Yung Kai hit it big last year with his breakout single, “Blue.” The song has become one of the biggest hits of the summer and has consistently been one of the most-searched songs for sheet music. The official music video for “Blue” has racked up over 184 million views on YouTube, and that doesn’t include live takes, lyric videos, or other streaming services.
The song may have propelled him into fame seemingly overnight, but as with every overnight success, it was just the tip of the iceberg.
“I mean for me, my mindset was always—since like high school it was always music or nothing because I just really had no passion for anything else,” the singer told Ones to Watch. “If I could do music for a living, that’s the dream. So I just kept going. I tried my best, you know, and somehow I’m here.”
“Blue” touches on something nostalgic with a 6/8 drum pattern and steady eighth-note chords reminiscent of Doo Wop. It also expresses a lot of romantic emotion and a yearning sensation. Inspiration struck the songwriter while watching a Chinese television drama, also known as a C-drama, called “When I Fly Towards You” with a girl who had him smitten.
“I watched it on Discord with this girl that I was really crushing on. We watched the whole thing together, it was best experience, bro,” he told Genius. “Like I had so much fun. It was just like the C-drama and this girl and I put together and I put all my emotions into this and then ‘blue’ came out.”
Yung Kai’s use of metaphors draws the listener into their own emotions. Even though the song is called “Blue,” he never uses the word in his song. Somehow, the song still seems to represent the color and the emotion.
He also uses his chord progression to elicit that reaction. The song is in the key of E, but most of his phrases start on A, which is the IV chord, giving a sense of waiting before moving on to B, the V chord, and then resolving to E. These are all comfortable chords on the guitar, which makes sense given it’s how he writes his music.
“[In my writing process,] I always start with the guitar,” Yung Kai says. “So I do chords. Then, I do a little drums and I put a lead on there. And then I usually come back to it after a few days or a few weeks, because I’m always not feeling it when I first make it. I never feel it. So I tend to wait a little bit. And then I come back to it, I rearrange it, and write lyrics. And that’s the process.”
Watch Yung Kai perform “Blue” in this in-studio concert for Genius. He performs with a backing track, but you can see his guitar chord patterns and strumming.
Follow along with the sheet music for “Blue” by Yung Kai:
