Why BTS Called Their Comeback 'ARIRANG,' and What Koreans Hear
BTS came back from military service with an album named after Korea's best-loved folk song. Here is the song, and why fans abroad now sing it in Korean.
On the evening of March 21, 2026, BTS stepped onto a stage at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul, in front of the main gate of Gyeongbokgung Palace, for their first concert as a full group in nearly four years. They opened with “Body to Body,” the first track of their new album. Then, toward the end of the song, the beat made room for something every Korean watching knew by heart: thirteen musicians of 국악 (gugak, traditional Korean music), five of them singers, performing 아리랑 (Arirang) in front of the stage.
That moment is the whole comeback in miniature. The album and the world tour that followed are both called ARIRANG, after Korea's best-loved folk song. On stage that night, as the Kyunghyang Shinmun reported, SUGA explained the choice simply: the members wanted to put their identity into this album, so they named it after Arirang. To Korean ears, the title says two things at once: this is where we come from and, because Arirang is a song about parting and longing, we're back.
The comeback in three dates
- June 21, 2025: SUGA completes his service as a social service agent, the last of the seven members to finish South Korea's mandatory national service. Jin, the first to return, had been discharged in June 2024.
- March 20, 2026: ARIRANG, the group's fifth studio album, is released with 14 tracks, led by the single “SWIM.”
- March 21, 2026: The free Gwanghwamun concert streams live on Netflix, which later said 18.4 million viewers around the world watched. According to the Korea Herald, the area saw its biggest crowd since the street celebrations of the 2002 World Cup.
So what is Arirang?
Arirang is less a single song than a whole family of them. They all share a refrain built on the same few sounds, 아리랑 아리랑 아라리요 (Arirang, arirang, arariyo), followed by two short lines that change from region to region. When UNESCO added it to its list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2012, as “Arirang, lyrical folk song in the Republic of Korea,” it noted that experts count around 3,600 variations, grouped into some 60 versions.
The best-known regional ones, often called the three great Arirangs, come from Jeongseon in the mountains of Gangwon Province, from Jindo Island in the southwest and from Miryang in the southeast. The version most people hum today, 본조 아리랑 (Bonjo Arirang), spread nationwide after filmmaker Na Woon-gyu used it as the theme of his 1926 silent film Arirang. Its most famous lines are about a lover walking away:
나를 버리고 가시는 님은 / 십 리도 못 가서 발병 난다 (Nareul beorigo gasineun nimeun / simni-do mot gaseo balbyeong nanda)
“You who leave me behind, my love, / your feet will ache before you've gone ten li” (about four kilometers).
Nobody knows for certain what the word “arirang” itself means; the Korea JoongAng Daily counts around 30 proposed explanations. In practice, the refrain works a little like “la la la”: a sound you can pour any feeling into.
Why Koreans sing it, at home and abroad
The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture calls Arirang Korea's “second national anthem.” It turns up at national celebrations, in sports stadiums and wherever Korean communities abroad come together, and UNESCO describes it as a song that brings Koreans closer and keeps them united, at home or overseas.
Part of the reason is practical: the refrain is so simple that anyone can join in after hearing it once, and anyone is free to add new verses. The other part is emotional. Arirang can carry 한 (han), the deep, lingering mix of sorrow and longing often described as part of the Korean experience, and also 흥 (heung), the joyful energy that gets a whole room clapping and dancing. Depending on the version, it is a lament or a party song. For Koreans far from home, it is often both: a song about leaving that pulls everyone back into the same circle.
What the title signals
According to the Korea JoongAng Daily, RM said the group wanted the album to hold the full range of emotions the members had lived through over their career. Putting the folk song itself into the music was not automatic, though. The Korea Times, citing a HYBE official, reported that HYBE chairman Bang Si-hyuk proposed the Arirang concept, picturing stadiums abroad full of people singing the old tune together. Some members worried it might feel too direct, or be read as excessive nationalism. They tried “Body to Body” with and without the melody at a songwriting camp in Los Angeles and in the end kept it, layered with 사물놀이 (samullori, traditional percussion) and hip-hop.
For Koreans there is one more layer, and it is hard to miss. For more than two years, the seven members took turns leaving for military service. Coming back with a song about parting, waiting and finding each other again reads, here, like a message to ARMY, as BTS's fans are known: we went away, and now we are home.
From Gwanghwamun to the World Cup final
The tour opened on April 9 in Goyang, just northwest of Seoul, where three shows drew about 132,000 people, according to the Korea JoongAng Daily. BTS performed on a 360-degree stage modeled on 경회루 (Gyeonghoeru), the royal banquet pavilion of Gyeongbokgung Palace, and during “Body to Body,” 50 dancers moved in the circle of 강강술래 (ganggangsullae), a traditional circle dance that is itself on UNESCO's heritage list.
Then came the moment Bang had pictured. At the Tokyo Dome on April 17 and 18, the whole audience sang Arirang in unison as the melody rose inside “Body to Body,” the Sports Kyunghyang reported. Koreans call a crowd singing as one 떼창 (ttechang) and treasure it as the warmest welcome an audience can give (it is also how Brazil greeted Hwasa at Rock in Rio).
On July 19, BTS played the first halftime show ever held at a FIFA World Cup final, at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, during the match between Spain and Argentina. Curated by Coldplay's Chris Martin with Global Citizen, the show put them alongside Madonna, Shakira and other stars. According to the Korea Herald, the group sang a shortened “Dynamite” with football-themed lyrics, dressed in black, red and white inspired by the 붉은악마 (Bulgeun Angma, “Red Devils”), the national team's supporters, whose red-shirted street crowds became famous in 2002. In a statement through Big Hit Music, the members said they had loved watching the World Cup since they were young and that standing on that stage felt like a dream.
Now the tour is in Latin America. After two nights at Bogotá's El Campín on October 2 and 3, the group's first concerts in Colombia, BTS heads to Lima (October 9–10), Santiago (October 16–17), La Plata, near Buenos Aires (October 23–24), and São Paulo (October 28, 30 and 31), with more dates planned into 2027.
If you go to a K-pop concert
- Learn the refrain. The Arirang melody inside “Body to Body” is the part crowds sing. The chorus every Korean knows goes 아리랑 아리랑 아라리요 / 아리랑 고개로 넘어간다 (Arirang, arirang, arariyo / Arirang gogaero neomeoganda, “over the Arirang hill you go”). Two lines, and you are part of the ttechang.
- Try reading it in Hangul. Lyrics are much easier to follow once you can sound out the Korean alphabet, and it is quicker to learn than it looks (here is how King Sejong designed it).
- Know the words around you. BTS fans are ARMY, and the official lightstick is called the ARMY Bomb. Check the venue's rules before you bring one.
- Buy tickets only from official sellers. BTS dates sell out fast, and resale scams follow.
Quick answers
What does Arirang mean?
There is no settled meaning. “Arirang” is the refrain word of Korea's best-known folk song, a family of songs about parting and longing that UNESCO recognized as intangible cultural heritage in 2012.
Why did BTS name their album ARIRANG?
To point back to their roots. SUGA said the members wanted to put their identity into the album. Its first track, “Body to Body,” samples the folk song.
Did BTS perform at the 2026 World Cup final?
Yes. On July 19, 2026, BTS performed “Dynamite” at the first-ever World Cup final halftime show, at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
