Oledude has reached backwards through the decades, mining the bedrock of American popular song—childhood melodies, folk traditions, Broadway's theatrical sweep, and the crystalline pop duets of Diana Ross and Lionel Richie. Yet "We Will Get Through This" never feels derivative. Instead, these influences meld into something that sounds both familiar and freshly minted, as though the song has always existed somewhere just beyond conscious memory, waiting to be summoned forth. The result is a piece that wears its heart on its sleeve without collapsing into mawkishness, a delicate balance that many attempt but few achieve.
Lee's soprano possesses a purity that Oledude clearly recognized from their first collaboration in January 2023, and his instinct to feature her as co-lead proves entirely justified. Her voice moves through the melody's considerable range with an ease that masks the technical difficulty inherent in the composition. Against Oledude's more weathered vocal texture, Lee provides both contrast and complement—two voices that represent different life experiences united in common purpose. Tomas Rodriguez's guitar work deserves particular mention; his playing never overwhelms but instead weaves around the vocals like careful embroidery, adding colour and dimension without drawing undue attention to itself.
The backstory lends additional resonance. Written following Oledude's year-long engagement with the Philipstown Behavioral Health Hub, the song emerged from direct confrontation with mental health and substance abuse challenges. Originally dedicated to that specific organization, the track has subsequently taken on broader significance—a quality inherent to the best songwriting, which somehow anticipates needs not yet articulated. First performed in August 2024, its message has only grown more pertinent as the months have passed, addressing what Oledude identifies as "a broader and deeper need for hope and support."
On the album PREACHER MAN - VOL. 1, "We Will Get Through This" serves as the sole ballad, positioned deliberately after a harsh protest against war's violence. This sequencing proves canny; the gentleness lands with greater impact precisely because of the contrast. Oledude understands that healing cannot occur in a vacuum, that tenderness means nothing without first acknowledging brutality. His comment that "healing always needs to be highlighted" speaks to a philosophical position increasingly rare in contemporary discourse—the notion that transformation occurs one individual at a time, through love-oriented mindsets rather than grand gestures or policy pronouncements.
The songwriter himself calls this "the 'sweetest' song I have ever written," distinguishing it from previous ballads laden with romantic intensity. Instead, the focus rests squarely on friendship, on the grinding difficulty of sustained emotional availability. "Being a true friend is much harder than being a lover," Oledude observes, "that being there for someone requires a commitment from every part of your being." This hard-won wisdom permeates every measure, transforming what might have been merely pleasant into something genuinely affecting.
"We Will Get Through This" ultimately succeeds because it refuses easy consolation. The title itself functions as promise, threat, and prayer simultaneously—an acknowledgment that survival is neither simple nor guaranteed, but perhaps possible through collective effort. In less capable hands, such material might curdle into self-righteousness or saccharine treacle. Oledude and his collaborators have instead created something genuinely nourishing, a song that meets despair with neither denial nor defeat, but with the quiet insistence that love, however imperfect, remains our most reliable compass.