Francine Honey’s latest single is a rendition of a song written by a close friend
Leamington, ON singer-songwriter Francine Honey has released a brand-new single, “I’m Coming Home,” ahead of the release of her fourth studio album, Unfinished Business.
The emotional, three-minute tune is a somber, blue-inspired country number about finally making the journey home after being away and missing it for so long. Given the power and vulnerability of Francine’s voice, you could be forgiven for thinking she wrote it. However, that’s not the case.
Though Francine normally takes pride in writing her own music, “I’m Coming Home” was actually written by a close friend of hers: Joy Newby. Francine described it as “beautiful,” “sad” and “lonely” and said she decided to record it because it had become such a sentimental tune for her and served as an important message for her fans during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The former civil servant further described it as being filled with “hope and the promise of coming home.
“We all need that [feeling], since this pandemic has created such loneliness in everyone … right?” she added.
Joy wrote the heartbreaking tune in 2017 at the end of a songwriting retreat in Italy with Francine and the musician Verlon Thompson. Francine recounted that day, saying: “[Joy] knocked at our door about an hour and a half before the concert and asked me if I would sing the song at the concert that night. We rehearsed it once in my room and then played it together as a duet with Verlon joining in.” She said the experience was “magical.”
Since her childhood, Francine Honey has been a keen songwriter. Over the course of the last seven years, she has released a plethora of singles and five studio albums: An Ordinary Woman (2009), Re-Drawn (2014), An Ordinary Woman (In Studio) (2015), To Be Continued… (2018), and her first official Christmas album, Take Me to the North Pole (2019).
The success of her music has taken her not only across Canada and the U.S., but to Italy, Switzerland and the U.K. as well. The artist’s music often features tales of heartache and hope delivered with a beautiful, yet subtle blend of Americana, country, rock, Canadiana and blues.
