Birdy – “Loneliness”

Birdy finally grew up. We know her story: the precocious daughter of a concert pianist and a writer, she won the prestigious music competition Open Mic UK in 2008 at the tender age of 12, after which she released a cover of Bon Iver’s Skinny Love that exploded across Europe. Since then she has released three albums to universal acclaim. Her latest, entitled Young Heart, shows signs of something new: maturity. Her voice is deeper and more resonant. The arrangements are powerful but sparser. Speaking on a recent Sodajerker podcast, Birdy explained that she had just emerged from a broken relationship and that the album was essentially about lost love. For most of us, that first bitter heartache comes early, in our teens. But for Birdy, who has been working non-stop since the age of 12, the rituals of teenage life were postponed. But when they finally crashed into her life, they had not lost any of their capacity to scar.