Kexp Song Of The Day

Black Belt Eagle Scout - Don't Give Up from the 2023 album The Land, The Water, The Sky on Saddle Creek. Three years after the release of her sophomore record At the Party Wtih My Brown Friends, Katherine Paul unveiled the new Black Belt Eagle Scout single "Don't Give Up." The song is a dreamy, emotive gift to her Indigenous Swinomish, WA community, where over a melancholic guitar melody she hushedly touches on mental health awareness and the importance of connection to the land in the healing process. Paul wrote the song over the course of two years, starting in 2020 at a songwriting residency in Coast Salish territory before the pandemic and finishing in November 2021 while attending the same residency again. She had this to say about the song: “'Don’t Give Up' is a song about mental health awareness and the importance that my connection to the land plays within my own mental health journey. Spending time with the land and on the water are ways that strengthen my connection to my ancestors and to my culture