Country Queer

Lifting up LGBTQ+ voices in country and Americana.

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Mya Byrne’s Musical Offering to Homeless Youth

Drawing by YokoOkay (IG: @Yoko_Okay)

Country Queer’s resident guitarslinger and award-winning songwriter Mya Byrne has just released a lovely stringband-style waltz, “Mary Dane,” with proceeds going to San Francisco’s Homeless Youth Alliance.

The song is live now on streaming services, but Bandcamp is where you want to go to purchase it.

“Mary Dane” tells the story of a woman running a soup kitchen during the Great Depression. Byrne says the track was inspired by Lois Jordan, a woman who fed and clothed the multitudes in early ’30s San Francisco, in a junk-filled lot on Embarcadero, with further inspiration coming from Mya’s recent volunteer work with SF’s Homeless Youth Alliance (HYA). Half of Mya’s profits from this song will be donated to HYA.

Byrne tells Country Queer, “I was encouraged to put this song out out by Neale Eckstein, who asked me if he could mix it. It features Carolann Solebello on harmonies, who also helped shape the song at the Jack Hardy Songwriters’ Exchange. It came together super quick…I wrote it two weeks ago out of a dream and recorded it the next day!”