Wow. That’s all I have to say.
…It’s not. I have A LOT to say, but my thoughts could be summed up in that one word if needed.
It’s really fascinating having just finished deep diving the Mixtape songs. There seem to be a lot of references to their pre-debut/early days that I’m really excited to dive into. And! There are a lot of allusions and connections with Do It as well.
So let’s look at the lyrics.
Couple disclaimers: I don’t speak Korean. I am using my limited SKZ knowledge and the English translations from Genius. These are my own thoughts based on those translations and not meant to be a definitive interpretation.
Here is the audio to listen to as you read the lyrics.
Seeing as this only came out a couple days ago, and we haven’t gotten an album intro video or anything like that, we don’t have a lot of background or commentary from the guys yet. Here’s what we do have:
- Album intro on Melon: “The new song, imbued with the determination of the eight members to overcome trials and limitations and race toward victory, is expected to be remembered as a powerful anthem. The lyrics express the confidence of Stray Kids, who move forward with unceasing momentum, creating another victory and a new day wherever they go…Furthermore, with lyrics such as “We won’t get drunk on this glory, we want more, we will achieve a higher dream,” they declare that Stray Kids will take an even greater leap.”
- Brief comments from Chan on the Stationhead Listening party: “This song delivers a bold message of our ambition and victory.”
I am very interested to hear more comments from them when This & That comes out in August. They always have such interesting commentary on when the song was written and what feeling they were going for. But in the meantime, it’s a pretty straightforward concept: ambition, determination, diligence, and forward momentum.
And, of course, they present it in a very Stray Kids way. They don’t just talk about success. They talk about what they went through to get there. This is a theme I’ve found in the majority of the Stray Kids songs I’ve done posts on so far (and I’ve only done 16 of their songs). It’s well known that their career in the industry hasn’t been easy. And they have not been shy about talking about those struggles in their lyrics, acceptance speeches, content, and interviews.
I mentioned at the beginning that it was really interesting diving into this song after having just done the same with all of the Mixtape Songs. They were all written in the midst of the survival show. They were still trainees, working really hard to finally debut. And at least 4 of the 7 songs are about how hard it was to be a trainee and their dream to be idols.
There are a lot of parallels in “Run It”:
Run It (Verse 1): Yeah, we shining with the lights out / Even in the dark, we find a way to make a way
Hellevator (Bridge): I’m escaping my dark past / Lighting up my dark road ahead / I run as I could forget those tedious moments
GLOW (Chorus): It’s like us, shining brighter in the darkness
Run It (Pre-Chorus): Through every trial, I keep going on / Oh, this time I ain’t looking back, I won’t collapse
GLOW (Intro/Bridge): Even though we can’s see the end / We must go to the end
GLOW (Verse 2): Everyone’s still busy running but one fell down / Now instead of a small scar, emptiness remains
Run It (Bridge): I’m putting my hands up, reaching for the sky above
Hellevator (Bridge): I’m on the hellevator, I’m gonna go up
Run It (Outro): From a small room where it all began sound leaking through my phone / Dreams on repeat, building up my throne
4419 (Verse 1): I keep thinking about our memories / In this small vocal room where we fought and talked a lot
Run It (Outro): Long nights waited never faded / All that pain, yeah, I paid it / Blood tears I shed, I saved it
Hellevator (Verse 1): I comfort myself shedding bloody sweats instead of bloody tears
GLOW (Intro): We can rest but it’s still too early / We need to rest but it’s still so far away
Run It (Bridge): The melody we used to hum, symphony
There are probably more I could add, too. And I can’t even list all of the times they say “run” – running to escape a maze, running to escape the darkness, running towards their dreams.
It all comes back to trials, struggle, and overcoming all of that to succeed. And it’s not all doom and gloom. It’s hopeful. Even in the stress and exhaustion, they saw the glimmer of light that was the future – debut. The struggle was worth it for them as long as they were working toward their dreams.
This duality is another theme in their music. They are really good a portraying seemingly contradictory ideas together. What’s the cliché? Two things can be true at once. Kings of two things can be true at once. Two of the remaining Mixtape have that theme. The majority of my thoughts in my posts on “Photobook,” “Still Here,” and even “Endless Sun” were about that. And “Run It” is just the next in a long line.
There’s the visual imagery in the music video, of course, which we’ll talk about a little later. But the theme is exactly what the Melon intro says: “the determination of the eight members to overcome trials and limitations and race toward victory.” They have seen hardship, they have overcome it, and they are using it to move forward.
That’s where Do It comes in. “Run It” has the same easy confidence as “Do It” and “Divine,” some of the reflection of “Photobook,” and just a little bit of the nonstop work as “Holiday.”
Run It (Chorus): It’s another day, coming on the way / Build another city, run it day and night
Run It (Verse 2): Again and again, just like I’ve always done, we’re gonna make it
Do It, Verse 2: I do as I do, just as I did yesterday, as I do today and as I’ll do tomorrow
Run It (Chorus): Build another city, run it day and night
Divine (Verse 1): Cleansing the world, but I ain’t done
In my post about “Photobook,” I said that KARMA felt like a celebration and Do It feels like a pause to really appreciate it. If Do It was a reflection, “Run It” feels like them looking toward the future. I mean, just look at Hyunjin’s part in verse 2:
Gotta be me, yeah, nеver hitting the brakes, I keep up the speed
A thousand arrows aimed my way, but they all miss (Miss), unstoppable beast
I ain’t caught up in the glory, I still want more, keep achieving, chasing a bigger dream
One by one, I level up and lean, only thing I do is win, win, you’re gonna see
And the whole outro! Don’t even get me started. I could go line by line. It’s so brilliant. And Han and Changbin blessing us with their skill is just…wow. I don’t know how to put into words the feeling I get listening to them trade rap back and forth while everyone else is singing in the background.
