He Brought Ten Songs. Kim Hyun-sik Took One: “Hidden Road”

Part 8 of 10 in The One Album K-pop Learned From: Yoo Jae-ha

No. 3, “Hidden Road,” is the only song Kim Hyun-sik took from the ten Yoo Jae-ha brought him. Hurt, Yoo left the band within six months, and the album he made the next year from the songs Kim passed on was eventually named the greatest Korean album of all time (Chosun Ilbo, Nov. 1, 2025; Hankyoreh, Sept. 28, 2018).

Its combined YouTube views come to about 16.9 million. When I think of a hurt young man setting out to find his own way, I feel so proud of him, and so sorry for him.

“To my dear brother, traitor and friend Jae-ha”

In 1986, Kim Hyun-sik formed the band Kim Hyun-sik and Spring Summer Fall Winter with Kim Jong-jin (guitar), Jeon Tae-kwan (drums), Jang Ki-ho (bass) and Yoo (keys), and started work on his third album. He told the members to bring him songs. Yoo came with ten of his own, the songs that would later fill his album. Kim chose just one: “Hidden Road.” Stung, Yoo left the band after six months (Chosun Ilbo, 2025).

That wasn’t the end of them. When the third album came out, Kim signed a copy for Yoo, half as a joke: “To my dear brother, traitor and friend Jae-ha.” After Yoo died, Kim remembered him on the radio: “He’s a friend who wrote a lot of good songs… a younger brother and junior I really loved, and my drinking buddy…”

About a year after it came out, Kim’s third album took off when “Like Rain, Like Music” climbed the charts late, and it sold more than 300,000 copies. That song was written by Park Seong-sik, who filled the seat Yoo left (Chosun Ilbo, 2025). From the nine songs Kim didn’t take came “Because I Love You,” “Past Days” and “Reflection in My Heart.”

Also read: The Love Song a Killer Requested on the Radio: "Gloomy Letter"

One song, two roads

그대여 힘이 되주오 / 나에게 주어진 길 찾을 수 있도록

Be my strength, / so I can find the road that’s meant for me.

— Lyrics and music by Yoo Jae-ha, excerpt

It’s a song about standing before a road hidden in fog, a road that slips away like a rainbow just out of reach, not knowing which way to go. The second verse asks whether the one who leaves, as if pulled away, has found his own road, and what happens when, after waving goodbye, loneliness is all that’s left around him.

Two men put the same song on their own albums a year apart. In his 2018 review for the 100 greatest albums list, critic Park Eun-seok split them. Yoo’s strongest weapon was arranging, he wrote, and the proof was “‘Hidden Road,’ which cut out the guitar entirely in an era when a guitar solo went in almost by obligation.” In the same piece he wrote that Cho Yong-pil’s “Because I Love You” and Kim Hyun-sik’s version of “Hidden Road” feel like “bland, ordinary work” (Hankyoreh, 2018). A song that came out of a band with Kim Jong-jin on guitar, Yoo rebuilt on his own album with no guitar at all.

On Oct. 25, 2026, Im Hee-yun’s column in the Chosun Ilbo named three men who left in autumn: “Shin Hae-chul, who left dreaming ‘The Dream of an Eel’ (Oct. 27); Kim Hyun-sik, who left ‘Like Rain, Like Music’ (Nov. 1); Yoo Jae-ha, who went down the ‘Hidden Road’ (Nov. 1).”

Lee Su-hyun, Kyuhyun, BOL4 and Crush

K-pop singers have come back to this song again and again. AKMU’s Lee Su-hyun sang it on KBS’s The Seasons in 2023 (1.28 million views).

AKMU Lee Su-hyun – “Hidden Road” (The Seasons, KBS, 2023) — 1.28 million views

Crush sang it on KBS’s You Hee-yeol’s Sketchbook in 2019 (1.64 million) and with Jukjae on JTBC’s Begin Again Korea in 2020 (1.1 million).

Crush – “Hidden Road” (You Hee-yeol’s Sketchbook, KBS, 2019) — 1.64 million views

Crush x Jukjae – “Hidden Road” (Begin Again Korea, JTBC, 2020) — 1.1 million views

Super Junior’s Kyuhyun sang it on JTBC’s Delivery Gayo: The Mysterious Record Shop, and BOL4 on JTBC’s Kim Je-dong’s Talk To You.

Super Junior Kyuhyun – “Hidden Road” (The Mysterious Record Shop, JTBC) — 85,000 views

BOL4 – “Hidden Road” (Talk To You, JTBC) — 84,000 views

On KBS’s Immortal Songs Kim Hyun-sik and Yoo Jae-ha special in 2018, former SeeYa member Kim Yeon-ji chose this song, saying, “It’s a song where you can feel both seniors, Kim Hyun-sik and Yoo Jae-ha” (Maeil Business Star Today, Dec. 8, 2018). Jeong Dong-won released it as an OST for KBS’s drama Young Lady and Gentleman (1.03 million views).

Kim Hyun-sik picked one song out of ten, and Yoo made his own road out of the other nine. That road was the answer to “Hidden Road.” I’m still grateful every day for the one album we found at the end of it.

Previous: Part 7 — Kim Hyun-sik Recorded It to Say Goodbye: “In My Arms”

Next, No. 2: “Reflection in My Heart,” the only song Yoo ever sang on TV, and his own favorite.

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Sources: Chosun Ilbo (Nov. 1, 2025; Im Hee-yun column, Oct. 25, 2026); Hankyoreh, 100 greatest Korean albums, review by Park Eun-seok (Sept. 28, 2018); Maeil Business Star Today (Dec. 8, 2018). Lyrics checked against Bugs. View counts as shown on YouTube, Oct. 25, 2026.