Anamaria Sayre | December 12, 2024Saudade is a Portuguese word that can be roughly defined as a feeling of melancholy, nostalgia or yearning for something that is beloved but not present. There's no perfect translation, but one of the closest English expressions of the word I've ever seen is Billie Eilish's Tiny Desk performance.
You'd think the Los Angeles-born singer invented the term. Every breath is so full of indulgent melancholy, hopeful regret, at 22 years old she's become a captivating fixture of what it means, or rather what it feels, to love and lose simultaneously.
Trading belting vocals and rocking guitar for gentle piano and almost-breaking falsetto, she reimagines tracks like "THE GREATEST" in their most raw and honest form. In Eilish's world, love's purest forms are inherently terrifying. Therein lies her starpower – she effortlessly, relentlessly brings to the fore the trickier emotions many of us tuck away for...
Singer-songwriter Billie Eilish is just beginning to know herself. With her latest album, "Hit Me Hard and Soft," and her current tour (her first without brother Finneas and her parents), the music superstar (soon to turn 23) is discovering parts of herself she didn't know were there. She describes to correspondent Anthony Mason finding a new voice as a songwriter, and about stretching her singing after starting vocal lessons. [Watch more from Mason's interview with Eilish on "CBS Mornings" December 10.]
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