시작 (이태원 클라쓰)

시작 arrives with the sound of a single guitar chord that feels like a door being thrown open. Gaho's voice enters immediately without preamble, and that directness is the song's essential character — there's no atmospheric introduction, no gradual warmup. The production builds from sparse acoustic foundation into something that gradually acquires weight: percussion entering with intention, harmonics swelling at the chorus, but the arrangement never overwhelming the central instrument, which is the voice itself. Gaho sings with remarkable physical presence — you feel the breath, the chest resonance, the slight roughness at the edges of held notes that signals genuine emotional expenditure rather than studio polish. The song captures a particular Korean emotional concept that has no exact English translation: the determination born not from confidence but from having nothing left to lose, from having been broken and deciding to move anyway. Within the Itaewon Class drama, it functions as the emotional thesis statement played over the opening montage, establishing that this story will be about persistence in the face of systematic humiliation. It became one of those rare OST tracks that detaches entirely from its source material and circulates independently, recognized by people who have never watched the show. In Korean pop music's long relationship with drama soundtracks, this stands as an example of a song doing structural and emotional work — not just providing background feeling but actively shaping meaning. You play this at the start of something difficult, when you need music that doesn't promise success but simply insists on continuing.