idle() the music of ipe()

No. 26· behind-the-music

Counting "Today" in Ten Songs

"Today" appears 66 times in the English sheets and 오늘 76 times in the Korean ones of dear(you); vol.1. We count it by song and section; every Outro has it.

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Three of the ten Korean titles of dear(you); vol.1 begin with 「오늘도」, and two English titles end in "Today." An earlier post, Ten Titles, Read as Sentences, already noted that. This post leaves the titles aside and counts the word inside the lyric sheets: how many times "today" (오늘) appears in each song, and where in the song it sits.

First, the scope and the method. We read the lyric sheets in the ten song design documents (the English version and the Korean version of each). The documents were written on 2026-07-04 when the songs were commissioned, so what is actually sung may differ, and we did not check the counts against the audio. We skipped the whispered lines, which are in the other language. We counted the lines between the section headings (Verse 1, Verse 2, Pre-Chorus, Chorus, Bridge, Final Chorus, Outro). In English we counted the whole word "today" (so "today's" counts). In Korean we counted every word that contains 오늘, such as 오늘도, 오늘은, 오늘의 and 오늘보다. The music is made with AI (Suno); the lyrics are drafted by AI and reviewed by a person.

The count, song by song

SongEnglish "today"Korean 오늘
0189
0256
0367
0478
0556
0688
0757
081010
0945
10810
Total6676

Song 08, "You Were Enough Today.", has the most in both versions, ten each. Song 09, the one named after tomorrow, has the fewest: four in English and five in Korean. The Korean number is equal to or higher than the English one in every song. We do not draw a conclusion from that. Korean words often carry a particle (오늘도, 오늘은) where English may drop the word, and the two versions were written as paraphrases, not word-for-word translations.

It is in every Outro

The most even result is where the word sits at the end. Every Outro, in both versions, contains "today" or 오늘 at least once. Across the ten English Outros the word appears 12 times, and across the ten Korean ones 15 times.

Five of the English Outros (songs 03, 04, 06, 07 and 08) end a line with "today too." In Korean, the Outros of songs 01, 02, 03, 04, 06, 07 and 08 contain 오늘도. The other Outros use the word differently. Song 05 says "I hope today's worries, too," (Korean 「오늘의 걱정도」). Song 10 says "Leave today's worries / with today," (Korean 「오늘의 걱정은 / 오늘에 두고,」). Song 09 uses it as a yardstick: "May tomorrow bring / a few more smiles than today —" (Korean 「오늘보다 / 조금 더 웃고,」).

Where it is rare

Summed over all ten songs, the English counts by section are: Verse 1 14, Chorus 13, Outro 12, Final Chorus 11, Verse 2 6, Pre-Chorus 6, Bridge 4. The Korean counts are Verse 1 15, Outro 15, Chorus 14, Final Chorus 12, Pre-Chorus 7, Bridge 7, Verse 2 6. Sections differ in length and song 01 has no Final Chorus, so these are raw counts, not rates. Still, Verse 2 is among the lowest in both languages. In the English sheets, Verse 2 of songs 02, 03, 07, 08 and 09 has no "today" at all. Song 08 is the one with the most "today" overall, and its Verse 2, the one that draws the person who remembers what went wrong far longer than what went right, has none.

One small difference between the versions

Song 07's Verse 1 has no "today" in English (it says the speaker "looked back on the day"), while the Korean Verse 1 has one: 「오늘 하루를」. It is the only place we noticed where the two versions disagree on whether the first verse names the day.

What we are not claiming

  • Whether the repeated "today" was a planned device is not in the design documents. We only counted the sheets.
  • The counts come from the 2026-07-04 design documents, not the released audio. The sung lyrics may differ.
  • The counts cover only the lyric lines outside the whispers. Titles and whispers are not included.
  • Nothing here says how a listener experiences the word.

Listen

Once more, plainly: the music is made with AI (Suno); the lyrics are drafted by AI and reviewed by a person. You can also listen on the idle() home page.

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