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Boston alt-country rock band led by Leesa Coyne delivers a poignant and powerful music video on Wednesday, January 24 via Rum Bar Records

NOW PLAYING: Watch the ‘Stayed 2017’ music video

Lonely Leesa & the Lost Cowboys perform live at The Burren in Somerville on January 26

BOSTON, Mass. [January 24, 2024] -- Leesa Coyne knew the music video she wanted to make for “Stayed 2017” would be difficult. But ignoring the feelings that were simmering inside her were just too powerful to ignore.

On Wednesday, January 24, Coyne’s longtime musical project, Lonely Leesa & the Lost Cowboys, unveils the video for “Stayed 2017" via Rum Bar Records. It combines something old and something new for Coyne, as she revisits a song first released as a b-side to her “Reckless” single seven years ago and pairs it with an impactful, first-person video directed, produced, edited and shot on an iPhone by the Boston artist and musician herself. A few days after the video goes live, Lonely Leesa & the Lost Cowboys perform live at The Burren in Somerville, on Friday, January 26.

Revisiting “Stayed 2017,” a tender alt-country acoustic ballad carried by Coyne’s powerful vocals and a slowly-building tension, was timely as we head into 2024. Coyne first penned the track as a reflection of domestic violence, autobiographically written from the point-of-view of a woman unable to escape an abusive relationship. But the confessional video arrives this month ahead of the spring’s anticipated Supreme Court ruling on the United States vs Rahimi, where the country’s highest court will determine if domestic abuse orders can prevent abusers from owning and possessing handguns.

For Coyne, who was inspired to pair “Stayed 2017” with her vision for the video after listening to Amicus Podcast’s November 2023 episode titled The Right To Bear Arms and Terrorize Your Partner, the time to raise awareness on this issue – and continue to highlight the perils many women face daily while trapped in abusive relationships and domestic violence situations – was never more important than right now.

While a new album from Lonely Leesa & the Lost Cowboys is set to arrive in the spring via the band’s new home of Rum Bar Records, Coyne is eager to show solidarity with women across the country as the Supreme Court ruling looms just months away.

“I hope this video helps someone else who has been suffering in silence to feel less alone and that it raises awareness of the United States v. Rahimi case ruling in the spring and what that could mean for the safety of many,” Coyne says. “Guns in the hands of domestic abusers equals death. One in four women and one in nine men experience severe intimate partner physical violence, and lots of folks in the United States own guns. It is literally a life-or-death situation for many. I am not sure if folks are aware of how common this is… [my goal is] not to normalize it, but just to show that we all have folks in our lives who could surely use some understanding and support.”

Coyne says she has had the thematic idea for “Stayed 2017" in her head for a few years, dating back to when the song was first released. The track, which is also being re-released by Rum Bar in tandem with the video premiere, was produced, engineered, and arranged by Brian E. King; engineered by Elio DeLuca at the Soul Shop in Medford, MA; and mixed by Josh Cohen at Black Hat Music, also located in Medford.

“The song overall was about staying too long in a relationship when your gut is telling you not to and, at the end of it, feeling really taken advantage of by the whole thing,” she admits. “It also involves the shame that comes along with allowing yourself not to be treated well by a partner: ‘Why did I let this happen?’ ‘Why did I not just leave?’ Over the years, as I left that relationship and came to understand how much of a mark it left on my well-being, it evolved more into a song about why folks stay in abusive relationships and the overall complexity of really loving someone despite the fact that they are abusing you. There is so much shame, guilt, anger, gaslighting, and at the end of the day love (you were in a relationship with this person in the beginning because you loved them and saw a future with them) all wrapped up in the mess that is an abusive relationship. The song can also be much less prescriptive and broader, just a general theme of why someone stays in something that is no longer serving them in a healthy way and trying to rationalize staying when you know maybe it is not best.”

For the video, Coyne stripped it all down – literally and figuratively – to reflect the raw vulnerability a person must face when confronting an abusive partner. It finds her alone, in the shower, engaging with the camera as the water rains down on her. It’s enough to wash away the day’s makeup, but not the physical marks left behind by physical abuse.

