, the speed at which things stack up. Then the verse turns straight to a breath and a reassurance that it's not too late yet. The fear is named, and almost at once there is room to pause.
Verse 2: it was amazing, and it was frightening
Counted line by line in the lyric draft (English version). The short Pre-Chorus is the hinge of the song.
In the second verse the song becomes a little more honest. There was a time when you would stay up all night to write a single function, and now a few lines of words make the code unfold before your eyes. The lyric first admits this change: it was amazing, truly astonishing. Then, after one beat, it says that it scared me a little. And the most painful question arrives: what if I'm slowly fading away?
Notice that the lyric never speaks badly of the technology. The wonder comes first and the fear follows. It rests on an understanding that fear is not born of blame but sits next to admiration. So the song does not tell the listener to hate AI or to beat it. The verse closes like this:
That kind of thought — you've had it once, haven't you?
In the Korean original the ending asks for agreement, as if to say you did too, didn't you? The whole way this song treats fear sits in that one line. It doesn't diagnose the fear. It stands in the same place and asks for a nod.
The Pre-Chorus: anxiety is not giving up
The hinge of the song, the Pre-Chorus. Seven lines are all it takes.
The shortest slot, the Pre-Chorus, changes the direction of the whole song. It says: it's okay, you don't have to hide that feeling. Then comes this sentence:
Being anxious doesn't mean you've given up — it means you still hold it dear.
It rereads anxiety as a sign of care instead of a weakness. A person who is afraid is afraid because they have not let go of the thing. The Korean version builds the same thought in a different word order. Packing a change of direction into a short slot is a method the album uses elsewhere too: the Pre-Chorus of track 01 is only eight lines, and in it the weight shifts from results to endurance.
The chorus: I was scared too, so take it slowly
The chorus opens with a whisper and then says the title. In the English version it is "I was scared too." It is a confession from the one who comforts, who says they walked through the same fear. The voice that holds the chorus belongs not to someone who knows the answer but to someone who has walked the same road. The lines that follow: so it's okay to come slowly. For the one who walks to the very end lasts longer than the one who runs the fastest. You, still learning today, are doing more than enough. And the chorus closes on a single line: I believe in who you are today.
The word to notice is "lasts longer". The chorus has turned from a story about speed into one about staying power. If the cause of the fear is speed, then comfort has to offer a standard other than speed, and the chorus offers walking to the end.
The Bridge: what only a person can do
In the Bridge the song faces AI, the name of the fear, head-on. AI can make answers fast, it says, but the heart that understands someone still begins with a person. Two examples follow: smiling at a colleague who failed and telling them it's okay, and leaving one more review late at night. Both come from a developer's everyday life. They point not to the skill of writing code but to the skill of caring for the person next to you.
This Bridge is also where a theme that repeats across the album starts. The Bridges of tracks 04 and 07 return to one sentence saying that AI can make good answers, but the one who makes a good day was always a person. Track 03 hands over the first sketch of that thought before the sentence itself appears.
Where the seventh slot first appears
This is the first song on the album with a Final Chorus. Tracks 01 and 02 had six slots: Verse 1, Verse 2, Pre-Chorus, Chorus, Bridge and Outro. From track 03, a Final Chorus sits between the Bridge and the Outro, making seven. Why the change starts at track 03 is not written down anywhere. What we can state as fact is that the song where the slots grow is the one about fear. The Final Chorus of the Korean version ends with this thought:
Because you don't exist to keep up with the speed — you're someone who makes someone else's tomorrow a little warmer.
The slot first admits that the world will grow faster again tomorrow. It says that's okay, and that you are not a person who exists to match the pace. The standard the chorus offered, the one who walks to the end, is extended once more here and arrives at a definition: someone who warms another person's tomorrow. After dealing with fear, the last thing the song hands over is not a solution but an identity.
Whispers, sound and the last line
The whispers here are short as well. The English version carries 괜찮아 ("it's okay"), 걱정 마 ("don't worry") and 천천히 ("slowly"), and the Korean version carries It's okay, Don't worry and Take your time. None of them is advice; all of them help you catch your breath. The two versions also have the same number of lines, 82 each.
The sound follows the lyric. The genre is ambient lo-fi with emotional chill added, at 72 BPM. The design document lists soft piano, warm electric piano and gentle guitar, with vinyl noise, a soft rain texture and ambient pads. In the album's overall sound plan, tracks 03 and 04 are written as the stretch of emotional chill where gentle strings come in: one step further from the warmth of a rainy evening, where feeling opens up a little.
The Outro closes with thanks: thank you for quietly holding on today too, let's set down that anxious heart a little for tonight, tomorrow too, slowly. And like every song on the album, it ends on a one-line whisper, "ipe. be still". After the words about putting down anxiety comes the word for stillness.
Listen
You can hear the song on YouTube.
- S1A1.03 I Was Scared, Too. (나도 무서웠어.) — English version · Korean version
Further reading
Stack Overflow publishes a large yearly survey on how developers use AI tools and how they feel about them. As material that touches this song's subject we point to the AI section of the 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey. This post quotes none of its figures; the link is here as a source only.
Once more, plainly: the music is produced with AI (Suno). Lyrics are AI-drafted and reviewed by a person. We don't hide the irony of talking about the fear of the AI era in a song made with AI. You can also listen on the idle() home page.