Where is beat 1 in Red Velvet's ‘Body Talk’?

It's time to talk about a somewhat older gem in Red Velvet's discography. From the iconic 30 second long intro without any percussion or vocals, over the total vibe of the verse, to the grand chorus, ‘Body Talk’ is fascinating for many reasons. There is a lot to analyze melodically, harmonically, rhythmically, texturally, but why do any of that when you can instead argue over where beat 1 is for 10 minutes? (I also yap about form and phrasing again and get remarkably earnestly cheesy at the end.) English subtitles are available. Chapters 00:00 Hi 00:46 Chord 01:34 Harmony 03:29 Rhythm 04:14 Verse 05:34 Where is Beat 1? 06:28 I am very normal 06:42 Evidence in verse 09:24 Evidence in chorus 10:37 Verdict 11:04 Interview 13:13 What does it mean? 14:13 Fluidity of verse 14:47 Section lengths 15:33 Intro form 17:09 Chorus form 19:06 Verse phrasing 21:40 Post-chorus 23:44 Bridge 26:13 Final chorus 27:31 Vemod 28:44 Thanks Sources Songs [RV/SM|S1] Red Velvet. ‘Body Talk’. SM Entertainment, 2017.    • Body Talk   [RV/SM|S2] Red Velvet. ‘Body Talk (Instrumantal)’. SME, 2017. Via Kpop Instrumentals.    • 레드벨벳 Red Velvet Body Talk Official Instrum...   [RV/SM|S3] Red Velvet. ‘Parade (Instrumental)’. SME, 2019. Via Kpop Instrumentals.    • 레드벨벳 Red Velvet 안녕, 여름 (Parade) Official I...   [Chudnow|S4] Jake Chudnow. ‘Moon Men (Instrumental)’. 2006.    • Jake Chudnow - Moon Men (Instrumental)   [RV/SM|S5] Red Velvet. ‘Birthday (Instrumental)’. SME, 2022. Via Kpop Instrumentals.    • 레드벨벳 Red Velvet Birthday Official Instrume...   [Hitch/SM/FR|S6] Hitchhiker ‘11(Eleven) Hitchhiker Remix’. SME, FIT RECORDS, 2015.    • Hitchhiker 히치하이커 '11(ELEVEN) HITCHHIKER RE...   ReacttotheK Videos only available at   / reacttothek   are marked with a †. [RttK|R1] ‘Guessing the Red Velvet song by the chord progression’. 2025. † [RttK|R2] ‘Interview with Johan Gustafsson’. 2026.    • From Red Velvet to NCT 127: Johan Gustafss...   [RttK|R3] ‘Classical Percussionists React: Red Velvet 'Body Talk' (Aiden & Izaiah)’. 2026. † [RttK|R4] ‘Full Interview with Johan Gustafsson ’. 2025. † [RttK/Sean|R5] w. Sean. ‘Hypermetric Contraction in Red Velvet's Ice Cream Cake’    • Hypermetric Contraction in Red Velvet's Ic...   Also, the songwriter et. al. interview playlist:    • K-Pop Songwriter + Producer Interviews [by...   Videos [ESRS/NASA|V1] Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center. ‘2024-11-10 ISS072 1078 Night’. 2024. Public Domain. https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/Collections/ [RV/SM|V2] Red Velvet. ‘Love is COSMIC Trailer’. SM Entertainment, 2024.    • Red Velvet 레드벨벳 'Love is COSMIC' Trailer   [SimoneDC|V3] SimoneDC. ‘Some Virus TI2 Sounds DEMO (rock, pop, progressive)’. SimoneDC, 2014.    • Some Virus TI2 Sounds DEMO (rock, pop, pro...   [S.David|V4] Seth David. ‘lydian’. 2022.    • lydian scale   [ASOM|V5] A State Of Music. ‘Head Bangers Going Hard at Lost Lands 2017’. 2017.    • Head Bangers Going Hard @ Lost Lands 2017   [RV/SM|V6] Red Velvet. ‘Feel My Rhythm MV Behind’. SME, 2022.    • Red Velvet 레드벨벳 'Feel My Rhythm' MV Behind...   [RV/SM|V7] Red Velvet. ‘Feel My Ryhthm MV’. SME, 2022.    • Red Velvet 레드벨벳 'Feel My Rhythm' MV   [RV/SM|V8] Red Velvet. ‘Umpah Umpah MV’. SME, 2019.    • Red Velvet 레드벨벳 '음파음파 (Umpah Umpah)' MV   [RV/SM|V9] Red Velvet. ‘One of these Nights MV’. SME, 2016.    • Red Velvet 레드벨벳 '7월 7일 (One Of These Night...   Pics, Memes, etc. [Spinel|M1] Spinel CAM. ‘191004 Red Velvet Rehearsal Reaction fancam’. 2019.    • 191004 레드벨벳 리허설 대기 '세븐틴 독' 리액션 직캠 Red Velv...   [RV/SM|M2] Red Velvet. ‘Red Velvet UmpahUmpah Comeback Vlive’. SM Entertainment, 2019. Via -Junex-sama.    • Red Velvet UmpahUmpah Comeback Vlive   [Berndes|M3] Joakim Berndes. ‘Vy över Hotagen - 5172.jpg’. 2010. CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... [RV/SM|M4] Red Velvet. ‘Rookie album cover’. SM Entertainment, 2017. Via genius.com [M5] ‘Ylva Dimberg profile picture’ genius.com [M6] ‘Sebastian Lundberg profile picture’ genius.com [M7] ‘Fredrik Häggstam profile picture’ genius.com [M8] ‘Johan Gustafsson profile picture’ genius.com [RV/SM|M9] Red Velvet ‘Rookie promo picture’. SM Entertainment, 2017. Via RV Wiki. Literature [Wiki|L1] ‘Vemod’ on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0 https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vemod [Kirchner|L2] Friedrich Kirchner, Dr. Carl Michaelis. ‘Wörterbuch der Philosophischen Grundbegriffe’, section "Wehmut". Verlag der Dürr'schen Buchhandlung, 1907. Can be viewed via textlog.de. https://www.textlog.de/kirchner/woert... [RV/ccl|L3] ‘Body Talk Lyrics’. Translation by pop!gasa via colorcodedlyrics. https://colorcodedlyrics.com/2017/02/... All links last visited on 04.09.2026. I will typically only show the source citation once (or I would have to spam [S1] and [V2]). Also help YT descr. has 5k char. limit, so I had to cut things short. Should you have questions, leave them in a comment. If no license is mentioned in a source, I try to follow fair use. I do not profit off this video. Visualizations via MuseScore and Audacity. No generative "AI" or LLMs were used in the making of this video. Stem separation was used to isolate the drums from the instrumental (along with manual touch-ups and edits in Audacity).