Today's Song of the Day, as chosen by Cheryl Waters, host of The Midday Show on KEXP, is "Don't Give Up" by Black Belt Eagle Scout, 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:
Black Belt Eagle Scout is embarking on a tour in February, with a date in Seattle on Wednesday, February 15th at Neumos. Watch Black Belt Eagle Scout’s KEXP in-studio performance from 2018 below.
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