SEVENTEEN’s Wonwoo says ‘Bittersweet’ went through the “most revisions” of all the songs he’s worked on

Wonwoo of SEVENTEEN has revealed that ‘Bittersweet’ has gone through the “most revisions” out of all the albums and tracks he has worked on over his years as an artist.

Last week, Wonwoo and his fellow groupmate Mingyu released the song ‘Bittersweet’, which also featured K-pop vocalist Lee Hi. During an interview with J-14 Magazine, the duo shared that the creative process for the song was more “challenging” than usual due to their desire to leave the meaning of the track “open-ended”.

“We wanted to leave things open to each listener’s interpretation so they could immerse [themselves in the situation],” Mingyu said. “We hoped that the listener would relate in a wide variety of ways, that’s why writing the lyrics this time around was a bit more challenging.”

“Out of all the album and tracks we’ve worked on over the years, I think this one went though the most revisions,” Wonwoo added. He also noted that the songwriting process for the song, which was done largely via video call with fellow member Woozi, was “quite fun”.

When talking about the bossa nova-inspired sound of ‘Bittersweet’, Mingyu stated that he didn’t think about SEVENTEEN’s “signature style” while writing the song, instead he focused purely on creating something that the duo “want to do”.

“Rather, because we are SEVENTEEN, we thought that whatever music we create will be another side of our musical color,” he added. “So, our attitude throughout the creative process was more like ‘Let’s try everything that we want to do.’”

The duo chose subsequently chose the genre after thinking about which musical style would best complement both their vocals and style. “Bossa nova was really quite fun,” commented Wonwoo.

Earlier this week, Mingyu also spoke about how ‘Bittersweet’ came about during an interview with Elite Daily, where he noted songwriting process was “much easier” with just two people. He added that there was a delicate “balancing act” when a song involves the entire 13-member group, requiring “many viewpoints [to be taken] into consideration”.