An Open Fan Letter to BTS and Arirang

My friend has helped me translate my words into Korean. 💜 Read it here.

This is my first fan letter, ever. I have to get these thoughts out before they deny me more sleep! Thoughts about the Arirang album and the tracks are actually keeping me up on multiple nights; it’s the last thing on my mind and the first thing I think of when I wake up.

I first knew of most BTS members as solo artists during their hiatus for military service. To my surprise and delight, I discovered my favourite K-Pop artists were part of the same group. Each artist is amazing in their own right, but together there is something truly special about their musical artistry.

My favourite part of being a visual artist is that my artwork only tells half the story. It’s only when the painting is viewed by someone that it’s complete. The background, understanding, experiences and feelings of the individual, partner with the artwork to create a new unique experience. It’s why one person can feel deeply about an artwork and yet another person be unmoved by it.

This is my experience of the Arirang album.

The album Arirang, to me, is a masterpiece. I don’t have a favourite song ‘cause “I can never ever choose/ every one o’ you a muse”. I feel like I’m listening to BTS’ love letter to ARMY (their fanbase). The themes carry all through the album and even lyrics appear like an echo in other songs. The commitment as members to come back together, taking back what’s theirs (ARMY’s love and their place in the world) with a vulnerable and honest heart that shares how they’ve grown and changed - showing us who they are now. The Emile Bell I hear as something of an intermission - from the first act to the second representing the time BTS and ARMY spent apart waiting for each other. I hear the duality of moving forward on an ordinary hamster wheel of life and the abnormally normal life of BTS as a plea for us to see them as they really are while questioning if it's even possible. BTS invites ARMY into an intimacy with healthy boundaries (that leaves space for privacy and mystery), shares their fantasy of more concerts with their beautiful ARMY, while humbly declaring all BTS wants is ARMY. Finally, the beginning of a new phase in their career with a ‘Western Movie’ riding off into the sunset/dawn together (BTS together and ARMY), both the end of who they were before and the beginning of their new identity.

Body to Body - the music video helped me understand what this means to BTS, all members coming together from their different paths to reunite once again for ARMY. I learned Arirang speaks of longing, one I interpret between BTS and ARMY, of waiting and yearning with sorrow. BTS verbalises their need - “I need the whole stadium to jump”, ARMY jumping in joy and delight in BTS’ music and performance and we see it from their perspective. There’s a call to set aside hurtful weapons such as keyboards and let go of hate, but I’m left wondering, what’s big in real life? The impact of that hate? Or is real life bigger than some online image? There’s an invitation to “Hop in”, to an in-person connection, “I need some body to body/ All of your body beside me”. I feel the members are talking to each other, that they need each other - all of them together again, hand in hand reaching for the moon and not stopping. With a nod to the final track, “Sunrise, but we don’t go home” because the dawn is just the beginning. Their relationship is “so tight”, and what makes them BTS, their identity, is strongly rooted in the spirit of their people (both Korea and ARMY). The sample of Arirang and how it circles back to what BTS need, their ARMY is just perfect.

Hooligan - BTS is shaking off the shackles of who they were and breaking out into a new sound, a new message, and a new voice. They’re doing it their way - “Why this baseline slappin so rude?/ Drop it lower than chopped and screwed”. Making changes, and making it theirs. It has an anarchist feel and still keeping it real with vulnerability and pressure “What’s the future? Where’s the now?/ This is international/ Make it unforgettable”. Yet there’s echoes of themes of dominance and a crazy wildness from other tracks. This song feels like bursting out of chains and into freedom.

Aliens - The first time I listened to this song, I felt like the Alien. I’m a foreigner listening to K-Pop, after all. I love that at first I was questioning who are the aliens? Aren’t the aliens the ones different from ourselves? From that perspective, both east and west are foreigners to each other. Paying more attention to the lyrics, I understood that BTS felt like the foreigner to the West, yet defiantly owning who they are and where they come from - challenging foreigners to accept the Korean group and culture. BTS are proud Koreans, proud of the culture they represent to the world offering to teach us the basics. The outro has a military feel like they’re claiming back music and their fans after serving.

