everytimemyheartbeats

[everytimemyheartbeats]

“Will I get to you a little faster if I was the snow in the air?”

“Spring Day” is a song that stands out from BTS’ title track discography for various reasons: it has commonly been described as one of the group’s most beautiful songs and music videos, and its sound is softer than most title tracks that the group releases and promotes. The dance, too, leans towards contemporary style rather than hip hop or k-pop. 

The effects of this combination can be seen clearly. As of February 25, 2019, the song was still charting on the Melon Weekly Chart with 106 weeks and still counting. It officially became the longest charting song by an idol or idol group.

But what makes “Spring Day” so special, even among BTS’ discography? Why is its longevity so stable?

At first glance, the music video and song are seemingly aimed towards the concept of “aesthetic”. Over or under-saturated scenes with strong color schemes. A nostalgic, yearning melody. A serenade about how the sorrow of missing someone is a personal winter, a plea for a loved one to wait a little longer until spring joins them again.

This simple message is meaningful for those of us who take meaning in it. However, there are more layers to the music, and that brings us to the symbolism and references in the video, which may connect to the Sewol Ferry Disaster of South Korea.

(Read more about the disaster here.)

Omelas

We start off with a reference (1:08, scene) to Omelas, the fictional town in the story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula LeGuin. In this story, Omelas is a utopia where everything is perfect and the people are happy. However, in order for everyone to be happy, one child must be kept in darkness and misery - similar to how the captain of the ferry told nothing to the group of passengers (which included about 250 high school students and thus children) about the status of the ferry; instead, the captain told everyone to stay put as he abandoned ship as the ferry was capsizing. Almost everyone who stayed died as a result.

Snowpiercer

The next reference is to the Snowpiercer train from the 2013 film of the same name. In this movie, the Earth is in an ice age and the only survivors are the inhabitants of the Snowpiercer. SPOILER: the survivors learn that children are being used as fuel, and at the end, the survivors leave the train, realizing that life exists outside. The lyrics (1:12, lyrics) send a message of being alone on a train that is constantly moving yet never going anywhere. This is much like how the passengers on the ferry were trapped in a sinking boat - it was moving, but they could not leave. Similarly, the relatives who were waiting on news of the trapped passengers must have felt stuck and unable to do anything.

The train itself can be interpreted as a vehicle for reaching the afterlife. A common theory in the music video is that the members of BTS are dead and ultimately reach the afterlife together after some separation.

“Passing by the edge of the cold winter, until the days of spring, until the flowers blossom. Please stay, please stay there a little longer.”

In the passage above, winter can mean the transition to the afterlife, or the time that the members had to wait to be together again.

However, the train can also stand for the concept of growing up and saying goodbye to one’s youth. Here is an excellent article that breaks down that interpretation.

Regardless of interpretation (of which the correct interpretation could possibly be all three simultaneously), we see the last of the train when the member emerge (4:39, scene). Depending on the interpretation you choose, this can mean emerging into acceptance of grief, the afterlife, or adulthood.

Yellow Ribbons

A possible symbol in the music video is the yellow ribbons tied to the carousel (3:12, scene). Yellow ribbons are used to bring awareness to suicide in South Korea, and they were also used as symbols of protest and solidarity regarding the Sewol Ferry Disaster. This support can be seen when the carousel is revealed to have the words “YOU NEVER WALK ALONE” written across the top. 

In addition, the concept photo for this specific comeback/era of BTS used yellow.

Laundry and Clothing

Another symbol and reference is the laundry (and consequent clothing involved) shown in the video (2:25, scene). The clothing pile is based on the exhibit Personnes by Boltanski, with the meaning that clothing is all that’s left behind when someone dies. Lots of clothing means lots of deaths, like the deaths of the passengers of the ferry disaster. The clothing stacks up, and is impossible to clean all at once. You have to pay to launder a small load at a time, similar to how the government can never fully repay the relatives of those lost in the incident. Even today, not all bodies have been recovered.

Shoes, the Ocean, and the Tree

In Korea, it’s common for people to remove their shoes before committing suicide. The shoes in the video are first picked up in front of the ocean (2:19, scene). This is significant because it can be a direct reference to the lives lost to the ocean from the ferry disaster. In the aftermath of the incident, shoes of the victims of the sinking were placed by the harbor with messages written on and around them; shoes signify a person’s journey, so the relatives of those who died left the shoes where the victims’ journeys ended.

However, at the end of the video, we can see that the shoes are hung up in a tree (5:18, scene). This symbolizes death, because the shoes are placed high so that the owner can find them again after death (and possibly continue their journey in the afterlife). This can also mean that the owner of the shoes is in a higher place, once again referring to the afterlife and the sense of moving on.

Ultimate Takeaway

A song of missing someone and meeting them again, a song of growing up, a song of grieving, a song of criticism against the government - “Spring Day” is all this, and more. It will always have layers upon layers of meaning that we can’t hope to untangle completely, but this brief overview hopefully covered most of them.

This was the first song from BTS that I ever heard. It’s my favorite and most cherished song of all time, because I stumbled across this song during a time I was grieving lost family and friends. It’s a song about loss, and about healing and acceptance. It’s a song about hope. It’s a song about carrying on.

“아침은 다시 올 거야. 어떤 어둠도 어떤 계절도 영원할 순 없으니까 .”

“The morning will come again. No darkness, no season is eternal.”

[everytimemyheartbeats]

“You make me begin.”

BTS has fans for many reasons, but the reason I became a fan is because I stumbled across their “Spring Day” music video during a difficult time in my life, when I was grieving the loss of close friends and family. Something about the music video and the song’s lyrics struck me as highly symbolic; I researched more into it and found links to the Sewol Ferry Disaster. As a Korean with family members who could have been on the ferry, and as someone who was suffering from loss, I found comfort in “Spring Day”.

Thus, the idea for this blog began. It never came to fruition until now, but it was always there - analyzing music videos, lyrics, the music itself, performances, and the significance that BTS intentionally encodes into their work. This is a project of love and meaning, and one that I hope to continue doing in the far future, for BTS, ARMY, and me.

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Future posts:

- “Spring Day”

- “The Truth Untold”

- “Magic Shop”

- “Awake” & “Epiphany”

- “Forever Rain” by RM

- “Butterfly”

- “Euphoria”

- “Answer: Love Myself”

- “Mikrokosmos”

- “Jamais Vu”

- “Heartbeat”

- “Lights”

- “Serendipity”

- “Intro: Persona”

- “seoul” by RM