Singer-songwriter-turned-psychiatrist talks about life, career and revival of '80s hit song
Kim Chang-ki / Courtesy of Curious Music People
By Ko Dong-hwan
Kim Chang-ki, a former member of folk band Zoo from the late 1980s, is not one to reminisce about the old days.
Now a psychiatrist, musician and radio DJ (in a daily CBS Radio music show “Your Window by Kim Chang-ki” from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.), he is skeptical about people’s urge to return to their “past glory.”
“In hard times, people like to reminisce the good times in their memories and seek comfort in them,” Kim, 53, said, linking the tendency to what Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud called “in the service of the ego.” “They may appear comforting, but I would hate to dwell too much on those happy memories. My 20s were unstable and cloudy.”
Zoo’s 1988 hit song, “Hyehwa-dong,” recently experienced a revival when it was used in the soundtrack of the nation’s most popular tvN television drama, “Reply 1988,” a story set in the neighborhood of Ssangmun-dong, northern Seoul, in 1988 about a high school girl who searches for romance and learns to love her family members.
“I am thankful for the program because it revived the song, which had been dead for almost 30 years,” said Kim, who now leads the seven-member rock band Kim Chang-ki Band. “It was the power of the mass media.”
The cover of Hyehwa-dong, sung by Park Bo-ram, took the top spot on various online music charts in November — it was No. 2 on Melon and No. 1 on Olleh Music and Mnet.
Kim Chang-ki with members of Zoo, second from left (top) and second from right
“Hyehwa-dong” was written and composed by Kim and released in 1988 on Zoo’s second album. The song was also released as an LP single, selling over a million copies, a figure almost impossible to achieve by any musician in Korea’s digital era.
“I wrote the song when I was 25,” Kim said in an interview with The Korea Times. “I grew up in Hyehwa-dong. In 1988, Zoo shot to stardom with our first album, which was released earlier that year and later became a megahit. In March 1988, after I performed with my band at Daehangno in Dongsoong-dong (where musical performance by underground bands is still popular), I visited Hyehwa-dong again. I was surprised to see that so many things are now different from what I remember, and I felt sad, realizing that some of my memories are no longer there. The song carried that emotion.”
Kim said that the original song’s popularity and its revival wouldn’t have been possible without the power of mass media. “People don’t go around looking for good songs these days,” Kim said. “Rather, songs are randomly discovered as people watch movies or TV series and listen to their sound tracks. With its dominance in the distribution of K-pop culture, mass media is indispensable to the public’s discovery of new songs.”
In the same way, German duo Carry & Ron’s 1991 hit “I.O.U” became popular in Korea only when the song was played in the 1996 hit television drama “Lover,” and folk song “Me to You, You to Me,” first released in 2001 by trio band Scenery by Riding Bicycle, gained fame when it was included in the sound track of the 2003 romantic movie “Classic.”
Another reason “Hyehwa-dong” has mesmerized people, Kim explained, is the feeling of nostalgia that it evokes, which is rare in today’s dance- and hip-hop-dominated K-pop songs by young musicians.
Today, Kim’s life could not be more different than that over two decades ago. He runs a children’s psychotherapy clinic in Dogok-dong, Gangnam-gu, in southern Seoul. He said his previous career as a musician tends to overshadow his current career as a medical professional, but on the bright side, his medical experience helps him understand people’s minds and come up with lyrics for new songs.
His band regularly performs at 90-seat performance hall at the basement of the low-rise in which Kim’s clinic is located. Since the release of Kim’s second solo album “Thorn in My Head” released in 2013, the band has been performing at the hall every one to three months.
“Most of the audiences are those in their 40s who remember Zoo and its songs,” Kim said. “I rarely see people in their 20s at our gigs. I hope we would have more people from that age group at our gigs.”
More recently, on Dec. 12, the band held a concert at the 600-seat Maria Hall next to Myeongdong Cathedral in Jongno-gu, Seoul.