Finding The Rainbow Where "Oil Meets Rain"

There's an old saying about a great song being a great song, or to put it another way, a great song can be stripped down to just the melody and either a guitar or piano without losing anything. That is the essence of songwriting; to create a song that doesn't need the adornment and ear candy that producers can layer on while in the studio. We love hearing those details, and they add color and nuance, but the core of the song is the most important thing. Without a song, everything else is empty calories.

Normally, that entails hearing a song on record, and sometime down the line then hearing the band play a stripped down performance that highlights the underlying composition. That's when you get to peek under the hood, per se, and get a clearer picture of what songwriting is all about. For fans of The Spider Accomplice, that is reversed in this case, as we have previously heard the band play an acoustic arrangement of "Oil Meets Rain", which since then has been a song that stood out in my mind, even among their own impressive run of songs.

There was an optimistic melancholy about the song, which is an oxymoron I have been using more often lately, as I find myself drawn to songs that find the silver linings in the clouds. Or as VK Lynne sings in this song, "there's a rainbow when the oil meets rain/the light finds beauty in the pain". I feel like we forget that sometimes, that there is something positive and uplifting about looking at a clean cut and seeing how the scar heals with time.

For this version of the song, we get transported back to the late 90s, when pop/rock was able to find its way to the charts. If you remember the days when songs like "Absolutely (Story Of A Girl)" were in rotation on VH1, you're in the right target audience for where The Spider Accomplice is coming from. The song bounces along with an almost joyous energy, while the big guitars in the chorus are almost panoramic in how wide they are able to stretch. Arno throws in bits of slide guitar as well, so there are also some echoes of the pop/country movement lying underneath.

This year has been one we would all rather forget, but there is one thing to remember about it more important than everything else; we endured. Or, maybe I should say 'we persisted'. Regardless, as the song is telling us, there is still something positive for us to take from this experience. We (ok, many of us, but certainly not all) have shown ourselves able to adapt, able to cope, and willing to sacrifice some of our own wants for the needs of others. That might not be a full-scale rainbow, but like the shimmering arc of an oil slick in the summer sun, it's still a colorful reflection of our best.

This year, The Spider Accomplice has given us three songs that show different aspects of their sound and their identity. "Enough" was the aggressive rocker tired of playing nice, "Crawl" was the introspective song about finding yourself, and now "Oil Meets Rain" tells us the fights to understand ourselves and our places in this world are going to be worth it. We're ending on an upbeat, and isn't that what we all need right now?

 "Oil Meets Rain" will be available everywhere Friday.