Lightning Bug - 'The Right Thing Is Hard To Do'
Lightning Bug’s new single ‘The Right Thing Is Hard To Do’ is a trance-like paean to introverts and daydreamers, finding poignancy in life’s simple truths.
Allow lead singer and songwriter Audrey Kang’s soothing, melodic tones (which sound almost like a latter-day Enya) to wash over you while the rest of Lightning Bug build a fitting sense of grandeur in this introspective offering from the band’s upcoming album ‘A Color of the Sky’.
With shimmering guitars that ring like distant bells and sweeping synth, backing from band members Kevin Copeland, Logan Miley, Dane Hagen and Vincent Puleo manages not to overpower the singer’s soft, hushed lead vocals and instead cut through the ambiance to create a sense of drama.
The song explores themes of self-worth, acceptance and integrity. A throughline of personal growth echoes the literal expansion Lightning Bug as this project sees regular collaborators Hagen and Puleo become bona fide band members.
Kang's intimate lyrics feel like whispered confessions, and at times are difficult to decipher but certainly warrant repeat listening and will reward the discerning listener. She explores the difficulty of growing up as a quiet person, reflecting “the years went by and I found different ways to hide and it helped that I kept the things I thought inside.” The song’s sentiment recalls the lyrics of ‘Ask’ by The Smiths – “Shyness is nice and shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life you’d like to.”
Released with the single is a beautifully animated music video by Melanie Kleid that follows a mouse (very much the song’s spirit animal) who is transported through a psychedelic gloaming fairytale, and eventually rewarded for doing ‘the right thing.’
When writing the album, the singer used her personal struggles with identity and self-worth as a mirror to wider issues facing the world like “xenophobia, arbitrary borders, the lines we draw between ourselves and the environment, and the ways we sacrifice the health of the planet for human convenience.”
A major source of inspiration for the songs was a recent period in Kang’s life which saw her somewhat lost and trekking across the Pacific Northwest. She found tranquility at a kite festival (presumably informing the album's title) and knew that each day, if nothing else, she had “beautiful kites” to look forward to.
A gentle harbinger for ‘A Color of the Sky’, this latest single from Lightning Bug doesn’t announce itself with brashness or bravado, and instead feels like a thick blanket that envelops and soothes the listener.
Words by Joe Buncle