[HN Gopher] Twinge of Saudade: Biographies of Abba
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Twinge of Saudade: Biographies of Abba
Author : avidly
Score : 16 points
Date : 2025-01-01 21:47 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lrb.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lrb.co.uk)
| smitty1e wrote:
| > Yet no constituency hated Abba more than their own countryfolk,
| whose cultural elites were repelled by their success - anathema
| to the Swedish model, which prized fairness and hated
| commercialism. Abba were the thin end of the wedge: empty-headed
| stooges for capitalism, imperialist collaborators writing ditties
| in dumbed-down English. Naturally, they got their big break by
| winning a competition. I wasn't born in 1974, the year Abba won
| Eurovision, but I can instantly call to mind the royal blue
| sequins, the tightly tucked velvet, an orchestral conductor in a
| Napoleon hat. Britain's judges awarded nul points on the night,
| but the country took Abba to heart at once. 'Waterloo', a shrink-
| wrapped glam-pop symphony made for colour TV, shot to number one.
|
| I'm watching Rock'N'Roll Jeopardy some 20 years ago with my
| sister.
|
| "When we come back from these commercial breaks, we have Final
| Jeopardy, with a question about international rock stars."
|
| I say: "Who is ABBA?"
|
| They come back some minutes later, and the announcer starts in
| with "In 1974, they won Eurovision..."
|
| I'm cheering; my sister rolls her eyes. I have been doing victory
| laps since.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| Interesting, is "saudade" popular enough now that people are
| using it without explanation? I searched for the term in the
| article and it doesn't seem to be defined. Extra unexpected
| because there does not seem to be any connection to a Portuguese-
| speaking country in the article. Has it reached "hygge" status?
|
| Brazilians (my wife included) describe saudade as a sort of deep
| longing to be back with a loved one in person. Not sure if it's
| used in all Portuguese-speaking places or just Brazil (or where
| the term originated for that matter). The translation honestly
| seems straightforward enough but often when you ask someone to
| translate, they get that "on the tip of the tongue" look on their
| face and say English doesn't really have the right words for it.
| tgv wrote:
| I think you're right that it's 'hygge'-like. Saudade is a
| common Portuguese word, and (as far as I know) not limited to
| loving people, but also open to wider nostalgia. It apparently
| stems from solitatem (solitude). That it would apply to ABBA's
| music seems to me the result of the artistic-intellectual
| tendency to re-interpret everything in the opposite direction.
| nolito wrote:
| "Hygge" - portuguese living in Denmark - is not related to
| "saudade". "Saudade" is as stated by others deep longing with
| a touch of depression and enjoying that. "Hygge" is something
| you do to have a good time - with yourself or others.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| When I mentioned "hygge" I did not mean to imply that they
| have the same meaning. I was referring to the fact that
| "hygge" has entered mainstream English culture, to the
| point where a lot of English speakers know what it means. I
| was wondering whether "saudade" now has a similar level of
| mainstream awareness.
| leonelc wrote:
| It's quite big in European Portuguese and has always been, it's
| not a Brazilian thing.
|
| Deep longing is close, but it's more nuanced, and it doesn't
| have to be longing for someone, it can be someplace or
| activity, it also involves a kind of active recollection where
| you try to relive stuff in your memory, and there's an element
| of hope that you will experience whatever it is you miss again.
| linfocito wrote:
| Brazilian here. I honestly don't get the idea of the pretense
| uniqueness of the term "saudade". Sure there is not an
| equivalent noun in English, but, to me, the verb "to miss"
| someone or some place conveys precisely the same feeling.
| hausen wrote:
| Another Brazilian here: I'm pretty sure "yearning" is that
| equivalent noun.
