RUN RUN BAREFOOT
TIOT found a 1997 youth anthem, tightened the sneakers, removed the shoes anyway, and sprinted it straight into 2025.
This is not retro cosplay. It is a remake with the original song’s composer involved, rebuilt around five voices who were not alive when BUCK released it.
Official music video
My actual first reaction
First thought: Why does this sound like a Korean summer festival crashed into an anime ending song?
Sound check: Big 1990s melody, brisk drums, rock-pop lift, and enough group shouting to make the pavement nervous.
The moment I leaned in: The chorus, when the remake stops explaining its age and simply runs.
The side-eye: Nobody in this video is barefoot enough for a title this committed.
Current status: Added. It is earnest, corny, energetic, and fully aware that those qualities can be strengths.
What the song means
“Youth of a Barefoot,” the 1997 BUCK song underneath this remake, uses bare feet as an image for young people moving forward without protection, money, certainty, or a sensible backup plan. TIOT’s version keeps that emotional spine. The lyrics are about anxiety, wandering, falling, and deciding to move anyway.
That makes the remake a particularly good fit for TIOT. Four members entered Boys Planet and left without the final group. They returned through a pre-debut project, added Yechan, and officially debuted later. Their career began with a very public “not this time,” followed by a group name insisting that their turn was still coming. Subtle? No. Effective? Yes.
The song first
The remake preserves the original’s broad, instantly singable melody instead of sanding it into anonymous contemporary pop. The arrangement updates the drum weight and vocal polish, but the chorus still feels built for people to yell together. That communal quality is the entire reason to remake it.
Junhyeon has the obvious vocal assignment: lift the chorus without turning it into a competition-show high-note clip. Minseoung brings attack, Keonhee stabilizes the middle, Woojin adds a lighter color, and Yechan keeps the youngest voice from sounding pasted onto a pre-existing quartet. Their tones are distinct enough that the track feels passed around, not mass-produced by one invisible demo singer.
The original composer, Lee Gyeong-seop, participated in the project and described the remake as carrying the old song’s spirit into the language and emotions of young people now. That is the right approach. A remake should not spend three minutes apologizing for the old production. It should identify what survived and give it new bodies.
My complaint is the fast version existing on the single. The normal version already moves. The accelerated cut feels like somebody saw the streaming clock and started jogging beside it with a clipboard.
Then the music video
The video leans into movement, open space, youthful friendship, and the visual promise that nobody has checked tomorrow’s schedule. It is brighter than the lyrics’ anxiety, but that contrast works. The song is not about lying down inside uncertainty. It is about running through it.
TIOT’s choreography avoids drowning a 1990s melody in hyper-detailed gestures. The members travel. They use wide stances, group momentum, and simple movements that read quickly. Minseoung’s acrobatic ability could have hijacked the video, yet it is used as seasoning rather than a mandatory circus inspection.
The barefoot concept remains mostly symbolic. Shoes continue performing their contractual duties. I accept this because asphalt, broken glass, and tetanus are not required for authenticity.
Old song, new details
- The 1997 origin explains the melody’s unusually large emotional shape.
- The remake project was the third entry in S-TONE’s “Legend Collection,” not a random cover uploaded between comebacks.
- Lee Gyeong-seop’s involvement connects the new arrangement directly to the original composition.
- The five-member distribution shows how far TIOT had moved from its four-member pre-debut identity.
- The bare feet represent vulnerability and courage, not a campaign against footwear.
RaeRae verdict
“RUN RUN BAREFOOT” is gloriously sincere. It does not smirk at the old melody or bury it under fashionable noise. TIOT sings it like youth can still be dramatic without becoming embarrassing.
I would have liked one rougher vocal moment and fewer spotless surfaces. Still, the chorus does what a youth anthem should do. It makes forward motion feel possible for three minutes, even if you return to your unfinished life immediately afterward.