[OST Corner] OK: The Ultimate Destination for Original Soundtracks

I’m always on the hunt for songs to add to my workout playlist, and what’s better than the hard-hitting opening title track to a K-drama about an athlete adapting to prison life? “OK” by BewhY has a beat that makes it the perfect accompaniment to weightlifting, but I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t bother to look up the lyric translations until long after the song had racked up an impressive play count on my iTunes playlist.

For me, music is a mood, and while lyrics can certainly influence my emotional connection to a particular song, I often ignore what’s being said in favor of treating the artist’s voice as another instrument — especially with songs composed in languages other than my native English. This is largely the case when it comes to my workout songs, for which the beat and energy are far more important to me than the artist’s words. After all, I’m doing squats, not an interpretive dance.

All this to say that it took me a while to get around to Googling “OK,” and when I did, I was surprised to discover that the lyrics are about someone struggling to find his self-confidence after breaking up with a woman he was dependent on for emotional support. The upbeat tempo and my association of “OK” as the title track to Smart Prison Living (a.k.a. Prison Playbook) definitely had me thinking this was more of a “when life sucks, power on and it will get better” kind of song, but that’s, uh, not the case.

Part of me is amused at how wrong I was, but another part of me appreciates the track even more because my initial perception of the song mirrors part of its narrative. The singer is putting on a happy facade even while his internal sadness makes him feel disconnected from the outward persona:

I don’t wanna be honest
The me right now acts brighter than the real me
But the fake me is better
Why am I doing this?
I am out of my mind

During my first couple hundred plays of this song, I only heard the confident “OK, OK, OK,” not realizing the cheerfulness of the music masked the sadness of the song’s lyrics.

With this interpretation in mind, it’s even more obvious why this song was selected as the opening title track for Smart Prison Living. Park Hae-soo’s character, Kim Je-hyuk, was also going through a breakup (and reconciliation) during the course of the drama, but — more importantly — one of his defining characteristics was his blank-faced and “simple-minded” persona that was a mask for all the worry and sadness he was internalizing. So many layers to a song that I once mindlessly listened to on leg day!