FYA - A passionate, vibrant and invigorating song. We’re called to go crazy wild. It’s like the heart-pumping feelings of a new love or a love rekindled. We let loose with BTS in the thrill of that passion “we in a flame, go wild” “Club go psycho, might take you viral/ I go full Thriller tonight/ Club go crazy like Britney, baby/ Hit me with it one more time”... but don’t go too crazy “Don’t stand too close, too close to fire” cause you’ll get burned. I love the healthy boundary they placed. Don’t get too close. Don’t go too crazy. Crazy-fun is fine, but not crazy-dangerous. Let’s keep it a healthy love between BTS and ARMY.

2.0 - Another song that I understood more, the more I listened and learned. @btslyrictranslations tells me that the pronunciation of the number 2 in Korean is similar to the english word ‘do’. That was fun to learn! BTS is back, but it's a new upgraded version! Themes of taking back the pop dominance they had in their homeland and internationally. It's a musical challenge to other pop artists, like I hope you had fun while we were gone; now we’re back and reclaiming what’s ours. And we’re going to do it brand new. The new BTS 2.0. Although I haven’t listened to much of the old BTS music, I still hear the mature growth in this song as they’ve searched for (and are still searching for) the answers of who they are now.

No. 29 - I have questions about this track that maybe members won’t want to answer, so I won’t ask them. I did some research into the bell itself and why it was built. I’ve thought deeply about it. I understand its importance to Korea and the King it was designed to honour, but what I hear when I listen is almost-but-not-quite ‘negative space’. As a visual artist, I use negative space and neutral hues to create space to mentally relax within a painting. This is the purpose this track has for me while listening to the album. My mind has a moment to relax and simply be and feel. There’s a waiting quality to it as well that speaks to me of something like an intermission in a show that represents BTS and ARMY’s time apart waiting for the moment that they could come back together again. I never skip the track because it feels like it dishonours that time spent apart.

Swim - I listened as the members talked about how this is a song about moving forward ‘Keep Swimming’, each day taking you closer to where you want to be even when the waves get large and you want to turn away, when the world is crazy and your values are opposite and not sure what to do. I love the commitment to keep moving forward, of holding nothing back and without condition, “Oh, you ain’t even gotta love me bad, girl”. There’s a beautiful underlying sensuality “I could spend a lifetime watching you” “I can feel the high waves coming” “Salt on my tongue” “I ain’t never getting cold feet”. I loved the footage of the performance at Pier 17, that sensuality really came across. Life is experienced through our five senses and it doesn’t have to be difficult, even when it's dangerous. “So easy, don’t make it so hard/ Nights like these, I just wanna get lost/ Right here with the moon and the sharks”. I feel ARMY really could spend a lifetime watching and listening to BTS.

Merry Go Round - I find it interesting that this track is after Swim, with that sense of moving forward and giving life your all; and in the next track the focus switches to the relatable monotony of life. How it’s killing the child within us and there’s a helplessness, a loss of control “I can’t get off this merry-go-round/ It spins me around (around, around)/ I do my best, but I can’t slow down this merry-go-round”. There’s a tension in the song with questions that don’t have answers, concerns that haven’t changed even as we feel more ‘adult’. There’s a restlessness (thanks @btslyricstranslations) and thoughts endlessly going around in circles, the very reason I’m writing them down! Where Swim tells us moving forward is easy, Merry Go Round reminds us that moving forward sometimes feels like going in circles or moving but not getting anywhere and it can be out of our control. The duality of these tracks fascinates me because in the middle between the two is the tension where both are true and can be experienced simultaneously. The same daily routine although feeling like a carousel can be the vehicle that helps us move forward. Also, is it just me or does the outro sound like a death knell? Is it the death of the carousel or the inner child?

