Lush Life Live with Josh Rawlings and Nate Omdal at the Green Leaf II on 10.13.2015 — written by Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington. Photo credit Kathy Shorr/ SHOT

Lush Life Live

The title track from my debut EP Paper Tiger — https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/paper-tiger-ep/id1146190416

Paper tiger is a literal English translation of the Chinese phrase zhilaohu (紙老虎). The term refers to something that seems threatening but is ineffectual and unable to withstand challenge. The expression became well known in the West as a slogan used by Mao Zedong's Chinese communist state against its opponents, particularly the U.S. government.

Paper Tiger

All this hate has my soul so blue
Doubt and fear, abused
How can this message
Be diffused?
Music with love infused

Chorus:
Stop the Violence
Start the Healing
No more silence
How you feeling?

I beg your pardon
But your heart's a garden
it can grow compassion or fear
Now tell me what seeds will you plant here?
How can this message be more clear?

Chorus

Bridge
Change is in the air
People are starting to care
What are we fighting for?!
Cause I've been keeping score

Chorus fade out

Stop the Violence, Start the Healing

Shot in the dark is another example of how our language in America is fraught with metaphors glorifying guns and their power. Ironically when gunpowder was invented by the Chinese over 2000 years ago they were searching for an elixir for eternal youth. The actual meaning of the phrase “shot in the dark” is a hopeful attempt. It is not only my attempt but my intention to come out of the darkness of that night I was shot, that night when I was clinging to what ever light was left to stay alive, stay breathing, stay positive and stay awake. From my album Paper Tiger available on iTunes https://itun.es/us/tPxueb and Google Play

Paper Tiger - EP

Shot in the Dark

Unreal

Demo recorded in March 2010. 
Deepest Shade of Blue was the first song I wrote and also the most vulnerable. I wrote most of it in the hospital and used the keyboard on my dad’s Iphone to figure out the main vamp for the songs. Its about heartbreak and the blues. The deepest shade of blues. The first recording was so difficult to record both technically and emotionally due to all the scar tissue around my vocal cords and also the subject matter. I was still in a state of shock and disbelief when I wrote this song. 


Deepest Shade of Blue

At the age of 22, in the year of 2009 Courtney Weaver had over 95 musical performances and sang at five festivals in Northern California establishing herself as the resident blues belter. Just as her career was beginning to take off she was derailed when she was shot in the face and arm by her abusive boyfriend on January 15th 2010 in Arcata, CA. After moving back to her hometown of Seattle in January 2011 and 13 reconstructive surgeries later she is finally healed. Courtney has spent the last 18 months building her chops and performing in Seattle’s illustrious music scene, recording her debut EP Paper Tiger with Grammy-nominated pianist Josh Rawlings writing songs about gun violence and domestic violence, and founding her Survivor Voices Collective.

Courtney Weaver

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