South Korean boy band Bangtan Soneyondan, or more commonly known as BTS are worldwide superstars. Their recent song, a collab with Ed Sheeran ‘Permission to Dance’ has topped the Billboard hot 100 charts making them the only kpop band to have 5 songs listed on the top of the charts. BTS’s ‘Butter’ which stayed on top of the charts for more than 7 weeks, has broken a plethora of records which were set by them before.
Back in 2017 BTS released an emotional ballad, ‘Spring Day’ which is a song about love, loss and longing for the past. However the cover and art of the music video tells us about a water tragedy, sinking of the ‘Sewol ferry’ in 2014 in South Korea. However, when a magazine editor asked them about a specific reason for the song, the eldest member Jin replied “It is about a sad event, as you said, but it is also about longing”. He also addded that “Spring Day” really represents him personally. “I like to look to the past and be lost in it.”
‘Spring Day’ was released three years after the sinking of Sewol ferry, a disaster which took many innocent lives. According to the reports, it is said that the ferry capsized during an overnight journey due to improper inspection, overloading. It was stated that the ferry was loaded with twice the legal limit of cargo on the deck and the ship crew lied about its weight. 304 passengers were aboard the ship that night, mostly high school students who were on their way to a sight seeing field trip were drowned.
Only 172 of them were survived. They revealed that majority of them drowned because they were ordered to stay inside their cabins. According to some reports, the South Korean government tried to silence entertainers who spoke out against it. The Korean Ministry of Education even banned the disaster’s commemorative yellow ribbons in schools. Later, the president at the time of the disaster, who was widely criticized for her government’s failure to prevent it, was impeached on charges of corruption.
But the nostalgic, longing tone of BTS’s “Spring Day” subtly helped keep the memory of the disaster alive in the minds of young Koreans and the media in the years after the tragedy. The vocals of that song are very soothing and the lyrics have a very deep meaning. It is all about waiting for a friend, who went to a place from which he cannot return. They refer their longing as winter. The day they meet that friend, will become a spring day and bring happiness and sunshine into their lives. They also add that even though they want to erase their pain and memories of him, they can’t.
They are urging that friend to wait a little longer as the flowers may bloom back into their lives and the darkness will eventually go as no season lasts forever. In the end, they also give a little bit of hope that they’ll be able to see their friend at last. ‘Wait a bit for few more nights, I’ll be there for you. I’ll come to see you.’ They add it in the end of the song. BTS are mostly known for their meaningful and inspiring lyrics and this is yet another masterpiece penned and sung by the septet.
Watch the official Music Video here
Eduindex News 