But the lyrics are just…well, just exactly what I spent the last thousand words trying to articulate. It’s their story. They started small, recording on their phones in tiny rooms, humming tunes and dreaming of being on top. They’ve spent countless hours sweating, bleeding, stressing. And they made it. The footsteps are syncing up. And they’re “div[ing] into a wider world.” Whatever that means.
Even their choreography pays homage to their previous songs. I can’t wait to see a full performance, but even just the snippets we’ve been blessed with in the music video and reels on Instagram, people have picked out moves from:
All In
Side Effects
Hall of Fame
Miroh
La La La
Blind Spot
Hall of Fame
Chk Chk Boom
Hellevator
Double Knot
Divine
Giant
Divine
Hollow
Are some of those more coincidental because there are only so many ways to move your body? Sure. But I don’t think it was an accident, not with the content of the song.
And the music! The music. The brass and the drums and the clapping. The drums specifically sound like running footsteps or a heartbeat, both used as beautiful metaphors in the outro. And the tempo changes. They are masters of the tempo change. I can just imagine this in a stadium. The audience singing the chorus and clapping along. The music cutting out and every still singing “run it everywhere all around the world” a capella. Oh, it’s giving me chills just thinking about it.
Now, the music video is, once again, something I’m not as well versed in. I definitely encourage you to check out yoon.korean.daily’s post on Threads about the Korean imagery. He breaks down so much of the little nuances that go right over my head.
I did want to talk about one thing that I’ve seen a few posts on now and that the director of the music video mentioned in an Instagram post – the Dangun Myth. This is the story of Korea’s founding. A very brief summary: A bear and a tiger both wanted to become human, so they went to the song of a god to ask. The deity tells them that if they go into a cave and survive for 100 days eating only mugwort and garlic, he will turn them into humans. They enter the cave. The tiger eventually gives up, but the bear succeeds, becomes human, and has a son with the deity – the king of Gojoseon, the first kingdom of Korea. This story is portrayed in the very beginning of the music video with Chan and Seungmin facing off as the bear and tiger.
Yet another nod to perseverance and diligence in the face of adversity.
Of course, the whole music video is a visual masterpiece of opposites. Yin and yang. Dark and light. Black and white. Past and present. The Melon intro says: “Visually representing collision and cycles through black and white, it portrays Stray Kids as a single symbol connecting the past and the present by embracing different forces. In particular, they completed a dramatic video imbued with historical heritage by portraying a character who acts as a vanguard in a fierce race spanning a long period of time up to the present day.”
Another hallmark of Stray Kids music – the marriage of traditional Korean and modern elements. It fits so well with the overall theme, too, of looking at their past and bringing what they’ve learned into the present and future.
I also really loved the scenes for both pre-choruses. Seungmin is first, crouched in the dirt against Chan. And I.N does the second, crouched on a canvas covered in ink. Now, as a reminder, this is what the pre-chorus lyrics are:
All my life, I’ve been fighting this and fighting that
Through every trial, I keep going on
Oh, this time I ain’t looking back, I won’t collapse
Head high right now we go, oh, oh, oh
They are both struggling. Seungmin is more physical. I.N seems to be more creative. And I love that visual representation of different kinds of fighting – physical, mental, emotional, creative, relationships, etc.
I also think it’s very appropriate for Seungmin and I.N to sing these lines, and not only because they are our singers and killed it. Seungmin is diligent. Constant. A pillar in skill and personality. I.N was very young when they were training. And while the survival show and early days were hard for everyone, I think they were hard in a very different way for I.N. He was criticized quite heavily in the survival show and had a lot of pressure to succeed despite his age. Any of the guys could have sung these lines and resonated just as much, but I think there’s a poetry in the maknaes doing it.
Overall, it really feels like they’ve found their stride. They’ve reached a level of success that their trainee and early debut selves dreamed of. They’ve broken records, won major awards, and reached so many people all over the world. They are comfortable in their process, more confident that the way they do things works. And they don’t want to stop. They want to keep going. They want to keep making music for us. They want to keep performing. They want to keep improving.
That’s something I’ve admired about them for a long time and something I think makes them so easy to love. They are confident but humble. They know they’re good. But they know the work and sacrifice that went into their success. They are proud of what they’ve accomplished, but they always want to improve. True ambition takes humility, and it’s something I find incredibly admirable.
Those trainees in 2017, practicing and writing at all hours and fighting to prove themselves, have now become seasoned idols, practicing and writing at all hours and fighting to keep doing what they love. And aren’t we lucky that we (our heartbeats, because how cheesy and sweet is that?) are their reason? That we get to be a part of their journey and run with them?
I feel like I get so sentimental at the end of these. But it’s true! This song made me very emotional, and if I’m this invested in Track 1, I can’t wait to see what the rest of the album has in store for us.
Sources:
Stationhead Listening Party snippet
Threads Post: Breakdown of Previous Choreo
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