Nick Ryder Songwriter

 

⭐ Song Review: Faded

A heartbreakingly intimate piano ballad that captures the slow, aching blur of grief

Faded is a deeply moving piano ballad that explores grief not as a single moment, but as a long, shadowed landscape — one filled with loneliness, exhaustion, blurred memories, and the quiet search for something resembling hope. The song is based on the real experience of a young woman who lost her partner suddenly, and that truth pours through every line.

The opening verse immediately captures the emotional weight:

“It’s hard to be defined, the years have not been kind / She should have had it all but it’s faded.”
These lines set the tone for a song that is not afraid to name the numbness and disorientation that come with sudden loss. The world around her feels drained of colour, and the life she should have been living has slipped out of view.

The imagery is vivid and cinematic —

A sentimental tune that fails to fill the room,
A photograph that shimmers in the moonlight.
These moments show a woman surrounded by memories that no longer comfort her, only echo back what has been taken.

The second verse cuts even deeper, painting a painfully honest portrait of coping mechanisms and late-night rituals:
“She pours another wine, it seems to pass the time / But time is often so overrated.”
Her friends care, but she can’t let them in. She wants to be alone, yet doesn’t trust her own solitude. She is lost between what she needs and what she can bear.

One of the most powerful moments in the song is the whispered tenderness of the Goodnight section:
“Goodnight, and don’t forget the feeling / Goodnight, and don’t forget to dream him…”
It’s gentle, devastating, and honest — tucked between exhaustion, memory, and the brutal crash of morning light when reality returns.
“And then the morning light comes crashing in — it’s still faded.”
This is grief at its truest: the world resets, but she cannot.

The bridge shifts the perspective outward, acknowledging the people who care for her:
“Everyone you’ve ever known has shed a tear for you, my friend…
They silently resign themselves to be there for you in the end.”
It’s a beautiful reflection of how grief is shared — even when the one suffering most feels unreachable.

The repeated plea —
“There’s a million reasons why… hold on, hold on”
— becomes the emotional spine of the song, a fragile but determined thread of hope. It's not triumphant; it's survival. And that makes it real.

The closing verse returns to the idea of fading, both painful and poetic:
“It’s hard to be defined, for the people we leave behind…
She used to have it all, but the writing was on the wall.”
Yet within this resignation lies recognition — that darkness changes shape over time, and even grief eventually softens at the edges.

Faded is a stunningly crafted piece of songwriting: intimate, vulnerable, and emotionally precise.
The mournful piano underpins every moment with quiet grace, while the lyrics take the listener through the unspoken truths of loss — the nights that never end, the mornings that hit too hard, and the slow rediscovery of permission to feel, to cry, and to keep going.

It’s a song that lingers long after it ends.
And like grief itself, it leaves you changed.

Faded can be streamed on all platforms now and is the second track on Nick's new album - And Now We See