Kim Yun-ah on 29 years with Jaurim: EBS documentary '시대목격' episode 7 airs

29 years, one documentary episode

EBS documentary series 시대목격 aired its seventh episode, 이렇게 멋진 김윤아, on September 20. It follows Kim Yun-ah across 29 years as vocalist, producer, composer, and lyricist for rock band 자우림 (Jaurim).

Jaurim debuted in 1997 with Hey, Hey, Hey, a track on the 꽃을 든 남자 film OST. The episode lingers on 일탈, the band's signature song — one that almost never made it to air. Kim Yun-ah explained that it was originally set as the title track for Jaurim's first album. They shot a music video. Then it got flagged as unsuitable for broadcast.

She described 일탈 as the one exception in her songwriting process: "It's the only song I made thinking, 'What kind of story would people want to hear? What story would make people happy if I made it into a song?'"

What fellow artists said

Singer-songwriter Lee Moo-jin said Jaurim's music gave him "a sense of liberation." Artist Lee Rang called Kim Yun-ah's position significant in its own right: "I think being a middle-aged female artist is a very precious position."

Seon-woo Jung-ah described Kim Yun-ah as "reliable" and added, "For the senior, it may be difficult, but from the junior's perspective, it creates the feeling of 'I should naturally do this too.'" Director Kim Jin-man said she is "a person with conviction to create a better generation than herself and to make a better world." Lee Sun-gyu said she "seems to instinctively want to give good things to future generations."

Her own words on what music can do

Kim Yun-ah closed with a line that doubles as the episode's thesis. Music may be useless for changing the world — but "it can embrace the hearts of those who have survived." Twenty-nine years in and she's still writing the kind of line that lands.