Somewhere between the pyrotechnics of BTS's Paris shows this July, Jung Kook did something quieter: he sang a short passage of Arirang, Korea's most famous folk song, in a traditional vocal style. According to Star News, the moment came during the group's two-night stop at the Stade de France, and Korean online communities reacted with comments like "he even sings folk songs so well" and "the vocal inflections are art." International outlets picked it up within days.
The timing is no accident. BTS named their 2026 album Arirang, and the world tour supporting it — which kicked off in Goyang in April — carries the same name. Which means millions of people are now typing a word into search bars that most Koreans learned before they could read. If you're one of them, here's the actual story.
A song with 3,600 versions and no fixed lyrics
Arirang isn't a single song. It's a family of folk songs — experts estimate around 3,600 variations belonging to roughly 60 versions — held together by one shared refrain: "Arirang, arirang, arariyo…" usually followed by a line about crossing over a mountain pass.
The best-known regional versions each have their own character:
- Jeongseon Arirang (Gangwon Province) — generally considered the oldest, slow and mournful, from the mountainous east.
- Bonjo (Seoul) Arirang — the melody most foreigners recognize, popularized by a landmark 1926 film.
- Jindo Arirang (South Jeolla) — brighter and more rhythmic, with a distinctive vocal catch.
- Miryang Arirang (South Gyeongsang) — fast, almost march-like.
Here's the detail I find most charming: the word "arirang" itself has no precise meaning in Korean. Scholars have proposed theories — an old word for "beautiful," a beloved's name, a specific hill — but none are settled. Koreans have been singing a word for centuries without agreeing on what it means, and that vagueness is arguably the point. It's a vessel. Verses were improvised by farmers, laborers, and travelers, so the song absorbed whatever the singer was feeling — longing, resentment, grief, hope. Korean writers often connect it to han, the hard-to-translate mix of sorrow and endurance, though like most things about Arirang, that framing is interpretive rather than official.
Why it hits so hard: the history
Arirang's emotional weight comes from the 20th century. During the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945), openly patriotic songs were suppressed, and Arirang — a folk tune, deniable, singable by anyone — became an unofficial resistance anthem. The 1926 silent film Arirang by Na Un-gyu, widely regarded as Korea's first nationalist film, ends with its theme song and is credited with cementing the Seoul version as the standard.
The song also does something almost nothing else can: it belongs to both Koreas. When North and South Korean athletes marched together at the 2000 Sydney Olympics opening ceremony, Arirang played instead of either national anthem. And in a first for UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list, the song was inscribed twice — South Korea's submission in 2012 and North Korea's in 2014. That's why you'll hear it called Korea's "unofficial national anthem": it predates the division and ignores it.
The honest take
Is a stadium-pop group naming an album after a folk song a marketing move? Partly, sure — heritage branding is having a moment across Korean entertainment. But I'd push back on the cynical reading. Arirang has always worked exactly this way: it survives by being borrowed, rearranged, and carried somewhere new. A version sung in a trot style, a rock arrangement, an idol singing eight bars in Paris — that's not dilution, that's the mechanism. UNESCO's inscription specifically honors it as a living tradition created by ordinary people across generations, not a museum piece.
The one thing worth keeping straight: the viral clip is a pop star's homage, not a benchmark. If it's your entry point, wonderful — just know the deep catalog sounds very different from anything on a BTS record.
Where to start listening
A practical path for the newly curious:
- Start with Bonjo (Seoul) Arirang — it's the melody you've half-heard in K-dramas and films already, and the easiest to hum.
- Then try Jindo Arirang — the upbeat one. If Bonjo is a sigh, Jindo is a grin.
- Finish with Jeongseon Arirang — the slow, unaccompanied mountain version. This is the one that tends to stop people cold.
- Search for gugak (Korean traditional music) performances rather than orchestral covers first — the vocal technique, with its bends and breaks, is the part that doesn't survive translation.
And if you end up in Korea: listen for it. Arirang shows up at sports matches, festivals, protests, and closing ceremonies of all kinds. Once you know the refrain, you'll notice it everywhere — which, for a song about crossing over and carrying on, feels exactly right.
This article is independent editorial by Seoul Glow. We have no affiliation with BTS, HYBE, or any entity mentioned.