Watch: Ailee Shares Her Grief For Her Parents' Passing + Delivers Spectacular Performance On "Immortal Songs"

Oct 02, 2021

On October 2, KBS’s “Immortal Songs” continued with the second part of their Nam Guk In and Jung Eun Yi special.

Spoilers

Nam Guk In and Jung Eun Yi were a married couple who also worked as a producer-lyricist duo before Jung Eun Yi passed away last November. They have written hit songs for veteran singers like Nam Jin, Seol Woon Do, and Lee Sun Hee.

The first performer for Part 2 was trot singer Hong Ja, who sang Seol Woon Do’s “Lost 30 Years.” This was a hit song that became the theme song for KBS’s special broadcast “Finding Dispersed Families” in 1983, where families who were separated during the Korean War searched for their long-lost relatives.

Almost everyone in the waiting room cried after Hong Ja’s performance, but Ailee spoke from the heart about how she related to the song. She said, “I went to Korea to become a singer and was separated from my family in the United States for over 10 years. I was so busy working in Korea that I wasn’t able to see them often. We were almost living like a divided family, but then both my parents passed away last year and at the start of this year. This song was more meaningful to me because of that.”

Ailee was the second-last to perform during this episode, after Hong Ja had won against every other singer who had been matched up against her. This was Ailee’s first return to “Immortal Songs” in three years, despite having been named a “super rookie” on the show in 2012. She sang a rearranged, performance-heavy version of Jeon Young Rok’s “Write Love with a Pencil.” She was able to defeat Hong Ja and went on to defeat the next singer, MONNI, to take home the final win on the episode.