| lucasoshiro wrote:
| > the verb "to miss" someone or some place conveys precisely
| the same feeling
|
| It's not a perfect translation, as you can "miss a call",
| "miss a good opportunity", etc and it doesn't mean that you
| are feeling saudade of it. But this case would be almost ok,
| just like we don't have a single word, for example, for the
| verb "to handle", which is a word that has almost the same
| idea in several contexts but we need a different word for
| each one ("lidar", "manipular", "mexer", "operar", "cuidar",
| "tratar", ...)
|
| However, "to miss" is a verb and would be a translation for
| "sentir saudade". There's still no precise word for the noun
| "saudade", the feeling itself. Perhaps the closest one is
| "nostalgia", but it's still not exactly the same as nostalgia
| has this sense of something that happened in a distant past,
| and it is more related to the past itself than a person, a
| thing, etc. Even in Portuguese we have the word "nostalgia",
| but no one says "estou sentido nostalgia de voce", we say
| "estou sentindo saudade de voce". And we can feel saudade of
| something that happened yesterday, but not nostalgia.
| n4r9 wrote:
| The Portuguese entry into the Eurovision song contest in 2022
| was a beautiful song called "Saudade" by Maro. It rightly won
| the contest, and that's how my wife and I know the term (we
| still sing the chorus around the house sometimes). So it's
| unexpectedly popular in various European countries.
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=eQul-rkcGPQ
| croisillon wrote:
| how do you mean "it won the contest"?
| ngcazz wrote:
| It was the Portuguese entry in the Eurovision song contest,
| so it won the Portuguese contest.
| lucasoshiro wrote:
| > saudade as a sort of deep longing to be back with a loved one
| in person
|
| Brazilian here. Not only a person, it can be a place, a thing,
| a scent, a moment and so on. It's kind of a nostalgia, but it
| doesn't need to be exactly related to a distant time. For
| example, if you are traveling you can feel saudade of your home
| the moment in the first day. You may also feel saudade when you
| listen to a song that you used to listen in a good moment of
| your life.
|
| Nowadays everyone knows that it's a word that only exists in
| Portuguese (and in Galician, which is really close to
| Portuguese), but it was really shocking for me and other people
| that almost no other language has a similar word. Perhaps it is
| one of the most used words for describing a feeling here, it's
| like not having a word for "love", "anger" or "envy".
|
| Other unique thing in Portuguese is that we have two verbs for
| the verb "to be": "ser" and "estar". "Ser" is when something
| always "is" and "estar" is for something that "is" at this
| moment. For example: if you translate "she is beautiful" as
| "ser" you expect that she is beautiful everyday, in all
| situations, while if you translate as "estar" is because she is
| looking good at this moment (perhaps she is wearing a nice
| dress, or recently has her hair cut, etc). Only having this in
| Portuguese was also shocking to me, as that distinction is
| natural for us.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| > a Sweden then known to outsiders chiefly for Ingmar Bergman,
|
| Arrgh, the flashbacks. Sometimes I regret the extinction of
| European movie studios, but then there are these examples of
| ponderous depressing twaddle ...
| munchler wrote:
| As someone who grew up during this era, I find some of the
| nostalgic preferences of today's culture to be amusing and nearly
| random.
|
| In addition to ABBA, others that come to mind are Queen and Bob
| Ross. Not that there's anything wrong with these people, but if
| you were to go back in time and ask around, I think the overall
| response would be "why them in particular?"
|
| Queen, for example, had a few great songs, but Supertramp overall
| was better band with a similar musical aesthetic. I have no idea
| why Queen is now considered one of the greatest acts of all time,
| while Supertramp is more or less forgotten.
|
| ABBA had a bunch of lite rock/pop hits, but to see them talked
| about seriously in The London Review of Books in 2025 is
| downright hilarious to me.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Are you American perhaps?
|
| Supertramp were bigger in the US than the UK/Australia (for
| example) where Queen were a much more popular group.
|
| Similarly, ABBA were a phenomenon that rivalled Beatlemania in
| Australia (although I think a touch less so in the UK) where
| the US largely ignored them in period.
| munchler wrote:
| Yes, I'm American. That's an interesting point. Thanks.
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