We Speak Pop
Mya Byrne Shares New Single ‘Lend You A Hand’
New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Celebrated singer-songwriter Mya Byrne shares “Lend You A Hand,” the latest single off her forthcoming album Rhinestone Tomboy, which releases April 28 via Kill Rock Stars Nashville.
The new song comes as Byrne makes history this week with the music video for her previous single “It Don’t Fade” (feat. her girlfriend Swan Real, of SiriusXM’s 99% Invisible) added to rotation on CMT Music (CMT’s 24-hour channel), marking the first nationally broadcast kiss between two trans lesbians.
“I wrote this song in a plowed-under cornfield one June day a decade ago, right when I was uncovering my trans identity,” says Byrne. “I intended it as a love song, and in many ways it is, but it took me years to realize that, in part, the woman I was writing to that day was me. In that sense, it’s a song of protection and liberation.
Sometimes we queers have to protect ourselves before it’s safe to come out, and then after, too. This is so much of what ‘Lend You a Hand’ is about, and my ideal of what healthy love can look like. To support each other while fostering each others’ autonomy. To hold each other as we would like to be held.
To watch the sunset while in each others’ arms.” She continues, “I recorded this vocal in one take, the most emotional I’ve ever been on record. Afterward, my friend and engineer Gregory Lattimer and I burst into tears. It was a powerful moment.”
Produced by Grammy-nominated songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan, Rhinestone Tomboy finds Mya Byrne at the forefront of a movement propelled by a much needed burst of fresh air. A queer trans woman playing Americana steeped with potent branches of blues, rock, glam and country music, she is every bit the voice of the outsider that built the foundation of the genre.
Her new album is a 12-song journey into redemption and a masterclass at world building, as she gives life to stories from her times of joy and challenge. Her latest single “It Don’t Fade” has been praised by Rolling Stone and Billboard, who called it “a ray of light at a time where things can often feel a bit dark.”
In 2022, Byrne helped launch the KRS Nashville imprint with her single “Autumn Sun,” receiving widespread acclaim from Rolling Stone, The Advocate, PRIDE, The Tennessean, Billboard and more. She celebrated the track’s release with several performances at AmericanaFest, prompting The Boot to declare “The authenticity and vulnerability present in Byrne’s songwriting is a kind that all artists try to mimic in their art, but only few can match.”
Recently featured on Reba’s Top Ten remix of “I’m A Survivor” (on mandolin & lap steel), Byrne was named a 2022 Artist to Watch by Nashville Scene/CMT, and wrote and performed the theme song for Amazon Music’s Country Heat podcast hosted by Kelly Sutton.
We Speak Music
Phoebe June Traces Love, Distance and Heartbreak on New EP ‘Kiss Me Over The Garden Gate’
For Phoebe June, some stories are easier to tell through music.
Her new EP, ‘Kiss Me Over The Garden Gate’, is an intimate collection that traces the emotional journey of a relationship from the exhilaration of falling in love to distance, uncertainty, heartbreak and, ultimately, learning to let go.
Inspired by artists including Gracie Abrams, Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers, Phoebe June combines diary-like lyricism with melancholic ballads, subtle uptempo moments and an understated, emotionally honest production style.
At the centre of the project is ‘Thursday’, a bittersweet track about loving someone from a distance and holding onto the hope that the connection might survive.
Written after Phoebe left a country that held deep personal meaning, and left someone she cared about behind, the song looks back at the relationship from its beginning. Even its title is personal: the two first met on a Thursday.
The song captures the complicated feeling of walking away from something meaningful without believing that it necessarily has to be over. It’s about distance, memory and the possibility of finding your way back to someone, while recognising that hope only works when it goes both ways.
Across six tracks, the EP develops that story in sequence.
‘Everything You Are’ opens the project with the warmth of new love, while ‘Dead Sea’ explores the security of finding someone who helps you stay afloat through difficult times. As the story progresses, ‘Thursday’ introduces separation before ‘Getaway Car’ moves into the aftermath; unanswered questions, lingering attachment and the realisation that someone can profoundly affect your life while still being unhealthy for you.
‘One Day’ leaves the door open to the possibility of a future reunion, balancing hope with the understanding that some relationships may only exist in memory.
The EP closes with ‘Ophelia’, its emotional breaking point. Inspired in part by Friedrich Heyser’s painting of the same name, the track confronts the pain of feeling manipulated and unappreciated after giving everything to someone else.
The result is a project that deliberately moves from light to dark. Phoebe June considered not only the narrative but the emotional progression when sequencing the EP, allowing the brightness of its opening to gradually give way to the heartbreak of its closing moments.
Even the title reflects that feeling.
‘Kiss Me Over The Garden Gate’ takes its name from a flower, with the image of a gate separating two people becoming a metaphor for a love that remains beautiful but just out of reach. To reach over it requires effort, just as maintaining a connection across distance, uncertainty and changing circumstances does.
Ultimately, Phoebe June isn’t interested in simply documenting her own heartbreak.
She wants listeners to recognise themselves in it.
‘Kiss Me Over The Garden Gate’ is a collection about love, nostalgia, hope and regret and about what remains when something beautiful ends up on the other side of the gate.
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