‘Young Forever’, ‘For Youth’ And The Bridge To Tomorrow
“This song [‘For Youth’] speaks for itself. You could say it’s a connection to ‘Epilogue: Young Forever’. This song is dedicated to everyone who has been around during our youth.” — Namjoon, BTS ‘Proof’ Live.
What does youth mean to me? As a teenager, I’ve always been confronted with this question, surrounded by it everywhere I go. Adults around us talk about youth being the golden period of our lives, about how we could achieve and do it all in the span of just a few years. Golden youth, like a summer spring, filled with dreams. Yet, what people don’t see in our youth is the pain — that small loneliness growing older with us, realizing we’re all actually so alone yet so connected in a world that forces the reality down our mouths. A world that both embraces and rejects us. And we? We take the world in our hands: our dreams, blooming and alive, thriving and beating in an utopian sound within us, helping us come truly alive in a globe that strangles us in its hold.
BTS called their youth in their trilogy of albums named ‘花樣年華’ — which translates to ‘The Most Beautiful Moment In Life’. The main theme of these albums was youth: not only the rosy picture of freedom, independence and friends, but also the pain of losing your childhood, of aimlessness, of insecurity, and of the transience of the flowers of youth within us. However, there is one track in the trilogy that breathes the hope of an everlasting youth with both sadness and happiness and passion; ‘Epilogue: Young Forever’.
A part of the third album in the series (which is, incidentally, named ‘The Most Beautiful Moment In Life: Young Forever’), ‘Epilogue: Young Forever’ is a song dedicated to their youth, their most beautiful moment in life. The song begins with Namjoon standing on an empty stage, in the remnants of a concert; and the starting verses are a testament to how BTS feel alive only during the times they’re on the stage, in front of the audience, singing and engaging with their music. The song is set in the ending moments of a concert after the crowd empties out for it is in those minutes that their moments, filled with passion and fire, slowly die down, and they contemplate their existence in this world.(‘the curtain falls (I get out of breath) / and my mind becomes complicated (I breathe out)’).
“ As I, embracing the yet lingering feelings, / stand on the empty, still hot, stage. / Standing on the empty, but hot, stage, / I get scared of the idle emptiness.”
RM’s verse is followed by SUGA’s, who puts the other’s feelings into perspective. The above lines refer to the stage as empty but filled with heat, which is not only because they performed a concert there, but for the reason of music as well. Music is made up of sound waves which collide with the air around and vibrate to be heard. The phrase ‘idle emptiness’ suggests that even the air, the winds stand still in the atmosphere after a concert. It’s both a metaphorical, and a literal emptying of their emotions and their passions. (In fact, SUGA did express in the interview on ‘You Quiz On The Block’ that when they performed, it felt like a ‘life or death’ situation). BTS feel so alive in their passion, which is performing, and are so connected with the act that when the cheers die down, they feel a kind of emptiness in their hearts. It feels as if they’re leaving parts of their passion for music with the air, and inside the hearts of their hearts, and these lines characterize this fear of losing your music: ‘on the verge of death in life / I pretend to be more numb for no reason / but even though I try to hide it, I cannot.’
When SUGA turns away from the seats, he also turns away from the metaphoric escape of music from his body, and comforts himself in that grief (‘I comfort myself’).
And then J-Hope comes in, with his voice carrying swift hope. The lines ‘gradually, I empty myself / the huge applause can’t be mine forever’ represents the fact that music is within BTS: it’s a part and parcel of not only their professional and social identity, but also their biology, their blood of passion. Which is why he empties himself on the stage (‘even if there’s no everlasting audience, I will sing’), where his music and voice is not directed to the plethora of fans that flock their events. Instead, it is directed within: to himself, of himself and for himself. The lines are a reminder of his passion to his self, and the meaning of its existence in him that is beyond the reaches of a mere profession. At the end of his verse, he asserts and brings back his youth as his very own, through this particular line that ushers in the chorus —
‘I wish to remain forever as a boy’, wherein the term ‘boy’ could refer to the beginning stages of recognizing your passion, where one is always filled with wonderment about their passion and have curiosity to discover more and more, in opposition to the adult who apparently ‘knows it all’. He wishes to pursue his passion in the way he did as a young child: always learning, creating, innovating and never stopping on his path.
“Forever we are young / In the fluttering flower petal rain, / I wander and run in this maze / Forever we are young / Even if I fall, get wounded, and it aches, / I run endlessly to my dream.”
Cherry blossoms are the characteristic flower used in ‘The Most Beautiful Moment In Life’: they represent BTS’s youth. The maze is that of life — navigating through ideas of making what you love most as your profession and to make art not for the money, not for the monotonous routines of a job, but for oneself. For one’s own creativity to thrive and bloom, like the soft cherry blossoms that grace our youth, and for the resilience we carry within ourselves. The chorus is followed by the lines ‘forever, ever, ever, ever’ / dream, hope, forward, forward’), the last one being a popular phrase used by Yoongi and referenced in many songs, such as 2020’s ‘Respect’. ‘Dream, hope, forward, forward’ is representative of the decision to go on with the currents of life. Like in the music video, where BTS exit the maze and run into the horizon, it resembles the idea that even though one cannot clearly see what lies ahead of their path, their dreams, goals, and passions are always at an arm’s reach. All we have to do is hold on to them.
