As the political atmosphere grows increasingly hostile towards people like her, she's beginning to enjoy a breakthrough long in the making. Timing is a towering factor in the music industry any given year, but Byrne is navigating an especially charged moment for a guitar-slinging, roots-rocking singer-songwriter who also happens to be a transgender, lesbian woman. That's when it started to feel like, 'Oh, we did do something.'" That's when it starts to feel significant. "We've both done so many of those," Real says, "but then once you have people put attention on that and when you see sparks actually catch, that's when it starts to feel different. Real, who composes music for the podcast 99% Invisible, joins our interview to compare their Love Rising performance with the countless other times they've each shown up for a cause. "Going into it, I just wanted to express the pureness of what my love is and what my life is, and that through everything I've been through - which has been a lot, years of being in the closet and just having to fight for my place at the table - that I want everybody to peek into my life for a second." "I thought a lot about the message I want to put out," Byrne explains in her hotel room the next day. Mya Byrne (right) and her partner Swan Real embrace following a performance of Byrne's song "It Don't Fade" at Love Rising, a benefit for LGBTQIA+ equality in Nashville's Bridgestone Arena on March 20, 2023. At the mic, she spoke with fierce conviction, then launched into a song called " It Don't Fade" that brimmed with her fortifying outlook, and ended her mini-set by sharing an affectionate, acoustic serenade and a lusty kiss with her partner in music and life, Swan Real, who's also a trans woman. Byrne contemplated bringing out "Burn This Statehouse Down" again - nothing could've been more topical, and the studio recording of the song was scheduled to drop the next day - but decided instead to use her brief turn in front of the largest crowd she'd ever faced to strike a different tone. ![]() Her artist friend Allison Russell had asked her to play an arena concert fundraising for organizations that serve LGBTQIA+ Tennesseans. Right on the heels of SXSW, Byrne was in Nashville for the Love Rising benefit show. ![]() Lee, you've got a problem," Byrne jabbed in the opening line, "You're banning things you don't know a thing about." ![]() Their tune was a direct response to Tennessee governor Bill Lee having signed restrictions on drag performances and minors' access to gender-affirming healthcare into law earlier that month. It wasn't the state legislature headquartered there in Austin whose actions she and her co-writer Paisley Fields were denouncing, though it could've been Texas is among the many states where Republican lawmakers have made it their mission in 2023 to target the LGBTQIA+ community both artists are part of. "I was told by the world I wasn't allowed to write classic country, even though I'd written so much of it and I loved doing it," Mya Byrne says of her new album, Rhinestone Tomboy, which melds her punk sensibility with polished songwriting.Īt a showcase during the SXSW music festival this past March, Mya Byrne introduced a rollicking country-punk protest song called "Burn This Statehouse Down," with righteous indignation and campy flourish.
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