A feeling of transition emanates from every note of musical treasure in Francine Honey’s focus single, “Unfinished Business.” And that’s totally appropriate for an artist who’s in the midst of taking stock of her past while charting a bold change in her career trajectory, including announcing her retirement from the road and concentrating on the studio.
Inspired by a dream Honey once had of a timeless love in a canyon, the song explores the themes of destiny, choice and possibilities. But its implications are significantly more personal than that. Her musical vision conjures up memories of relationships that ended badly and finds her wondering if she would ever be find real love. Picturesque lyrical images of canyon dust filling the air and white smoke “rising up in prayer” contribute to an eerie Western gothic in which those ghost riders in the sky may be specters of a now-painful past—or guides into a promising unknown. The song sticks with you long after the final chord has been struck, leaving a sensation of wistful hopefulness that’s the perfect metaphor for where Honey now finds herself as an artist.
“Unfinished Business” is the final track on Rockets in My Boots, Vol II, a mix of new songs and re-recorded gems from Honey’s illustrious catalog. The album marks the second installment in a three-part career retrospective/musical biography she’s been working on since 2018 with Grammy-nominated producer Neilson Hubbard at Skinny Elephant Recording Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. The rewards have already been rich: With the project barely at the halfway mark, she’s won the 2023/2024 Songwriter of the Year Award by the Austin Songwriters Group International, seen the song “Stay” place as a top 10 finalist in the 2018 International Songwriting Competition and been nominated for Best International Female Artist of 2024 by Radio Wigwam in the UK.
Those are just a handful of the triumphs that have been racked up over the years by this internationally acclaimed singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, independent recording artist and record and video producer, who has earned the deep respect of listeners and peers alike for her ability to seamlessly blend genres like Americana, alt-country, folk and blues. A songwriter since childhood, she’s a graduate of the Berklee College of Music’s Professional Singer-Songwriter Certificate Program and has honed her craft under the guidance of some of her idols in Nashville. Since 2008, she’s released a string of acclaimed singles and albums, from her self-produced debut An Ordinary Woman to 2019’s Take Me to the North Pole, which Rolling Stone hailed as one of the top 50 Christmas albums of the year. Three years later, her collection I Carry On drew rave reviews and secured top chart positions in Canada and London UK, while also earning accolades in various songwriting contests. Her ability to straddle not only genres but languages has netted her regular airplay on stations like SiriusXM CBC Franco Country with singles like “Chez mon oncle Lucien” and “Floçons de neiges sur mes cils.”
Making music her full-time gig was clearly a wise move for Honey, who had initially pursued a career in Mathematics and Computer Science that had her working as a Project Manager for the Canadian Federal Government. Along the way, she also had to shoulder the responsibility of raising a family as a single mother.
But even when you think you’ve streamlined your personal path, life sometimes forces you to narrow it even further. As of this year, Honey has elected to retire from touring and concentrate exclusively on her studio efforts. That decision sprang from a variety of factors, from the harsh financial realities of the road to a need to prioritize her mental health. Those are concerns all too familiar to today’s musicians—especially ones of the indie stripe—who may want to look to Honey as an example of how to survive in a drastically reconfiguring landscape.
The good news for all of them is that Honey has plenty of other exciting avenues to explore. (Saying farewell to the stage didn’t exactly extinguish the Beatles’ career, now did it?) She’s already fielding invitations to write and record for the film. And she maintains a very active fan community online, thanks to her widely viewed livestreams. Mostly, though, she’s finding herself energized by the opportunity to focus fully on creating music from the studio, a shift she anticipates will bring a new, even more introspective dimension to her work.
There’s plenty of wind in those sails already. In 2024, Honey was invited to join the prestigious, Austin-Texas-based Next Level Music Group, which has given her the chance to write alongside some of Nashville’s top hitmakers. Meanwhile, during her mammoth Rockets in My Boots retrospective project, she also found time to record a new, 10-song album—live off the floor—in Austin with co-producer Gabriel Rhodes (who co-wrote seven of the tracks). The album, A Place in Time, will be previewed in November by the release of a holiday-themed single, “Christmas, What Took You.”
“I just want to keep going, writing and producing remarkable songs,” Honey says. “I am a songwriter and storyteller. I know I’ll do this the rest of my life. This is my legacy, helping people through life one song at a time.”