The last choruses become a chant: as Jungkook sings the pre-chorus one last time, his voice is bold and breathes the sweet scent of youth and dreams rising in all their might. The chants resemble not only the fan-chants that the audience speaks from their seats in a concert, but a chant within oneself: to hold their dreams closer to themselves that they ever did.
“If I never met you / Oh, what would I be like, baby / Every time I miss you / Those words that have turned into a habit (It’s so true).”
Unlike Young Forever, For Youth is quite literally a song ‘for youth’: a part of BTS’ recent anthology album ‘Proof’, it is a song dedicated to all the people who have been a part of their youth until now. In a beautiful coincidence, the title is also dedicated to their fans, ARMY; it is a song by BTS to ARMY as the acronym does stand for ‘Adorable Representative M.C. For Youth’, the song having a place in their name itself. The song begins with wonder, thinking about a life without their fans. From having a fear of emptiness, fear of losing parts of themselves to their fans in Young Forever, BTS now accepts their fans as a part of their passion for making music.
V follows next with tracing their history; he references a period in their youth when feelings are heightened and the mind is clouded with doubt (‘as I open my eyes / it’s 10 years ago / when we cried too easily / and laughed too easily.’). He then expresses how their fans have stayed through those times through the phrase ‘every second was forever.’ This ‘second’ refers to music, those precious moments with their fans that slowly crept into their collective consciousness and become a crucial part of how BTS experience their passion.
“My life that was on a slippery slope / Those nights when, I was laying my head on the pillow, / wished that I wouldn’t wake up (wake up).”
RM’s verse that follows is filled with confessions: how the simple memory of their fans in his mind was enough to rescue him from feelings of defeated-ness within himself, as seen above. Through the years, the fans have taken a place beside music as their home, comfort, and peace (‘now this place where you are / this a new home to me / because i’ll always come back / baby don’t you worry’) and are also new pathways to rediscovering their passion (‘because every trace of our footsteps / will become a path’.).
The chorus ushers itself in, and ends with the phrase ‘you’re my best friend for the rest of my life’, which is not only a reference to their 2017 song ‘Spring Day’ (‘you know it all / you’re my best friend’) but is also a reminder for the deep connection that BTS and ARMY share with each other. That is also the turning point when J-Hope’s verse comes in, where the lines ‘one two three / the way we synchronize’ talks about an indescribable, fateful bond between the two. His verses are accentuated with copious gratitude as he thanks the fans for making him who he is today, contrasting Young Forever where he tries to separate the fans from his passion. (‘thanks to you, I was able to true to myself / your countless words that comforted me / they are what made me.’).
“Yeah, you’re the springtime of my life, / my youth, / a friend I’m thankful for, / my pride, my heaven, and love.”
Yes, J-Hope is music, and he is still music; but instead of separating the two (audience and music), he and the song integrates them both and calls them his ‘youth’. The audience makes him feel as worthwhile as making music and singing and performing does. His overflowing love is followed by SUGA’s truthful, honest voice: he expresses how the fans are the very reason why they held onto the name and legacy that BTS carries in and within themselves (‘in the midst of the darkness, a ray of light’). He ends with a reference from their 2017 song ‘You Never Walk Alone: A Supplementary Story’: ‘because we’re together, we can smile’ from the song contrasted with For Youth’s ‘what a relief that it’s you / because, for we’re together, we can shine’.
“I’d run / and stumble / You’d raise me up, / but I may fall over again, oh / Would you reach out your hand to me / Because I will get up however many times it may be.”
This verse represents the kind of strength that BTS and ARMY give each other: in the most dire of situations, their words to each other bring out a kind of unseen, ephemeral power in one another, and also the trust in themselves. The next verse is comfort and a promise to always stay healthy and to be okay at stopping to rest, because they’ll always be here (‘when exhausted, it’s okay to take a moment to rest / waiting for you, I’ll always be here’). The next line, ‘daydreamin’ about us facin’ is almost a response to their 2020 song ‘Stay’s ‘was it a dream? / I thought I saw you’; where now a dream has turned into a daydream, and therefore both fairy-like and closer to reality than ever.
“I wish I could turn back time / Back then when everything was easy, / I should’ve said those words to you more / I’ll be with you / For the rest of my life / Rest of my life.”
In the very last chorus, Jungkook’s voice rises in emotional heightening: it’s filled both with regret of not saying the words he’s saying now before (‘i wish i could turn back time’) and with hope that they’ll keep saying these words until the end of time (‘back when everything was easy / i should’ve said those words to you more often’). The song ends with ‘I’ll be with you for the rest of my life’ which envelops the listener into the sounds of Young Forever yet again, because at first they’d promised to stay young with themselves, and now they’ll stay young forever with their youth, ARMY.
‘For Youth’ has its roots in Young Forever: after all, the song has the underlying sound of Young Forever sung in numerous concerts before (most popularly, at the Love Yourself: Speak Yourself concert at London’s Wembley Stadium). But most importantly, they have the undercurrent of a youth that’s undeterred by the coming tomorrow. It’s the bridge to all our tomorrow’s: the pathway of comfort, of cherry blossoms, and of BTS holding our hands with them. They’re also constantly on the path of self-discovery, and are rediscovering aspects of their passion with us, who are also just beginning with our journeys, and our lives. And it feels eternal in its wake, walking hand in hand as the sun brightens, the oceans rise and the flowers bloom.
Because, as these two songs rightfully say, our youth is in the state of a constant, eternal bloom: we are, truly, young forever.
Lyric translations by doolsetbangtan.
