Hey everyone!
We are finally talking about J-HOOOOOOPPPPPPPEEEEEEEE!!!! Our little ball of sunshine, happiness, sound effects and the swaggiest bad-ass ** dance leader the world has ever known.
I am so happy that we get this opportunity to know Hobi a bit more 😊 So without further ado, let’s get it!
Assumed Knowledge & Assumptions
I have written this post assuming you know:
- my theory, that all of the songs in LY albums are connected and reveal a storyline when read in a specific order;
- Joon and Yoongi’s stories discussed in my blog so far; and
- Hobi’s story in DNA.
New Readers
Hello there and welcome to my blog! I’m sorry to say that if you haven’t read any of my previous blogs… I may lose you in the detail as my lyrical analyses are built on existing knowledge!
This is simply because all of the songs are interconnected and need to be read in a specific order for it to make sense, just like a book.
You can absolutely still continue to read and follow how I draw meaning from the lyrics, but you may not understand for example why I say this song functions as a prologue and the significance of this.
If you’re wondering where to start, please start here!
Please also note the assumptions I apply when I analyse songs.
Enjoy! 😊
1. Establishing the Timeline
As per my theory, Trivia 起: Just Dance functions as a prologue in the Love Yourself series.
Thus, Trivia 起: Just Dance is set some time at the early beginnings of Hobi’s/BTS’ life.
2. That Moment Hobi fell in love
I refer to the following lyrics:
If you ask me about that moment,
it was like a sunshine brightly glaring down
If you ask about that feeling,
I can so naturally picture it with my eyes, one shot
Within that atmosphere, we play the music
and we each do our stretching
The tension is relieved
If I had hidden how I feel now,
I would have regretted the sunset with you
Hobi begins the song sharing with us his memory of “that moment.”
Given:
- Hobi’s well-known love for dance;
- The fact that Trivia 起: Just Dance is clearly a love song; and
- That I believe Hobi’s perspective is about ARMY;
Hobi is drawing parallels between the moment he fell in love with dancing to the moment he fell in love with ARMY.
Hobi’s love for dancing is conveyed through the imagery of dancers warming up (“If you ask me about that moment… we play the music and we each do our stretching, the tension is relieved” ); and his love for ARMY is conveyed through the overlapping imagery of BTS warming up in a stadium, declaring their love to ARMY and spending a happy night together at an atmospheric concert (“If you asked me about that moment… Within that atmosphere, we play the music and… If I had hidden how I feel now, I would have regretted the sunset with you” ).
In that moment where Hobi falls in love with dance and ARMY, “it was like a sunshine brightly glaring down.”
The metaphor of a bright sunshine conveys to us Hobi’s happy revelation and the feeling of warmth one feels when they discover something or someone they love.
Hobi akins his love for ARMY to his love for dancing.
Performing for ARMY, and falling in love with ARMY felt as natural as the moment Hobi discovered his love for dance.
3. Hobi and ARMY
Hobi’s and ARMY’s easygoing relationship is further described in the following lyrics:
Hey, dance with me dance with me
Any bounce is fine, dance with me
Where we are from, why we dance,
a conversation that flows so naturally, say something
It feels strange
Because we match so well,
I feel like everything will work out great
No matter where ARMY is from, or how ARMY bounces and dances (“any bounce is fine” ), Hobi always finds that the connections and conversations he has between ARMY and himself are always so natural. Hobi comments that this “feels strange” because technically, ARMY and BTS are strangers.
Because of how well Hobi and ARMY get along, Hobi yearns to continue to dance with ARMY well into the night under the bright moonlight:
Following the rhythm of the music,
just following how our bodies move,
we’re shadows under the moonlight
Fall in.. fall in..
