New, beautiful tune from Black Belt Eagle Scout, the first since 2019’s “At the Party With My Brown Friends.” This features some of the familiar elements of a BBES song: Katherine Paul’s gorgeous, half-whispered vocals, her inventive guitar lines, a little fuzz, and striking lyrics. As Paul notes on her Bandcamp page, the song is about mental health awareness and her own connection to the land. She reflects in this song about walking outside and seeing trees and leaves floating on the wind: “You hear your heart beating/you walk under the trees/Engulfed by beauty/I just want you here with me.” And later: “Windy leaves are flowing/and in these leaves/they come from people who grow/but we’re to listen, guide us/I want everyone to know.”
Paul is a member of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and she explains in her note that part of her reason for writing this song was that it’s intended “for my community and anyone who deals with challenging mental health issues to remind us just how much of a role our connection to the environment plays within our healing process.” The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community has long been a leader in prioritizing climate change action and adaptation, and the tribe also developed Indigenous Health Indicators, which are community-based indicators of health specific to Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest. The indicators reflect a different way of thinking about health: the health that comes from being in community and helping each other; having access to abundant natural resources; being able to practice cultural traditions; passing on knowledge through the community. “Don’t Give Up” gets at that unique, millennia-long relationship to place that many Indigenous communities have. Towards the end of the song, Paul sings, in a clear strong voice, “The land, the water, the sky/the land, the water, the sky.”
[BUY Don’t Give Up]