Two Notes Are Wrong on His Grave: “Because I Love You”

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

The score of No. 1, “Because I Love You,” stands carved in stone in front of Yoo Jae-ha’s grave at a Catholic park cemetery in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. In 2003 the Munhwa Ilbo wrote: “It’s a small thing, but two of the notes on that score are wrong” (Munhwa Ilbo, Oct. 28, 2003). The title song of Korea’s No. 1 album stands at its composer’s grave with mistakes in it.

Its combined YouTube views come to about 55.21 million. That’s nearly three times No. 2, “Reflection in My Heart,” and about the same as the other eight songs combined (about 59.77 million). Of all his songs, this is the one I listened to most while writing these ten parts, and every time my heart trembled as if it were the first.

Cho Yong-pil sang it first, and nobody noticed

The first person to record this song was Cho Yong-pil. Jung Won-young, then in Cho’s band the Great Birth, introduced Yoo to bandleader Song Hong-seop. When Song visited Yoo at home, Yoo played him this song and said, “I want this song to be widely known.” Song recommended it to Cho, and it went onto Cho’s seventh album in 1985 (Hankyoreh, Aug. 30, 2018).

That album also had “Let’s Go on a Trip,” “Yesterday, Today and” and “Hey You,” and while those were hits, “Because I Love You” went unnoticed (OhmyNews, Nov. 1, 2017). In 2018, critic Park Eun-seok went as far as calling Cho’s version “bland, ordinary work” (Hankyoreh, Sept. 28, 2018). Two years later, the same song in Yoo’s own voice became the title track of his album, and the spring after he died it reached No. 2 on the chart (Part 5).

Also read: Kim Hyun-sik Recorded It to Say Goodbye: "In My Arms"

He even played the guitar solo himself

다시 돌아온 그대 위해 / 내 모든 것 드릴테요 / 우리 이대로 영원히 / 헤어지지 않으리

For you, who came back to me, / I’ll give everything I have. / Let’s stay like this forever / and never part again.

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

He asks whether the look he first felt in her eyes was a misunderstanding all his own, confesses he hated himself for not being able to forget her after she left, and in the end promises to give everything to the woman who came back. Munhwa Ilbo says this was the song for the moment his love for her was finally returned (Munhwa Ilbo, 2003). It arrives after two years of rejection (Part 4) and courting (Part 7).

In the studio, Yoo didn’t even hand the guitar solo to someone else. His friend Kim Jong-jin, guitarist of Spring Summer Fall Winter, played the first take, but Yoo wasn’t happy with it, and the solo on the album is the one Yoo played himself (OhmyNews, 2017).

Rosé cried, and Su-hyun has 12.36 million

The most-watched video of this song is AKMU Su-hyun’s performance on JTBC’s Begin Again 3, at 12.36 million views.

Su-hyun (AKMU) – “Because I Love You” (Begin Again 3, JTBC) — 12.36 million views

BLACKPINK’s Rosé teared up singing it on JTBC’s Sea of Hope in July 2021 (7.59 million views; Herald POP, July 21, 2021). That’s the scene this series opened with in Part 1.

Rosé – “Because I Love You” (Sea of Hope, JTBC, 2021) — 7.59 million views

fromis_9’s Jiwon posted a cover on the group’s official channel (1.57 million), and Lee Hi sang it as a duet with Jannabi on Begin Again Open Mic (1.89 million). Super Junior’s Kyuhyun sang it on JTBC’s Famous Singers.

fromis_9 Jiwon – “Because I Love You” (cover) — 1.57 million views

Lee Hi x Jannabi – “Because I Love You” (Begin Again Open Mic, JTBC, 2020) — 1.89 million views

Super Junior Kyuhyun – “Because I Love You” (Famous Singers, JTBC, 2021) — 210,000 views

On the tribute albums, Cho Kyu-chan, grand prize winner at the first Yoo Jae-ha Music Contest, sang it in 1997, and in 2017 Suzy sang it as the title track of the album produced by Kim Hyung-suk (Munhwa Ilbo, Dec. 11, 2017).

Suzy – “Because I Love You” — 710,000 views

Sung Si-kyung – “Because I Love You” (The Seasons, KBS) — 1.91 million views

At the Melon Music Awards in November 2015, hyukoh performed this song as a tribute to Yoo (Herald Corp, Nov. 7, 2015). Jung Jae-hyung has said, “I went to Hanyang University’s composition department because of Yoo Jae-ha” (Maeil Business, Dec. 1, 2018).

Nov. 1, 1987, and Nov. 1, 1990

He took back the song Cho Yong-pil had buried, put his own name on it, and it ended up standing at his grave, with two notes wrong. Even so, in the voices of Rosé, Su-hyun and Jiwon, it has now been played 55.21 million times.

Three years after Yoo died, on the same date, the senior who wept hardest at his funeral, Kim Hyun-sik, died too (Part 7). Starting tomorrow, this blog counts down Kim Hyun-sik’s songs the same way. Thank you for listening to Yoo Jae-ha with me through these ten parts. Every autumn from now on, I’ll play his album from the first song to the last.

Previous: Part 9 — The Only Song He Ever Sang on TV: “Reflection in My Heart”

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Sources: Munhwa Ilbo (Oct. 28, 2003; Dec. 11, 2017); Hankyoreh (Aug. 30, 2018; Sept. 28, 2018, review by Park Eun-seok); OhmyNews (Nov. 1, 2017); Herald POP (July 21, 2021); Herald Corp (Nov. 7, 2015); Maeil Business (Dec. 1, 2018). Lyrics checked against Bugs. View counts as shown on YouTube, Oct. 25, 2026.