I like the feeling of being together, with you
I like the dances we do together, with you
I just wanna, wanna, wanna
I really wanna, wanna, wanna
Just dance…
4. The Tension Behind the Scenes
In the backdrop of happy dancing in the company of ARMY, there is a tone of underlying tension in Trivia 起: Just Dance:
The tension is relieved
If I had hidden how I feel now,
I would have regretted the sunset with you…
Uh In my mud-like life
Uh a flower called you
Uh even the enclosed, stifling practice room
Uh turns into a paradise when we are together
Ay Now, even my dream that didn’t have an answer
Ay can be shared to form a bond of empathy every day
Ay Because our rhythms match,
Ay because there was dance, that beat of destiny
Let’s get it on POP…
… I felt it baby
This moment, you and me, baby
This all fits together like a math formula baby
Even obscurities, baby
Even difficulties, baby
Because of you, I’m comforted from all of that, baby
I felt it baby
This moment, you and me, baby
This all fits together like a math formula baby
Even rough breathing, baby
Even shedding sweat, baby
Because of you, it all has meaning, baby
The words “tension” , “hidden” , “regretted” , “mud-like” , “enclosed” , “stifling” , “obscurities” , “difficulties” , “rough” , “shredding” and “sweat” have negative connotations attached to them and convey to us that behind all of the happy dancing and conversations with ARMY, Hobi’s life wasn’t all sunshine rainbows and butterflies.
Hobi shares with us that he, at the beginning, harboured a lot of tension before performances and felt that his pathway in life was unclear and muddy. He knew he had a dream (of being a star) but he wasn’t entirely sure how to get there (“even my dream that didn’t have an answer” ).
The use of the word “mud” also evokes in us the feeling of sluggishness. It portrays an image of Hobi waddling through thick sludgy mud with slow heavy effort. We can also imagine Hobi blindly taking his next steps through the opaque mud, not knowing if he has completely gone off the path or if he is just about to step into a deep hole.
Hobi adds to this imagery an “enclosed, stifling practice room” with “rough breathing” and “shredding sweat” , conveying to us his feelings of suffocation, hard labour and lack of freedom.
Behind the scenes, Hobi’s life as an Idol was not glamourous.
There was underlying tension due to the possibility that all of his hard work will be for nothing, or that he may “sink and drown” as he blindly takes heavy steps through the mudflats towards a goal with no answer.
4a. A Flower called ARMY
In his muddy life, Hobi finds company in a beautiful flower, “a flower called you” (aka ARMY).
The juxtaposition of a delicate living object against the suffocating muddy environment emphasises the preciousness of this singular flower… the preciousness of ARMY in Hobi’s life.
Because of this beautiful flower:
- Hobi’s suffocating practice room turns into a paradise;
- Hobi was able to find comfort and meaning in his life; and
- Hobi felt safe to share his crazy big dreams without fear of being ridiculed or bullied (“Now, even my dreams that didn’t have an answer…can be shared to form a bond of empathy every day” ).
The ability to comfortably share his dreams allowed Hobi to form a deep bond with ARMY, and enabled both ARMY and Hobi to understand each other at a deep intimate level.
Hobi felt that all of this was possible because ARMY fits like a maths formula and because they share matching rhythms while dancing to “that beat of destiny.”
If you have been reading my blog, you will understand the rich meaning of destiny and maths formulas as discussed in DNA (Part 1 and Part 2), and its relationship to true love and soulmates.
Hobi is expressing that the bond formed between him and ARMY, and BTS and ARMY, is one very similar to the bond of a soulmate.
A special “soulmate” bond… a special type of love that formed between strangers.
5. Maths: Dance = Love = ARMY
I refer to the following lyrics:
Washing me over with those waves
Our heartbeats are in sync
You’re getting to know my heart too
I wanna keep this going
I like you like I like to dance
So you’re my love, yeah my love
That’s what I like
I like the feeling of being with you
I like the feeling of dancing with you
I just wanna, wanna, wanna
I really wanna, wanna, wanna
Just dance
Hobi re-emphasises his love for ARMY in the above lyrics.
Hobi says “I like you like I like to dance.”
As we all know, dance is Hobi’s true love and Hobi’s whole world. Poetically, Hobi is saying that ARMY is Hobi’s true love, and his whole world too.
ARMY is his love, yeah his love 💜🥰🎶🎵
And because Dance = Love and Love = ARMY. This means that Dance = ARMY.
Thus poetically, the following lyrics:
I just wanna, wanna, wanna
I really wanna, wanna, wanna
Just [keep] danc[ing]
Can be read with the following meaning:
I just wanna, wanna, wanna
I really wanna, wanna, wanna
Just [keep] loving ARMY
6. The Third Flower
We have previously discussed the meaning of the first flower, the Rose, and the second flower, the Peony in my blog.
Hobi’s natural order in my Love Yourself theory and in the Love Yourself series (e.g. his rap order in Her and Tear is 3) is the number 3.