Normal - I think I heard one of the members say this was originally something about a toxic way of life being normal or not normal? The abnormally normal experience of a pop star. Fuel for fire or a dopamine high - one chemical designed for destruction, the other for pleasure. Fantasy and fame were chosen, and the toxic consequences are what came with it. “Show me hate, show me love, make me bulletproof” reminds me of the English expression “ten foot tall and bulletproof” - that both hate and unhealthy obsession will leave BTS unaffected. “We call this shit normal” speaks to me how much toxicity they live with and don’t want to deal with “Run away out of sight, don’t know what I want/ Wish I had a minute just to turn me off”. The duality of wanting your dreams and not wanting them at the same time because of the sometimes cruel labels they get, they’re seen and yet at the same time unseen “heavy’s the head when you chasin’ true/ Will you color me red? Will you color me blue?/ Two sides of a coin and they both ain’t true”. The vulnerability in all those unusual feelings, feelings that most people never have to deal with, have them reacting in strong ways. “Got me and my feelings up on this wall” to me could mean both up on a wall (prepared to jump) or up against a wall (feeling threatened), “and my knees-ees” feeling down and broken. Some of my favourite lyrics also break my heart: “If everything’s just happy, mm, that ain’t real (that ain’t real)/ I breathe out like a thousand times/ Normal and special, they are just some lines/ One deep sigh, then it slips away, fades away/ What I try to keep never want to stay/ Run away, pushin’ me, pullin’ me/ Said you wanted all of me, but what even is all of me?/ Suddenly, part of me is hauntin’ me/ Heard the things they callin’ me, what the hell you want from me?” I think it breaks my heart because of the cost of fame. It’s a price I never wanted to pay.

Like Animals - I think this point in the album, Like Animals switches to a focus on intimacy, the real stuff, not just a surface level relationship, “Take me into your deep/ I wanna lay in your world/ So what? Your shadows a mess/ I’m walking with my own dirt” the part of us that makes us human - the mess and the dirt - is common ground between BTS and ARMY. They’re showing us they’re far from perfect and have the same struggles we all do. The pulsing beat drives the song like instinct drives us, where we become like animals goring ourselves on everything life has to offer us, but there’s a sense of darkness to it also, “Don’t you close your eyes?/ Don’t you fear the light?” that we can bury ourselves away from, “Six feet down in the sand/ There’s creatures that made a hole” or see people as they really are “With your claws sharp and them fangs out/ Now you see a whole land full of animals”. Who is the ‘us’ that is untameable? BTS? Humanity? Both? To me, this song is a commentary on the juxtaposition of humanity being Like Animals with breathtaking harmonies that soften the message to say we all are.

They don’t know about us - I heard the members say this song is how ARMY doesn’t really know BTS, who they are - I’m not sure if it’s they’ve never really known them (because they’ve been placed on a pedestal) or because of how much they’ve changed during their hiatus ARMY don’t know them anymore. It starts with a sense of frustration, in the constant questions they don’t have answers to either; mocking people who think they know BTS “Everybody hears the story that they wanna”; how they got famous; and a jaded “If you wanna know me, what can I do for you?” tells me people don’t want to get to know them for who they are but for what they can do for them. There’s humility in being just country boys, it’s sweet but with a punch. But they deal with that frustration “Hold up, chill and take a bubble bath, babe” and just be themselves even when there’s a struggle to make people understand. And BTS is blunt in pointing out that ‘their’ nosiness is huge and shameless (@btslyrictranslations) - why do I feel like this is in response to those awful, too personal questions that people feel they have a right to know the answer to? We should accept that we don’t need to know those things! I agree! This is another healthy boundary, an invitation to know them but keep some mystery, please. I love the humility and simplicity of the ending, BTS members are not heroes - simply seven ordinary people.

