The Love Song a Killer Requested on the Radio: “Gloomy Letter”

Part 4 of 10 in The One Album K-pop Learned From: Yoo Jae-ha

No. 7, “Gloomy Letter,” is the song the serial-murder suspect requests on the radio every rainy night in Bong Joon-ho’s film Memories of Murder (2003). But Yoo Jae-ha wrote it because of the first letter he ever got from the woman he’d chased for two years.

Its combined YouTube views come to about 2.64 million. Plenty of people remember this song as frightening because of the film, but whenever I hear it, the first person I picture is a young man of 22, up all night over a single letter.

The first letter, after two years

In his first year of college, Yoo ran into a woman from his elementary school class at an inter-college music club and fell for her on the spot. She turned him down again and again. Two years later, around the time she finally opened up, he got his first letter from her (Munhwa Ilbo, May 12, 2003; Hankook Ilbo, Nov. 8, 2014).

헤어지려고 할 때 그제서야 / 내게 주려고 쓴 편지를 꺼냈네

Only when we were about to say goodbye / did you pull out the letter you’d written for me.

— Lyrics and music by Yoo Jae-ha (1987), excerpt

Whether she’d tucked it deep in her bag on purpose or simply forgot, she only takes it out when they’re parting. He gets home, opens it slowly, and reads the handwriting on the pretty paper line by line. Munhwa Ilbo says the letter held tenderness for him and a vague worry about what lay ahead. The song is his reply. Do you tear up when you look at me, he asks. Then let’s trust each other without a word. Clumsy or weak, strong or wise, none of it matters to him.

The flute that opens the track on the album was played by the very woman who wrote the letter. Then Yoo’s jazz piano comes in (Hankook Ilbo, 2014). The chords slide between major and minor like jazz, and yet the song goes down easy. Hankook Ilbo compared it to a martial-arts master who drops an opponent with one light flick of the hand.

Also read: A 22-Year-Old Teen Idol Asked Korea About Its Bank Balance: "A Letter to Myself"

Bong Joon-ho chose it over Mozart

In Come and See Me, the stage play Memories of Murder is based on, the music tied to the killings was Mozart’s Requiem. Bong swapped it for “Gloomy Letter” (Hankook Ilbo, 2014; Nongmin Shinmun, Mar. 24, 2025). In the film, suspect Park Hyun-gyu (Park Hae-il) mails postcards to a radio show asking for the song on rainy nights, and on the nights it airs, someone is killed. The postcard reads: “From a lonely man in Taeryeong. Please play it on a rainy night.”

Bong explained the choice in an interview: “I thought using music by a singer who was alive in the 1980s but has since left us would feel more haunting. And I thought a song people half know, one that isn’t too popular, would suit the character who requests it.”

When the film became a hit, the song came back with it. In 2003, Munhwa Ilbo reported that longtime fans grumbled they “couldn’t understand why it was turned into a killer’s song,” while first-time listeners said they “never knew a song this heartbreaking existed.” Hankook Ilbo wrote that thanks to the film, “Gloomy Letter” became about as popular as “Past Days” and “Because I Love You.” The tenderest reply he ever wrote to a lover became the creepiest song choice in Korean film history.

Jonghyun, Exy and Taxi Driver

Of the K-pop singers who’ve sung it, the most-watched video belongs to SHINee’s Jonghyun. His performance on MBC’s Yesterday in 2014 has 970,000 views.

SHINee Jonghyun – “Gloomy Letter” (Yesterday, MBC, 2014) — 970,000 views

WJSN’s Exy sang it on JTBC’s The Second World in 2022. In 2021, SBS’s drama Taxi Driver released it again as an OST in Kwak Jin-eon’s voice, for a show about a cab driver who takes revenge on behalf of crime victims (Xports News, Apr. 23, 2021). A killer’s song turned into a song for the victims. Television flipped it one more time.

WJSN Exy – “Gloomy Letter” (The Second World, JTBC, 2022) — 24,000 views

Kwak Jin-eon – “Gloomy Letter” (Taxi Driver OST, SBS, 2021) — 140,000 views

Cho Kyu-chan, winner at the first Yoo Jae-ha Music Contest, sang it with a bit of scat on MBC’s Radio Star Yoo Jae-ha special in 2014.

Cho Kyu-chan – “Gloomy Letter” (Radio Star, MBC, 2014) — 65,000 views

The last words of the song break off at “The gloomy letter, now…” He never filled in the rest. Today the people who love his songs, me included, fill that space with replies of their own.

Previous: Part 3 — The Other Song He Pitched to Cho Yong-pil: “Our Love”

Next, No. 6: “Past Days.” It was the debut single he introduced on the radio, and it only reached No. 1 after he died.

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Sources: Munhwa Ilbo (May 12, 2003); Hankook Ilbo (Nov. 8, 2014); Nongmin Shinmun (Mar. 24, 2025); Xports News (Apr. 23, 2021). Lyrics checked against Bugs. View counts as shown on YouTube, Oct. 25, 2026.