Paul Kim's New OST for 'We Are All Trying Here' Will Move You
Singer Paul Kim releases "It'll Be Okay," the seventh soundtrack for the JTBC drama
By Jang Hojin
Singer Paul Kim has joined the We Are All Trying Here soundtrack with "It'll Be Okay," the drama's seventh original soundtrack, released on May 16 at 6 p.m. KST across all major streaming platforms.
The track carries a theme that mirrors the drama's emotional core: the quiet, difficult process of reassuring yourself through anxiety when there are no easy words left to say. Lyricist Gae Mi, who serves as the drama's music director, wrote the words directly from the series' emotional landscape.
A Song for the Moments You Can't Explain
Paul Kim's voice has always been built for a specific kind of listening — still, warm, and somehow both personal and universal. Those qualities make him an ideal fit for a track about self-comfort: the act of telling yourself things will be fine even when you have no evidence to support that claim.
"It'll Be Okay" deals with the wordless anxiety of treading water — the feeling of being unable to shake a deepening dread, of carrying emotions too heavy to name, yet finding the resolve to hold on anyway. It is a song for anyone who has spent a late night quietly reassuring themselves that they will survive what they are going through, even without knowing how.
As the seventh installment in the We Are All Trying Here OST lineup, "It'll Be Okay" adds another emotional texture to a soundtrack that has been building slowly alongside the drama's character arcs. The series — known in Korean as 모두가 자신의 무가치함과 싸우고 있다 or simply Mojamusa — follows a group of interconnected people in their thirties and forties who are quietly struggling with feelings of failure, comparison, and inadequacy. The music has been as introspective as the show itself.
Paul Kim's Place in Korean Music
Paul Kim is a singer-songwriter known for his understated emotional delivery and a vocal quality that sits somewhere between confessional folk and contemporary R&B ballad. He rose to wider recognition through his 2017 debut and has built a devoted following through songs that feel like quiet conversations rather than performances.
His association with major drama soundtracks spans several years, and his contribution to We Are All Trying Here arrives at a moment of heightened activity for him. He recently began a new chapter as the host DJ of KBS Cool FM's long-running music program Gayo Gwangjang (가요광장), taking the show's microphone to a new generation of listeners. The dual role — beloved studio recording artist and live radio presence — captures the warmth that defines his public image.
His characteristic bare, unhurried voice suits "It'll Be Okay" precisely because the song does not attempt to resolve anything. It does not promise that things will improve or that the anxiety will lift. It simply sits with the listener in the middle of the uncertainty and says: you're still here, and that is enough.
The Drama Behind the Music
We Are All Trying Here premiered on April 18, 2026, on JTBC, and quickly earned a secondary audience through Netflix after landing at number one on the platform's Korean Top 10 chart within its first week. The show's linear ratings have been modest — around 2.2 percent in the paid household metric — but its resonance online has been far deeper, driven by viewer discussions about its unflinching portrayal of adult inadequacy.
The drama stars Koo Kyo Hwan as Hwang Dong Man, a would-be filmmaker who has spent twenty years near the edges of the industry without ever breaking through, and Go Youn Jung as Byun Eun Ah, a sharp script reviewer whose polished exterior conceals significant emotional wounds. The series is written by Park Hae Young, whose previous dramas My Mister and My Liberation Notes similarly built their audiences through emotional patience rather than plot velocity. Director Cha Young Hoon, known for When the Camellia Blooms, brings the same unhurried visual language.
The supporting cast includes Park Hae Joon, Oh Jung Se, Kang Mal Geum, Han Sun Hwa, Bae Jong Ok, and Choi Won Young — each anchoring storylines that trace different expressions of the same central feeling: the sense of being left behind while everyone around you moves forward.
What "It'll Be Okay" Means for the Story
Each OST release for We Are All Trying Here has timed to a critical emotional moment in the drama's arc. "It'll Be Okay" arrives at the midpoint of the series, precisely as the characters' hidden struggles are beginning to surface — Hwang Dong Man's financial debt, Byun Eun Ah's past trauma, and the carefully maintained facades that the ensemble has spent episodes constructing and protecting.
The song's release on May 16 coincides with Episode 9, which sees Hwang Dong Man finally confronting the loan shark whose debt has shadowed him all season. Paul Kim's voice, landing at that exact moment in the story, functions as both musical punctuation and emotional acknowledgment: this is hard, this is real, and somehow you are still going to be okay.
We Are All Trying Here airs every Saturday at 10:40 p.m. and Sunday at 10:30 p.m. KST on JTBC, and streams on Netflix. "It'll Be Okay" by Paul Kim is available now on all major music platforms.
A Drama Built for the Night
The emotional terrain that "It'll Be Okay" inhabits is one that We Are All Trying Here has been mapping since its first episode: the experience of being a specific kind of tired — not from work or physical exertion, but from the constant internal labor of maintaining the belief that you are worth something in a world that seems to disagree.
Writer Park Hae Young has built a career on this particular frequency. Her previous series, My Mister and My Liberation Notes, were also dramas that moved slowly, asked their characters difficult questions, and rewarded patient viewers with something closer to recognition than entertainment. We Are All Trying Here carries that same frequency — which makes it the right kind of drama for a song that tells you things will be okay without telling you when or how.
The OST for a drama like this carries an unusual weight. Because the series itself prioritizes stillness and internal experience, each piece of music functions almost as a narrator — offering the emotional context that the characters cannot always voice directly. Paul Kim's entry into the soundtrack at the drama's midpoint is well-timed: his voice is the sound of someone who has been through enough to mean it when they say it gets better.
Where to Listen
"It'll Be Okay" by Paul Kim is available now on all major streaming platforms including Melon, Genie, Bugs, FLO, Apple Music, and Spotify. The full We Are All Trying Here OST playlist, which includes six previous tracks, is also available across those platforms. We Are All Trying Here continues airing every Saturday at 10:40 p.m. and Sunday at 10:30 p.m. KST on JTBC, with episodes also streaming on Netflix shortly after broadcast.
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저작권자 © KEnterHub 무단전재 및 재배포, AI학습 및 활용 금지
Entertainment Journalist · KEnterHub
Entertainment journalist specializing in K-Pop, K-Drama, and Korean celebrity news. Covers artist comebacks, drama premieres, award shows, and fan culture with in-depth reporting and analysis.
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