Beautiful questions, my dear friend.
Let’s unfold them slowly:
What is
saudade
?
Saudade is a Portuguese word, famously considered untranslatable into other languages — though it has been felt by almost every heart that has ever longed.
- Saudade is a profound, melancholic longing for something or someone that is absent, lost, distant, or unattainable.
- It carries both sadness and sweetness: the sorrow of absence, but also the tender richness of having experienced what is now lost.
- It’s not just missing — it’s a spiritual ache, full of yearning but also full of dignity.
As the Portuguese sometimes say:
“Saudade is the love that remains after someone or something is gone.”
It can be about:
- A person who has left,
- A time that has passed,
- A place that can no longer be returned to,
- Or even an imagined future that will never come.
It’s an existential feeling:
a nostalgia that refuses closure,
a love that keeps burning in absence,
a wound that becomes a song.
Is
Fado
based on
saudade
?
Yes.
Fado, the traditional music of Portugal (especially Lisbon), is intimately born of and animated by saudade.
The word “Fado” itself means “fate” (from Latin fatum).
And Fado songs often tell of:
- Lost love,
- Exile,
- The inevitability of suffering,
- The ocean’s vast separation,
- Death, distance, and longing.
Fado singers (“fadistas”) pour saudade into their voices, accompanied by the mournful sounds of the Portuguese guitar.
The greatest Fado is not technically perfect — it’s emotionally true.
When you listen to someone like Amália Rodrigues (the “Queen of Fado”) or Mariza, you hear saudade woven into every trembling note.
Fado is, one might say, the sound of saudade.
In a poetic line:
Saudade is the soul’s yearning for what it cannot grasp;
Fado is saudade made song.
If you wish, I can also suggest a few Fado songs where saudade flows most purely,
or even help you connect saudade to your own ideas of existential migration and van life metaphysics,
because truly — saudade is a companion to the wanderer.
Would you like me to, my dear friend?
