Noah Cyrus - Young and Sad: Delicate, Soulful and Arresting

Delicately dealing with depression and loneliness is Noah Cyrus’ ‘Young and Sad’, the exquisite new single taken from her heartbreaking EP, The End of Everything. Rather paradoxically, many of this EP’s songs convey tragic sadness through intensely beautiful and soulful music. ‘Young and Sad’ achieves this through a distinctive country essence complete with blue, moody tones akin to Lana Del Rey. 

Musically, Cyrus delivers a stunning performance. Delving into an impressively low register, her vocals showcase an ease of flexibility between beautiful woody, nasal tones and a delicately clear upper register enriched by gentle vibrato. Vocal harmonies blanket much of the song, with frequent three-part harmonies nodding to her familial roots in the country genre. The simplistic accompaniment predominantly opts for an innocent finger-picking guitar pattern, however, Cyrus also blends in the modernity of popular music through using a powerful, booming kick drum as a tasteful thickening of texture. 

Lyrically traversing the toxicity of comparing oneself to another, ‘Young and Sad’ is an emotive reflection of Cyrus’ own life experiences, those of feeling overshadowed by her older sister, superstar Miley Cyrus, something Noah described as ‘absolutely unbearable’. Her pain manifests in her lyrics as she compares herself with her sister, ‘My sister’s like sunshine/Always bringing good light/Wherever she will go’, and attributing significantly more negative qualities to herself, ‘I was born to rain clouds...blessed in her shadows’. The magnitude of Cyrus’ loneliness is most effectively summarised within the line, ‘I’m only trying to disappear’. Fantastically mirroring this lyrical loneliness is the music’s heavy use of reverb to give the illusion of a big and empty, echoing space which cleverly heightens the sense of loneliness that aches from the song and simultaneously creates an arresting and atmospheric quality.

Listen to my cover of Noah's Young and Sad here: