My affinity for singer-songwriters has never traveled on a straight line. I’ve always gravitated toward artists who treat melancholy not as a mood but as a medium—something to sculpt, shade, and stretch. So it makes a ton of sense that I ended up wandering into Faye Webster’s world, where sadness feels soft-edged and every emotion is held up to the light just long enough to glimmer before it slips back into the shadows.
“Cheers” might be one of Webster’s best expressions of that balance. It’s a slow-motion exhale of a song, unfurling in a haze of pedal steel, murmur-soft vocals, and a rhythm section that seems content to drift at its own pace. She’s not forcing anything here; she just lets the track amble forward, melancholy but never heavy, honest but never overwrought. There’s a quiet confidence in that restraint. What draws me in most is the way “Cheers” plays with emotional ambiguity. It’s neither fully resignation nor full release. Instead, it exists in that liminal space—where frustration becomes reflection, where tension melts into acceptance, where the line between longing and letting go blurs.
The brilliance of the track isn’t in any big moment or cathartic climax. It’s in the understatement. It’s in Webster’s willingness to sit with a feeling rather than transform it. By the time the song reaches its final measures, nothing dramatic has changed—no triumphant pivot, no sweeping emotional resolve. But something internal does shift, subtly, quietly. And sometimes that’s enough. Like most of my own days. Cheers to that.
“I LIKE YOUR SONGS. EVEN THOUGH THEY’RE NOT ABOUT ME.”