Thinking about…Plain Life by Potatoi: How Loneliness Can Grow into Loving Solitude

I debated between writing about Potatoi’s (John Cha's) entire album or just this song which instantly became my favourite when I heard it and I settled on talking about just this one. I’ve never heard a song that completely describes every aspect of who I’ve become. This post might get a bit personal – I try to stick to analysing the music, but I can’t analyse this one without explaining clearly what it means to me. ‘Plain Life’ – it’s a song about discovering the beauty of the small, the trivial, the ‘plain.’ It’s striking how even though a song like this should sound romantic and beautiful, it conveys a distinct sense of sadness and is very pensive and reflective in its mood. ‘Plain Life.’ It simply means an ordinary life, but with the title, the song's sound and the chorus, I feel like there are two conflicting feelings when describing your life as plain. 

There is a slight bitterness in describing a ‘plain life,’ one that conveys a wish for something better. It’s a feeling of needing to find joy in the trivial, ordinary moments when there’s nothing else to keep you going, when there’s no other joy in your life. The mellow sound of this song and the melancholy tones of John’s voice accompanied by an acoustic guitar and synths add to ‘Plain Life’s’ bittersweet tones.

“Watching the people passing by/Why do they go fast/There’s nobody to ask,” conveys this distinct sense of loneliness. People-watching can be fun but also lonely in some ways – it seems you watch the world pass by in groups while you try to enjoy your solitude. This line could also convey a much deeper sense of sadness – where John watches people “passing by” through his life, relationships passing by him and ending fleetingly. He wants to ask why nobody sticks around, why people go by so fast, but “there’s nobody to ask” since he’s alone now that everyone has passed by him. Next, “look at our plain lives/I’m gonna colour up your day,” the focus is on I’m colouring up your day. He seems to be singing to himself – he knows his life feels boring and plain because he is lonely, but he tries to add colour to it by focusing on the small, ordinary moments and what romance he can find in them. 

I really want to talk about the bridge here, because I feel like it most beautifully conveys this bittersweet sadness. 

“Look up the sky tonight and 

Sing towards your mind 

There is love that we lost 

And the pain was the cost 

So let's colour up your world 

To colour up your day”

He tries to deal with his loneliness by observing the beauty of the small moments – “look up the sky” and “sing[ing] towards [his] own mind,” making his solitude more soothing and bearable. He suggests loving this solitude when lonely – otherwise, this love for yourself is “lost” and you are “cost” in the deepening “pain” of loneliness. There’s a similar meaning in “look at the beauty we lost/this is the truth we lost” – the truth and beauty of loving ourselves is lost amongst our own loneliness and yearning for companionship. Thus, he tries to “colour up” his “plain life,” to see the love in the simplest of things. He tries to grow his own love when he feels like there’s none around him, hoping that it will “colour” his life and make it livelier. 

Desiring connection in a world of people who are increasingly distant from one another is a distinct kind of painful. Especially coming out of a pandemic, it feels like it’s ever more difficult to find close, deep connections with others no matter how hard you try. As someone who has often felt lonely, it’s common to hear that you should just go on solo dates, and learn to enjoy your own company. However, realising I needed to love my alone time always felt like an afterthought to not being able to find a friend to accompany me. I would realise, “I have no one to go with…hey, maybe I should try to go alone for once! ...Ah right, I only remembered going alone and enjoying my own time because I’m lonely and friendless, how pathetic.” Honestly, while spending time alone, I often couldn’t shake that underlying sadness of needing to do this because I didn’t have anyone but myself to spend time with.

Thus, growing to enjoy my own company, loving spending time alone and capturing trivial moments of enjoyment that I spend by myself sprung from a place of having no choice but to do just that. It came from the desperation that I was losing out on life, on love for myself and for different places and experiences, because I was restricting myself due to my aloneness. It felt a bit bittersweet knowing that this was the reason I learned to be alone, but in some way, I did “colour up [my] day” by letting myself experience simple, beautiful moments, even if I did so alone. I made sure “love” for myself was not “lost” by doing this, even with the sadness and pain that recurs when I realise my friends are not close by me. Thus, this was the first sentiment of the song that really spoke to me. 

‘Plain Life’ also shows an appreciation for an ordinary, simple life; a taste for the romance of solitude. Your life is ‘plain’ but its plainness is what makes it so beautiful and enjoyable. The imagery featuring throughout the lyrics – “Smoking cigarettes/Watching the people passing by,” “Reading old poetries/Drinking all the wine at home.” – brings to life the beauty of simple, trivial moments alone. They also feature the freedom that comes with enjoying these moments alone: “Who matters if we flop around the bed/All day long.” Part of the beauty of enjoying your own company and its plainness is that it’s your own company – you control what you do, where you go, how you enjoy your time with yourself. You know yourself best, so you have the potential to create the most wonderful memories spending time alone. “Look at our plain lives/I’m gonna colour up your day,” suggests just this – that you can add the magic and “colour” to your plain life simply by enjoying ordinary moments in your own company.

I know that John is someone who enjoys capturing and savouring the trivial in his life – he dedicates an entire blog to sharing these simple, small moments. I relate a lot to this trait of his – as I saw his writing and learned more about him, I allowed myself to embrace my desire to capture and love the littlest moments in life. He is part of the reason I started an Instagram page to do the same, and this blog to share my thoughts about music that makes me feel alive!

There is something so tender in looking back on pictures and memories of the most random things that made you smile or stare in awe. I’ve always loved keeping memories – I have a box full of ‘useless’ things from my childhood but I still am surprised at the things I find when I open it, even though I almost never use those items. Now that I can capture anything with my phone, I find myself taking pictures of moments where I feel calm, happy or amazed by the beauty of something I see around me, no matter how ‘plain,’ simple or trivial it is. Having always appreciated the beauty of life’s smallest, most random moments, I really love seeing this sentiment expressed in music. Enjoying the plainness and triviality of our lives can in fact make our days more colourful, interesting and lively. If we “los[e]” the “truth” that joy is in the smallest things, we risk “los[ing]” out on the “beauty” of life too. Thus, even if it springs from a place of loneliness, it’s worth loving your plain life. It really does create the truest love and appreciation of beauty!

The last sentiment that I think it spoke to for me was how simple the dreams of today’s youth are in this increasingly difficult world. When I speak to my friends, all we ever dream of is a life that people would probably consider ‘plain’ – a small apartment to ourselves, a few close friends nearby whom we can meet and just a sense of comfort every time we get in bed for the night. It’s a ‘plain life’ we dream of, it’s a ‘plain life’ that’s the most beautiful to us. It’s also a ‘plain life’ that’s so much harder to achieve when trying to survive in a society that demands so much financially and professionally of people. The “beauty” and “truth” of this life are “lost” to working and struggling to survive, and “the pain is the cost” for this “lost love” for the life we dream of. 

I love how John has brought these feelings together in this song. I was struck the moment I heard it and felt like it described everything I have felt over the past year. I really admire John’s incredible humanity, curiosity and desire to connect with the world around him that I have read in his writing and heard in the stories of people who meet him. I see these qualities in his music, especially in this song. It really spoke to me as someone loving my solitude because I had no other choice, as someone trying to find herself in her youth – and it feels like a friend holding my hand. While the EP ‘Toy’ itself was so sweet and wonderful, I can’t help but love this song the most and hold it very close to my heart for how it speaks to me!