Songfacts®:

• A "Black Swan" refers to an out-of-the-ordinary event that has extreme impact. The term was first applied as a metaphor for that which could not exist by Roman satirist Juvenal. In 82 AD he wrote of "a rare bird in the lands, and very like a black swan."
  
  For the next 1500 years, the phrase "all swans are white" was used as a standard example of a well-known truth. It was a huge surprise to Europeans when they received news that a black swan had been sighted in 1697 on the western coast of Australia. It seemed to them that a perceived impossibility had actually come to pass.
• Here, BTS delve deep into themselves as they explore what music means to them as artists. Their "black swan" is the fear that one day music and showmanship will no longer be able to move or touch them. RM raps (translated into English):
  
  I been always afraid of if this can no longer resonate
  No longer make my heart vibrate
  Then like this may be how I die my first death
  
  The thought that one day their art will make them feel nothing is a terrifying one.
• Musically, this is similar to the emo hip-hop employed by BTS on their 2018 hit "Fake Love."
• The song is accompanied by what some would call a music video, but BTS call an "art film." Directed by YongSeok Choi, the clip features an interpretive performance by Michal Rynia and Nastja Bremec Rynia of the Slovenian modern dance troupe MN Dance Company, to an orchestral version of the song. The visual does not feature an appearance by the band themselves.
• The video opens with a quote from famed dance and choreographer Martha Graham: "A dancer dies twice – once when they stop dancing, and this first death is more painful." This reflects the song's message about an artist's relationship with their work.
• The 2010 psychological horror thriller film Black Swan served as an inspiration for both the song and the video. The movie, about a ballerina's struggle with her own sanity, is a metaphor for achieving artistic perfection, and the price the artist pays for it.
• BTS performed the song live for the first time during the January 28, 2020 episode of James Corden's The Late Late Show. The seven members melancholy rendition found them dancing barefoot over an illuminated floor flanked by a dark and unsettling forest.