The Astronaut

Not every goodbye is sad, some are beautiful, and Jin turned his into a song. In October 2022, just before leaving for military service, he released The Astronaut, his first solo single and a gentle gift to fans for the time ahead. He was the second member to step out alone in the group's second chapter, and he did it in the most personal way possible, with a song about love for the people who made him who he is.

The story behind the song is as moving as the song itself. Jin had already struck up a friendship with Chris Martin, Coldplay's frontman, after the two acts recorded My Universe together. Knowing that military service and two years of absence awaited him, Jin called Martin that spring and asked him for a song with which he could say goodbye to everyone for a while and tell them he loved them. Coldplay had been working on their own version of The Astronaut at the time, but they decided to gift it to Jin, swapping in his vocals and part of the lyrics, and that is how a song was born that blends Coldplay's unmistakable, dreamy sound with Jin's warm voice.

Jin wrote the lyrics himself, and he was direct about what they meant. He explained that through them he expressed what he feels toward the fans who made him Jin of BTS, describing it as a story about himself, someone who once drifted without direction, and about them, who helped him find his dream. That gratitude is the very heart of the song.

The whole idea is wrapped in a space motif. In the music video, Jin is shown as an alien who lands on Earth by accident and at first wants nothing more than to return to his own planet, but in the end chooses to stay with the ones he has come to love, the fans. That image of a spaceman finding his home perfectly captures the feeling he wanted to convey, that among them he had finally found a place to belong. The song also ties in beautifully with the space imagery from the earlier My Universe and Jin's own song Moon, so it plays like part of a larger, connected story.

A special moment came on the very day of release. Jin performed the song live for the first time at a Coldplay concert in Buenos Aires, in front of a stadium full of moved fans who knew he would soon be leaving. It was an emotional sight, almost a staged farewell. And the story got a beautiful continuation years later, when Jin, after returning from the military, climbed back on stage with Coldplay and sang the same song, closing the circle completely.

The song's success was immense. The Astronaut broke the record for the biggest first day sales of a single by a solo artist in the history of the local charts, and it gave Jin his first entry on the American Billboard Hot 100. But the numbers are almost beside the point here, because the real value of this song lies in its sincerity. It was a promise wrapped in melody, a message meant to offer fans comfort while they waited, and a reminder that parting is not an ending, only a pause until the next meeting. For many, that is exactly why The Astronaut remains one of the most touching songs of the entire second chapter.