One More Night - This song makes me smile because I see the fantasy BTS wants another night of is concert performances with their ARMY. I’m trying to understand this through the language gap, but it seems to me that BTS recognises that there may come a day when ARMY doesn’t love them anymore, and it will be their heartbreak. That day could have come sooner than they wanted if this album hadn’t done well - but while they were standing (waiting) in the alley (the place between ARMY loving them previously and the unknown future) they began to feel ARMY’s love for them again “Fallin’ back to me, I feel you back to me”. Yet the looming shadow of what we inevitably will become is scary and already sad. Are they soaking in thoughts of their fantasy 24-7? Is that how much it’s on BTS’ mind, they don’t want to be woken from that dream or fantasy? I hear BTS saying that because of the gift of ARMY their mood is “like cloud nine” all day and together BTS and ARMY communicate and understand each other without words, in fact words aren’t even needed, just imploring ARMY to stay by BTS’ side. BTS and ARMY are entwined, one doesn’t exist without the other, and ARMY is the beauty that shines through the darkness. I see a concert performance with light sticks/bombs like stars breaking up the darkness and a plea for BTS to see it for just One More Night through to the next phase of their career.

Please - When I listen I hear BTS pleading and begging ARMY to stay with them, that if ARMY want, they’ll and do that ‘thing’ - perform - for them. That even though the world separated BTS and ARMY for a time, they’re taking the initiative and the first step back towards ARMY, and humbly pleading on bended knees to stay with them even on their worst days. Thoughts of “what if this album sucks?” comes to mind when BTS speak of their worst days (it doesn’t!!!), if it happens they’ll cling to ARMY even tighter in the depths of hell. BTS tell us that they’ll follow ARMY wherever they go, no matter if it’s painful or if the world tries to get in their way. I love the circular around and around it reminds me of dancers spinning together back to where it all began, just BTS and ARMY together. Confidently “You want me just all day, all night” inviting ARMY to lovingly surround them “Hold me from the front, back, left, right” (I’m picturing a 360 degree stage) while declaring mutual possession of each other’s hearts, “I need you like oh me, oh my/ Oh you got me/ Oh you got me like”. The joy BTS has felt has been because of ARMY, and it’s overflowing inviting ARMY to partake of it too. Wishing for BTS and ARMY to stay entwined forever, they want to rest in ARMY’s love.

Into the Sun - To me, this song is like the end of Western movie where the hero and heroine ride off into the sunset together showing the end of something and the beginning of something new. I confess, Westerns are not my vibe so I’m relying a lot on genre-assumptions here. It’s what makes me think “fires are never dying” are intimate campfire moments spent talking and connecting, keeping warm through the cold night “I want someone like you/ Nobody knows me, honey/ No one like you” and where someone is keeping the fire (fya) alive. I wonder if this is both BTS among themselves and also BTS with ARMY. BTS share how eager they are for the new chapter “If you wanna go there/ I’m ready to be with you/ You call/ I run/ Dark days/ And find the sun/ I don’t care/ How far/ Just wait/ Dawn” they’ve spent their lost dark days (each day feeling the full 24 hours) and protected each other through that darkness and now the sun and warmth is on the horizon once again. In the face of this desire is the uncertainty of how ARMY would respond to BTS’ new chapter where they’ve instinctively evolved but not sure if that evolution was the right thing when confronted with ARMY’s attachments to the old BTS. Home to BTS is wherever ARMY is, I’m picturing that campfire in the outdoors, a place of beauty where the flame of love has been fuelled and kept alive and ARMY outshines the moon. I’m wondering if BTS is thinking further into the future “And if we run out of time/ I’ll chase the feeling/ Never too far behind”, wanting to keep feeling the joy ARMY gives them and staying together with ARMY in the repeated echos of “Never behind”. I love the outro to this song. Just perfect. I don’t know enough musically to know why it is, I just feel it. BTS will follow ARMY into the new chapter, into the sun and the dawn of this new era for BTS.