BTS

Source - BTS (BTS) 'Permission to Dance' Official MV

On my morning commute, the moment I put on my earphones, a rhythm that tickled my ears flowed out as if YouTube Music’s algorithm were leading me to a familiar melody.

BTS’s ‘Permission to Dance.’

During the pandemic, it was a song I especially loved amid the frustrations of everyday life.

For a while, when the time we could meet the world was limited during the COVID era, and when breathing through a mask felt heavy, listening to this song made me feel as if I were throwing open a stuffy window wide.

As the air and emotions from that time came rushing back like waves, the corners of my mouth lifted on their own.

I first came to know this song thanks to a junior from my band club.

One late night, a KakaoTalk notification suddenly rang.

“Hyung, I thought of you as soon as I heard this.” A link had arrived by itself.

He was a friend who had long held on to music with me.

There were days in the band rehearsal room when, while adjusting the amp volume, a line of lyrics would suddenly come to mind and we would grab each other and write it down on the spot.

There were also nights when we argued over a single chord until dawn, burst out laughing, and talked about “our own music” while eating tteokbokki at a street cart after practice.

Because it was a song recommended by such a friend, I pressed play without hesitation, and from that day on this track became one I especially cherish and love.

There is another special memory.

One day, while driving my daughter to school, I played it for her and said, “This is a song Dad likes,” and my daughter liked it so much that we listened to it together often for a while.

My daughter, holding her bag tightly in the back seat, would nod along and sing as soon as the chorus came on, and on those mornings we would face each other in the car and imitate the dance moves.

Whenever we were briefly stopped at a red light, the two of us would awkwardly wave our arms and burst into laughter.

As my daughter’s laughter and mine overlapped, this song was no longer just a melody, but remained as a family memory.

This morning too, as I hummed while walking, a thought suddenly crossed my mind.

“This rhythm, this feeling... where have I felt it before?” Then a scene from my school days suddenly came to mind.

Tommy Page’s ‘Turn on the Radio.’

Tommy Page was a singer who drew attention around the same time that New Kids on the Block were gaining popularity, and although ‘Turn on the Radio’ was not the main track on his album, it was personally my favorite song.

As I think back to my childhood, summer nights come to mind first.

The lively beat that filled the room when I opened the window and pressed play on a cassette tape.

The way I would forget my homework, put my feet up on the desk in time with the rhythm, and jokingly sway my body. That song I hummed while tapping the book like a drum with my palms.

Back then, it was simply time spent letting my body go because it was “fun,” but that melody comes back to me now and makes me dance again.

The two songs are strangely similar.

There is a part in the middle where handclaps are used without accompaniment to encourage participation, and the flow of the melody is somehow similar as well.

A message to dance, a chorus that feels like an invitation to a party, a rhythm that naturally makes your shoulders bounce. If ‘Turn on the Radio’ was the song of a boy that shook awake my school days, then ‘Permission to Dance’ was the song of an adult that gently lifted me up during the long tunnel of COVID and on the morning road I shared with my daughter.

This morning, under the sunlight streaming between the buildings on my commute, I went back there again.

The heat of the band practice room, a junior’s late-night KakaoTalk message, my daughter’s bright laughter, and even the excitement of my childhood room.

Music is truly amazing.

How can one song make different times overlap in an instant and make me smile?

And so once again, while walking on my commute, I hummed the song and, keeping time to the beat,

slightly swayed my body. Of course, I did it very timidly, in case someone might be watching.