BTS Permission To Dance
“The music’s got me going
Ain’t nothing that can stop how we move, yeah
Let’s break our plans
And live just like we’re golden“
This week was a special week for BTS (I.G. @bts.bighitofficial), and this is just the beginning of what’s to come in the next week for the septet. After debuting on Wednesday as House ambassadors for the spin-off of Louis Vuitton’s FW’21 collection, BTS premieres “Permission to Dance“, a song that although it comes during summer vacation time, it also comes to give us encouragement during this transition from confinement through dance-pop beats that invite us to reflect that the things that are really worthwhile and make us happy we have them ourselves with or without social restrictions. Furthermore, what better time to release it than when celebrating BTS ARMY Day (July 9th), paying a great show of affection and gratitude with the predominance of its representative purple color, in addition to highlighting the alluring cowboy looks of the ’20s.
Co-written with Ed Sheeran, Steve Mac, Johnny McDaid, and Jenna Andrews, the MV of “Permission to Dance” opens with a little hint to their previous hit single “Butter”, a pair of hotcakes with “butter” being carried by a waitress (wearing a facemask) who stops to look at something in the sky, later the song starts formally with Jungkook sitting in the container of a trailer to later pass to RM to complete the first verse, followed by Jimin coming out of a laundromat to later make a sign to the sky that seems to indicate that he leaves the rest of the pre-chorus to Jin to finish it and dance together with the rest of the group the chorus of the song. Without delving into what would follow the video, we can see that throughout the video reference is made to the confinement that has been lived since the beginning of the pandemic, as well as all the people affected, from adults, youth, and children, from different professions, educational levels, nationalities, and ages, all of them wearing facemasks, being later removed almost at the end of the video when the chorus of the song is sung for the last time, providing a hopeful message of soon returning to enjoy life, a life without the pandemic. Throughout the video purple balloons can be seen, being a reference to ARMY, who being of different ages and nationalities, can observe the purple balloons, which is possibly a message of thanks from the septet.
In “Permission to Dance”, BTS reminds us that dancing is one of the freedoms we enjoy, and it is not restricted by society or the pandemic. You can be having the worst time in the world and we have the choice to be happy, to be happy through dance and music. The video also made us feel life before the pandemic and conveys the message of hope to soon return to it. The music and dance energize people and gives a feeling of freedom, free from the worries of the world, if only for a brief moment.
As we said before, this is just the beginning for the K-pop septet in July as, according to the band’s July promotional schedule, on Tuesday, July 13 and Wednesday, July 14 RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook will do a 2-day takeover on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (NBC, 13th 11:35 PM ET / 14th 12:35 PM KST), featuring the performance of “Permission to Dance” on the 13th and a special edition of “Butter” on the 14th.
