Eyes Wide Open is a full album containing 13 songs with the title track “I Can’t Stop Me” written by JYP Entertainment founder and producer JY Park. Besides JY Park, Twice members also participated in the process of writing lyrics. Chaeyoung is one of the members who almost always contributes to the process of writing lyrics and music for Twice’s songs. For the album Eyes Wide Open, Twice’s main rapper wrote the tenth track for the album titled “Handle It.” This song is about a breakup. “Handle It” shows the various emotions of a breakup such as sadness mixed with anger and longing. This song was written by Chaeyoung and expresses the feeling of not being able to accept a breakup.
Background of “Handle It”
This 2-minute, 52-second song was written by Chaeyoung. “Handle It” was composed by Adrian X, Elizabeth Loughrey, Ryan Ashley, Uzoechi Emenike, and Armadillo and arranged by Armadillo. Uzoechi Emenike is a Grammy-nominated singer, lyricist, and music producer who received the ASCAP Vanguard Award, one of the most prestigious awards for musicians. Uzo has also produced songs for some of the world’s most popular singers such as HER, Dua Lipa, Selena Gomez, Beyonce, Madonna, Zara Larsson, and, of course, Twice. “Handle It” is a song that contains several genres of music. This song is in the K-pop, dance/ electronic, and pop R&B genres. The very distinctive guitar sound in the intro of this song makes “Handle It” sound more interesting and makes us addicted to listening to it over and over again. The tempo of this song is also very relaxing. Like other Twice songs, “Handle It” is easy to listen to.
Story of “Handle It”
The Twice members who co-wrote the lyrics for the songs on the album Eyes Wide Open shared their music-making process through Twice’s YouTube channel. The video is titled “Twice’s Album Commentary ‘Eyes Wide Open’ – Nayeon, Sana, Jihyo, Dahyun, Chaeyoung.” In the video, the members share their inspirations in writing as well as the difficulties and things they experienced during the process of writing lyrics, making songs, and recording. Jihyo talked about “Up No More,” Sana shared stories about “Do What We Like,” Dahyun explained about “Bring It Back” and “Queen,” Nayeon talked about “Depend On You,” and Chaeyoung explained some of her difficulties during the process of writing “Handle It.”
“Handle It” Has Been Written by Chaeyoung for a Long Time
Unlike the songs written by other members, it turns out that Chaeyoung wrote “Handle It” a long time ago. Chaeyoung revealed in the video commentary of the album Eyes Wide Open that she wrote this song on the plane during their US concert tour. Through the song “Handle It,” Chaeyoung wanted to write a song about a breakup with different emotions from most breakup songs. “I wanted to write about a breakup. Not rage, not sadness. A sad but angry breakup?” Chaeyoung and Jihyo also said that their favorite part is the intro part. “I like the beginning, it’s rhythm. I wanted a strong intro,” Chaeyoung said.
Experiencing Repeated Revisions
Chaeyoung revealed that she actually wanted “Handle It” to be one of the songs on their previous mini album More & More. However, this song underwent several revisions due to several reasons, and Chaeyoung found it quite difficult to finish this song. “I got this song for More & More. I wrote the lyrics back then, but it was too emotional, and I thought from the listeners’ point of view, it was a bit tricky to understand. So they suggested that I revise it a bit. But, I was pressed for time. They told me to include it in the next album. So, the revised version is in this album.” Despite having difficulties due to the very short time to revise the song, Chaeyoung’s efforts were not in vain. Not only did the fans fall in love with the song “Handle It” but Dahyun and Jihyo also said they liked “Handle It” more after it was revised. The guitar sound in this song is very positive for the song. Jihyo also thinks that the lyrics suit the song very well. In addition, the members also experienced a bit of difficulty during the recording process. This song has a very unique melody and lyrics. So, it’s quite difficult to match the members’ voices with the vibe of this song. This was expressed by Dahyun and Chaeyoung. “This song was so hard. It was hard to convey the vibe.” Nayeon also said that she knew Chaeyoung had a hard time back then when rewriting the song. Chaeyoung told Nayeon when she had a hard time writing lyrics.
Audio of “Handle It”
After 9 months of release, the “Handle It” audio released on Twice’s YouTube channel has been listened to more than 1.7 million times. The song also got 68 thousand likes from listeners.
Mina also played and sang the song “Handle It” while doing a Live on March 24, 2021. Mina seemed to really enjoy and fall in love with this song.
Achievements of “Handle It”
“Handle It” and 12 other songs on the full album Eyes Wide Open earned Twice several awards and new records. For the week ending on December 19, 2020, Twice managed to rank 72 on the Billboard Hot 200. The Billboard 200 ranks the most popular albums of the week in the United States. Previously, they were only ranked 200 with the album More & More. Eyes Wide Open also peaked at No. 2 on Billboard’s World Albums chart and No. 12 on the Top Album Sales chart. This album also made Twice rank 73rd in the Artist 100 category. Congratulations, Twice!
