He Recorded “About Thirty” at 30. He Never Saw 33.

Part 12 of 16 in Kim Kwang-seok: The Dead Singer K-pop Can't Let Go

No. 5, “About Thirty,” is the song Koreans reach for most as they approach thirty, and the man who recorded it died before he turned 33. The songwriter wouldn’t even draw him a sheet of music, and the song became the name of an age.

Kim Kwang-seok – “About Thirty” (Official Audio, 2022 Remastered) — 920,000 views

Its combined views come to about 51 million. It appeared in June 1994 on his fourth and last studio album, with words and music by Kang Seung-won (Melon). Born in January 1964, Kim released it at 30 (Busan Ilbo, July 1, 2015). Around my own thirtieth birthday, I lived with this song on repeat. Then and now, it is the gentlest comfort he ever gave me.

A song handed over without sheet music

Kang Seung-won didn’t make it easy. Dongmulwon member Yoo Jun-yeol told the story on stage at the 30th-anniversary concert: “Kwang-seok came all the way to (Kang Seung-won’s) house, and since he wouldn’t even write out the music, he watched him play guitar and took it home like that” (SBS D-Report, Jan. 7, 2026). Kim memorized the chords by watching the songwriter’s fingers.

Then he sang it his own way. Kang remembers: “When (Kim) Min-ki hyung and I were drinking, we talked about it a lot. Why does he sing like that?” (SBS D-Report). Like Kim Chang-ki in Part 9, and Han Dong-jun in the next part, the writer of this song disliked how Kim sang it. And sung that way, it was voted the best song lyric in Korean pop by music critics in 2007 (Money Today, Dec. 29, 2013).

Today the head of the Kim Kwang-seok Memorial Foundation is Kang Seung-won himself. The man who runs the Kim Kwang-seok Song Award contest every January is the songwriter who wouldn’t give him a sheet of music (Yonhap, Jan. 6, 2026). This month he appeared on tvN’s You Quiz on the Block and told the story of how Kim came to sing it.

Kang Seung-won on You Quiz on the Block (tvN) — 200,000 views in 10 days

Also read: A Med Student Wrote It the Night Before an Exam. Kim Kwang-seok Made It Last.

The thirty that says goodbye every day

또 하루 멀어져 간다 / 매일 이별하며 살고 있구나

Another day drifts away. / I am saying goodbye every single day.

— Lyrics and music by Kang Seung-won (1994), excerpt

He watches a day drift away like the cigarette smoke he just blew out. The youth he thought would stay is emptying out. The seasons come back, but the love that left doesn’t. He didn’t send it away and he didn’t leave it, yet bit by bit it’s being forgotten. And he takes all of it in a single sentence: I am saying goodbye every single day.

In an interview while he was alive, Kim explained the feeling behind it. “By your thirties, you have no choice but to pick one thing and cling to it… The possibilities you had in your twenties have shrunk a lot, and it gets suffocating. That’s what the song is about” (Money Today, Dec. 29, 2013, quoting an interview aired on JTBC’s Hidden Singer 2).

In Korea, thirty is the age when, past military service and the first job, you start counting what you missed instead of what you could still become. This song gave that feeling a name, which is why Koreans listen to it around their thirtieth birthdays. And the man it belongs to never showed anyone what it looked like to pass that age and grow old. He died in January 1996, a year and seven months after the album came out.

Kang Seung-yoon, Sandeul, and Kang Seung-won beside Park Bo-gum

Idols sing it before they reach thirty themselves. WINNER’s Kang Seung-yoon sang it on KBS’s Immortal Songs in 2022, and B1A4’s Sandeul sang it on JTBC’s Knowing Bros.

Kang Seung-yoon (WINNER) – “About Thirty” (Immortal Songs 2, KBS, 2022) — 160,000 views

Sandeul (B1A4) – “About Thirty” (Knowing Bros, JTBC) — 100,000 views

Former BTOB member Lim Hyun-sik sang it with Kwon Jin-ah on JTBC’s Begin Again for an audience of people around thirty (320,000 views). In 2025, on KBS’s The Seasons: Park Bo-gum’s Cantabile, songwriter Kang Seung-won strapped on a guitar himself and sang it with actor Park Bo-gum.

Lim Hyun-sik and Kwon Jin-ah – “About Thirty” (Begin Again, JTBC) — 320,000 views

Kang Seung-won and Park Bo-gum – “About Thirty” (The Seasons, KBS, 2025) — 120,000 views

Roy Kim’s cover on his own channel has 1.54 million views, and the 2013 stage on MBC’s Infinite Challenge has 1.05 million.

Roy Kim – “About Thirty” (cover) — 1.54 million views

Thirty years on, the songwriter still sings it on television. Only the voice in the song, the one saying “I am saying goodbye every single day,” stayed at thirty. So every time we turn thirty, we meet him again. I’m always grateful for that meeting.

Previous: Part 11 — The Kim Kwang-seok Song Kim Jong-un Heard at the 2018 Summit

Next, No. 4: “Love Has Gone,” a song born in an empty studio, which he begged for and got for about $410.

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Sources: Melon (Kim Kwang-seok 4, June 25, 1994); Busan Ilbo (July 1, 2015; born Jan. 22, 1964); SBS D-Report (Jan. 7, 2026); Money Today (Dec. 29, 2013, quoting an interview aired on JTBC’s Hidden Singer 2); Yonhap (Jan. 6, 2026). View counts as shown on YouTube, Oct. 25, 2026.