“Rain Song” bookends Lee Issac Chung’s “Minari,” first played as an instrumental in the film’s opening scenes, and closes out with lyrics over the film’s end credits.
Composer and songwriter Emile Mosseri intended the song to be a lullaby for Yeri Han, who plays Monica in the film. She sings it to her son, David, played by Alan S. Kim, who recently won a Critics Choice award .
With the theme of family resilience at its core, Mosseri worked with Korean translator and lyricist Stefanie Hong to give the family a theme about love and struggle.
Mosseri explains, “I was free to let that sound reveal itself to me in the experimentation process. I had written this melody for the opening of the film that I wanted to mirror in the end credits to bookend the story with a nostalgic tune. I had written a song in English and sent it to Isaac with the idea that we’d translate into Korean and find a singer who was up for it.”
He adds, “Isaac had mentioned that Yeri has a beautiful voice and our friend, the brilliant Stefanie Hong, translated my song into a powerful poem about life and rebirth.”
It conveys “a hopeful message of rain creating a new day,” Mosseri says. And the idea of a lullaby to Monica’s son, David — through whose eyes so much of the film unfolds — felt right to both composer and filmmaker.
Mosseri explains, “ I was free to let that sound reveal itself to me in the experimentation process. I had written this melody for the opening of the film that I wanted to mirror in the end credits to bookend the story with a nostalgic tune. I had written a song in English and sent it to Isaac with the idea that we’d translate into Korean and find a singer who was up for it.”
He says, “The vulnerability and beauty in her voice brought the song to a whole other level. She breathed new life into it and the song itself was reborn.”
The song was a global production with Han singing it in Korea and sending her vocals to Mosseri in Los Angeles who then built the final track.
