Gimme Some Water
(물 좀 주소)

Gimme Some Water might just be the song that best defines Han Dae-soo. It brims with his trademark eccentricity and iconoclastic flair. From the lyrics that seem to break all the rules of song writing, to the strikingly funky melody, and the top-of-the-lung screams that almost grates on your nerves, it is some song.

The line 물 좀 주소 opens the first song on the singer's first LP, widely recognized as his best and ranking among the top ten in most all-time best album lists, unleashing an impactful raw scream foregoing any intro. It is as if Han wanted to make a statement of some sort with this loaded phrase. There hadn't been anything like it before it came out, and I'm not even sure there has since. It is quite a song no matter how you look at it.

Exactly what Han meant by water is up to anybody's guess, but his plea of screams isn't something you can easily dismiss. And it isn't really hard to guess what he meant, I think, given the oppressive atmosphere of Korean society at the time. It must have been a cry, at least in part, of wanting to be free from the shackles of the times, and what youngster wouldn't sometimes dream of such things at one point or another. He thus fled to New York when things just wouldn't go the way he wanted, and supposedly lived there like a hippy, later flying back to Korea to try his hands on more things and then leaving again, perhaps many times. The song is more understandable in context of his life's trajectory.