[The Fountain] Return of ‘Busan Seagull’
Published: 13 Apr. 2023, 20:12
Updated: 14 Apr. 2023, 15:02
The author is a sports news editor of the JoongAng Ilbo.
“Where are you now / forgetting old thoughts. / The name as pretty as a flower / was Soonhee, Soonhee-ya.” The lyrics of “Busan Seagull,” a popular song written and composed by Kim Joong-soon and sung by Moon Sung-jae, begins just like that.
After being released in 1982, the song is still loved by people in Busan after 41 years as a sort of local theme song. The song is always played in the city’s baseball team Lotte Giants’ home games in the Sajik Baseball Stadium.
In professional baseball, which grew with strong local connections, the song with the name of the city was enormously attractive. Now, the term “Busan Seagull” is even used as a nickname for the team, players and fans. Other songs that can be compared to it in baseball are “Southbound Train” for Kia and “Yeonan Pier” for SSG.
Around the early 1990s, Lotte, which had Cho Yong-pil’s hit song “Come Back to Busan Port” as its main cheering song for home games, added “Busan Seagull.” Lotte fans said the song was played once or twice during a game, but it became a song all home fans sing along.
“Busan Seagulls” is considered a “magical cheering song.” If the song is played at a critical moment with the massive waves of newspapers and plastic bags — the trademark of Lotte’s cheering — the players of the other team strangely feel tense.
It was in March 2018 that this song, which never failed to be sung, disappeared from the baseball field suddenly. As the professional baseball cheering songs were involved in the copyright infringement controversy, the use of the songs was suspended at once. Most other songs steadily returned to the baseball fans, but Busan Seagull was an exception.
Busan Seagull, which had flown far away, has returned to the Sajik Baseball Stadium after five years of a long flight. Lotte and the copyright holder have made a dramatic agreement on the use of the song for this year’s season.
On April 7, the song was designated as an official cheering song at Lotte’s opening game. During the cheering time in the seventh inning, Lotte had all the fans sing in unison to welcome the return of “Soonhee as pretty as a flower” to the stadium. Soonhee may have “forgotten me,” but not the passionate love of the baseball fans.
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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