The simulated pings of a guitar start it out. Such moments on "Black Swan" foreshadow the dilemma that haunts the band all the more today: as the "youth's band" accrues corporate power and influence, it becomes increasingly difficult to take their inward sympathies seriously (let alone their political sympathies). As with the simulated guitar pings, it sounds hollow and dilute. This is the extension of the paradoxical heart of "Black Swan," whose very source symbolizes conflict itself: winning a struggle also entails losing it, as the fight moves from the present into the past. Champions no longer get to be underdogs.
"Black Swan" by BTS is a song that belabors performance anxiety-- it is ostentatiously mawkish. It is trying to channel the angst and anxiety of a show performer, yet this act of self-effacement of the deflection and the rebuke of them (BTS) as real performers (performers performing real performances). But they are not performers in that real sense, that is say they cut corners (not singing live-- most of the singing members sing along to a predominate backing track). So in "Black Swan," instead of directing the pathos for the general public, they are doing it for themselves. There's the equalizing sense that BTS's yearning for recognition is no different than a panhandler's yearning for the green light-- something to take them away from trying to face themselves.
