Maybe Next Year

Faye Webster “She Won’t Go Away”

“She Won’t Go Away” is a country rock song, but Faye Webster’s arrangement keeps the most obvious country signifiers at a minimum. I don’t think this is a case of trying to pretend the song isn’t what it is to bait and switch the audience, but rather that Webster is prioritizing the backbeat by leaving a lot of negative space around the drum track. It’s one of those ‘70s melancholy groove records, like Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” or Todd Rundgren’s “I Saw the Light,” but with the clean, digital tone of keyboard-based rap. The sound of the instruments is remarkably crisp, but Webster’s voice is a lot more raw – not fragile, per se, but certainly more weathered than everything else in the mix.

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