Mono by RM

TOKYO

Tokyo is a song where RM trying to find himself, his old self, his real self through lyrics. The lyricism and the vocals of the song perfectly has blend together and has made that odd feeling of "being himself no more". Stucked between the Real Man and the Rap Monster, regretting for choosing the name Rap Monster, tiring himself by acting the monster who he was not, RM was trying to find his complete, real self.

In the first verse he tells,

"Wake up in Tokyo, feel like a torso
I know it's time to go
I see Pinocchio wearing a poncho
That's me some time ago"

Tokyo is not his town, nor his country. He is waking up in a strange land, and he feels like he is incomplete and not himself. Torso is a human body without head, arms and legs, not a complete human. RM feels like a torso means he feels incompleteness in him in this strange land, where he visited temporarily. That's when he knows that it's time to go back, time to feel his own country's air, time to be a complete one in his own land. It's most likely a his dream, where he saw that "Pinocchio wearing a Poncho". Poncho is a Mexican originated dress, and dreaming a Poncho has a different meaning. It represents a down to earth and carefree personality, which is playing down the seriousness of things. And the Pinocchio is a puppet who wanted to be a real boy with a lot of hopes and dreams. So that down to earth, carefree boy who had dreams, was his old self, the self he was missing throughout the years.

In this second verse,

"Do I miss myself?
Do I miss your face?
I don't know (I don't know)
I don't know (I don't know)
Ooh, ooh
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh"

He realized that he had missed him a big time and even felt like a stranger who don't know the face of his old self anymore.

In the third verse,

"Life is a word that sometimes you cannot say
And ash is a thing that someday we all should be
When tomorrow comes
How different it's going to be?
Why do love and hate sound just the same to me?"

Why we cannot say "life" sometimes, because we are not living it, we aren't living up to the word's real meaning, we are not even worth to say the word. We have completely destroyed the meaning of "life", and that's why we cannot say the word sometimes. But whether we lived our life to the full or not, we all have to become ash someday, without a doubt. That's the common fate of every one of us. Even if it's a new day, it's tomorrow, the reality is not gonna be changed. It's not gonna be different than today. Love and hate consider as the two most intense emotions a one can feel. Both need passion and commitment. So the barrier between those two emotions is too thin and not so strong. So one can identifies those two as the same emotion with two natures even though those two are polar opposites.

In this fourth and the last verse of the song,

"I can't sleep
Homesick, babe
I just wanna
Stay right next to you
If I could choose my dream
I just wanna
Stay right next to you
Ooh, ooh
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh"

Since he has woke up in the middle of his sleep, after dreaming his old self as a "Pinocchio wearing a poncho", it seems like he cannot sleep again. It's homesick, he is not in the home and not his old self either. So he wanted to go home, find his old self and stay right next to his old self, since it's the most missed thing in his life. He was ready to sacrifice his everything to be his old self and embrace that little one that he missed so badly in his life.