Therefore, this natural order suggests that the third flower in the Love Yourself Albums is symbolic to Hobi’s story.
Now, there is a general consensus out there that the third flower is either a tulip, or a calla lily. After many debates with myself and looking into the meaning of the flowers, my interpretation is that the third flower is a calla lily.
I believe it is a calla lily because:
- The meaning of the calla lily fits Hobi’s perspective better (to be explained below).
- The drawing has a large pistil in the middle which is consistent to that of a calla lily (see red circles below). The inside of tulips look different (see picture below).
- The drawing also has a little “tail” on one side of the flower cup. This is consistent to that of a calla lily (see purple circles below). In contrast, tulips have individual petals instead of a flower cup and do not have a “tail”.
In addition, the calla lily appears in Jin’s Epiphany video. Thus, the calla lily seems to hold a great deal of meaning to BTS.
7. The meaning of the Calla Lily
We previously discovered that the Greek Mythology meaning of the Rose and Peony was incredibly fitting to both Namjoon and Yoongi’s story respectively.
Thus, for consistency, I researched the meaning of the Calla Lily in Greek Mythology.
The calla lily was named after the Greek word for beautiful — calla. It is associated with the Greek goddess Hera. According to the legend Zeus brought Hercules, his son from another woman, to Hera, his wife, while she was asleep to drink her milk. When she woke up she pushed him away and drops of milk flew across the sky to create the milky way. The ones that fell on the ground grew into beautiful lilies.
When Venus, goddess of love, beauty, and desire, saw the lilies she was jealous of their beauty. She cursed their beauty by placing a large yellow pistil in the middle of the flowers.
Based on this source, the most common meanings of the Calla Lily are:
- Magnificent and overwhelming beauty;
- Faithfulness and purity;
- Overcoming challenges – because cut flowers can start regrowing in a vase and survive frosts;
- The liveliness and innocence of youth; and
- Resurrection and rebirth – because the plant returns each year after the winter.
Personally, I find that the latter meaning of resurrection and rebirth is not as applicable here (but it is in Epiphany!). Hence, I have put the last meaning aside and have only discussed the first four meanings below.
Given how:
- Hobi described ARMY to be a flower “a flower called you” ;
- ARMYs all over the world are magnificent and beautiful thank you very much;
- ARMY is well known for their loyalty and faithfulness to BTS;
- ARMY has a reputation for being tough cookies and overcoming all sorts of challenges.
(To all you veteran ARMYs out there who have been voting, streaming, buying, fighting and protecting the boys for years… thank you. You are amazing and resilient as hell. Baby ARMYs, please check out this tweet/thread to understand how amazing veteran ARMYs are 💜 They, along with BTS, have endured a lot of pain, suffering and unnecessary hate); - ARMY stands for Adorable Representative M.C for Youth. A common meaning of the calla flower is the liveliness and innocence of Youth.
In short, the Calla Lily is perfectly symbolic of ARMY.
It symbolises ARMY’s magnificence, beauty, faithfulness, resilience and never-ending liveliness and youthfulness.
Author’s Thoughts
And that is all for today folks! Do you have a new appreciation for calla lilies? Because I certainly do! 🥰
As we have already covered Hobi’s perspective in DNA, I will be discussing Hobi’s perspective in Her next! Hence, if you haven’t read Hobi’s perspective in DNA, please kindly do so before my next post!
Please remember to share and retweet if you enjoyed the post! Borahae!
💜 G
Lyric sources: Doolset Lyrics and Genius Lyrics
Disclaimer:
As per my first author’s note, please, no hate!
I do not have a shipping or individual bias, I love all seven members equally and I do not write my blogs because of a particular personal desire for one of them. I reached my conclusion on Joon and Jin being together based on the lyrics, logic and patterns as I have discussed in all my posts (i.e. I did not ship Namjin first, and then started trying to find things to prove my point). I genuinely enjoy all ships because I enjoy watching the different chemistries between the boys.
It does not matter one bit to me if they are straight, gay, intersex, a skrull, a mutant or if they could lay eggs. I love them wholeheartedly (as a sister who would love her younger brothers) for their individual selves.
This theory of Trivia 起: Just Dance is based on my interpretations of its lyrics. Please enjoy.