A 22-Year-Old Teen Idol Asked Korea About Its Bank Balance: “A Letter to Myself”

Part 3 of 11 in Shin Hae-chul: The Demon King K-pop Keeps Bringing Back

No. 9, “A Letter to Myself” (Naege Sseuneun Pyeonji), is the song in which a 22-year-old teen star who shot sneaker ads took direct aim at Korea’s formula for success. In 1991 almost no Korean pop song asked whether money and getting ahead were the same thing as happiness.

Shin Hae-chul – “A Letter to Myself” (DanalEntertainment) — 830,000 views

Its combined views come to about 6.3 million. It appeared on his second solo album, Myself, released March 20, 1991, with words, music and arrangement by Shin (Melon). If “You, Deep Inside My Heart” (Part 8) from the same album was the love song that sold it, this was the first song where he said what he actually thought. Every time I hear it, I fall for the courage of 22-year-old Shin Hae-chul all over again.

A letter written after everyone is asleep

At night, with everyone asleep, the narrator writes a letter to the self he has lost. His friends no longer talk about the heroes of fairy tales, and they tell him Van Gogh’s burning life and Nietzsche’s rage are no use in the real world. Then the song asks:

전망 좋은 직장과 가족 안에서의 안정과 / 은행 계좌의 잔고 액수가 모든 가치의 척도인가

A job with prospects, a stable family, / the number in your bank account: is that the measure of everything?

(Words and music by Shin Hae-chul; key lines quoted)

Money, a big house, a fast car and fame are lined up, and the narrator admits he is anxious that he alone is falling behind. Still, to the friend watching him with worry, he says that in the end we are all headed to the same place. At the close he confesses he isn’t strong at all, and that when he’s sad he just wants to cry out loud.

Also read: The Song a Bandmate Gave Him on His Way Out

The first singer to call out “vulgar capitalism”

The day after he died, the Seoul Economic Daily pointed to this song and called him “almost the first musician to sing that money and getting ahead don’t lead straight to success or happiness” (Oct. 28, 2014). He said the same thing outside his songs. In a 2010 interview he said Korean society “scares kids from their first year of college so they worry about jobs first,” and called the country “the most vulgar form of vulgar capitalism, and frightened by it” (Seoul Economic Daily, Oct. 28, 2014).

In 1991 Korea was in the middle of its economic boom. That was when a ballad star put a bank balance into his lyrics. People who come back to the song now are surprised that the question hasn’t aged at all in 35 years.

PSY’s encore, and the stages

In October 2024, at “Demon King 10th: Ghost Stage,” the 10th-anniversary tribute concert at Inspire Arena in Incheon, PSY’s encore was “From the Sun to the Boy” (Part 4), this song and “To You” (according to audience-shot video). He is the junior who learned sound in Shin’s studio as a rookie (Newsis, Oct. 4, 2024).

On TV, the band Monni sang it on KBS’s Immortal Songs in 2017, and Jin Min-ho sang it on KBS’s Open Concert the same year. No idol has an official cover stage of this song yet.

Monni – “A Letter to Myself” (Immortal Songs 2, KBS, 2017) — 20,000 views

Jin Min-ho – “A Letter to Myself” (Open Concert, KBS, 2017) — 6,000 views

He also left this behind: “When you’re No. 1 on a chart show, the good feeling lasts two weeks. … The memory of struggling through recording an album and preparing a concert lasts a lifetime.” The clip of him saying it has passed 1 million views on YouTube (Hankyoreh, Oct. 24, 2024). It reads like his own reply to the letter he wrote at 22. Now it’s his fans who write letters to him. Let me add a line of my own: we miss you so much.

Next, No. 8: “From the Sun to the Boy.” PSY opened his encore at the 10th-anniversary concert with it.

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Sources: Melon (Myself, March 20, 1991; credits and lyrics); Seoul Economic Daily (Oct. 28, 2014); Newsis (Oct. 4, 2024); audience video of PSY’s encore, Oct. 26, 2024 (not embedded); Hankyoreh (Oct. 24, 2024). View counts as shown on YouTube, Oct. 25, 2026.