“This video I just wanted to be simple,” Coyne admits. “I wanted to shoot it myself on my phone. From a practical perspective to pull the veil back a bit, if I was doing the whole thing myself and the budget was zero dollars and cost only my time. Most importantly, I don’t think I could have been as vulnerable if other folks were around filming me. I also feel like with a lot of things in the arts there are not a lot of women filmmakers, and I really wanted this to come from the voice of a woman without a man’s perspective coming in to edit it or tone it down.”

Coyne had to dig deep to find the strength to bring his vision to the screen. And she asked herself a barrage of questions, adding: “I had to be like: ‘Are you ok with being half-naked on camera?’ ’Are you ok with not looking ‘attractive’ or even presentable on camera?’ ‘Can you actually give a good performance and really channel what it felt like at the time and are you up for channeling that again many years later?’ ‘Is my mom going to freak out?’ ‘Are folks going to think your current partner is beating you up?’ (I already got that question once — for the record, he is not -- and I am sure I will get it plenty more times.) ‘Are folks going to think those bruises are real or super fake/awful?’ ‘Are folks going to be upset that you put bruises on yourself?’ …I hope they understand I mean this with the best of intentions.”

Despite all the questions she posed to herself when creating the video, Coyne understands they pale in comparison to all the questions a person asks themselves when trapped in an abusive relationship. With the video for “Stayed 2017" comes a wealth of resources – both in statistics that flash across the screen, and in organizations a person can turn to when they feel lost.

Coyne points to the National Domestic Violence Hotline of 800-799-7233 for anyone who is, or knows someone who may be, in crisis; as well as a Somerville-based community support group called RESPOND Inc., and a pair of national organizations in Everytown and Moms Demand Action. She also points to the Narcissist Apocalypse podcast for addressing difficult issues like this, in particular the episode titled Reclaiming Your Voice: The Art of Transformative Abuse Storytelling.

“I think I accomplished what I wanted to with the video,” Coyne says. “I am not sure what I wanted from it other than to make a video about how fucked up, hard, and complicated domestic violence is and how fucked up and DEADLY allowing domestic abusers to own guns is… but inadvertently it did shake things up already in my world and maybe that needed to happen. I feel like I need to be my whole person with my art. I am not in the business of making safe art so I think when folks speak about hard stuff in an honest way, you find out who is really with you on the journey and who might not be, and where people’s priorities are. That is just good information to have. If everything is easy, just humming along and not really making any waves, are you really saying anything or taking any sort of risk with your art? I just feel like I have to be myself. I don’t want to feel muted or have my voice silenced with my music/art and this video is really putting it out there.”

But Coyne also knows this is bigger than herself, as she’s just one voice in a sea of voices yearning to be heard. But she hopes her part, expressed through her art, can maybe make a difference for someone – even if the initial conversations that may arise from the video are difficult to have.

“I am not sure how folks will feel or take this,” she concludes. “And I know this topic is a very hard subject. Plus as much as I think I am in a great place with my experience, I still have a lot of feelings and trauma surrounding my situation, so being able to hold space for this could stir up a lot of stuff for me I am not expecting. I often think people want to stand up for women, but when it really comes down to being an ally, they really want women to shut up and never talk about hard stuff or be taken seriously when they want to… there is still a climate of ‘womxn should just smile and nod and not talk about it’… and that to be honest really hurts my soul. It was one of the hardest lessons I learned after I was no longer in an abusive situation.”

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‘Stayed 2017’ production credits:

‘Stayed 2017’ video directed, produced, edited and shot by Leesa Coyne

Produced, engineered, and arranged by Brian E. King

Engineered by Elio DeLuca at Soul Shop

Mixed by Josh Cohen at Black Hat Music

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‘Stayed 2017’ artwork:

Lonely Leesa & the Lost Cowboys confront domestic abuse with ‘Stayed 2017’

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