Bonne Finken is singular. She is one of one. Her career as an independent artist has seen many ups, downs and lateral movements in every conceivable direction. She once turned down a chance to compete on a reality show because participating would have meant yielding control of her career, and in many ways her life, for two years. Her 2014 song "Step Back Baby" was regularly played on Top 40 radio stations alongside artists like Justin Timberlake and Taylor Swift. Her first and third albums were showered with critical praise and nominated for many awards. Her second album was intentionally defiant in nature.
In 2023, she started a collaborative project called Bonne, partnering with Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and Guiness World Record holder Jon Locker. She received an Emmy for her original song and score used in another project, the documentary FarmHer. She is a single mother and a cancer survivor.
Now, and Finken’s back with new music and a renewed focus on storytelling. Her latest single, "Blood Runs Through Me," takes her songwriting craft to a whole new place.
The song opens with the rhythmic, almost haunting, dance of a mandolin and synth piano, with a guitar carrying a single pedal tone underneath. Once the scene is set, the melody enters, creating a scene that is as reflective as it is resilient. The lyrics quickly dominate, and the narrative takes hold through the lyrics, no longer the instrumentation. Lines like “You danced while the world was falling down” and “No flag half mass flown high / for a girl whose dreams had died” give an emotional boost to Finken’s uncharacteristically restrained vocals.
As the chorus begins, the rising refrain is met with the support of a gospel choir, expertly placed behind Finken’s swelling intensity. That “gospel choir” is, of course, also Bonne, tracked and layered into a perfect balance that sounds like a convincing, fully robed singing group. As the first chorus comes to a close there's a short reminder of the power of musical space found during the intro and before the instrumental layering of the next verse.
Fans of Finken’s past work will notice an evolution in both her lyrics and in the musical undertone. The fast paced, “in-your-face” rock style that has been associated with Finken’s music is still there, but it's given way to a more sentimental perspective. This is a change in style from the artist who could never be anything other than true to herself. Some might say this reflects Finken's growth or maturation, and those would be appropriate descriptors, but make no mistake … she is not “finding her voice.” She knows, and always has known, exactly who she is. So what, then, is the impetus behind the adjustment?
“I’m an electronic-pop-rock-alternative artist” Finken says, adding “at the heart of everything I’ve ever done is just a simple song. It sometimes gets hidden by all the fun stuff I like to produce around it as a soundscape."
For Finken, centering the song around the lyrics and the story is a departure in style. On previous projects, her intention has been to reproduce the sounds that she heard in her head through production. “I had more fun for a long time learning and exploring and experimenting with soundscapes, because that was new and challenging for me, and I almost took for granted the writing that was underneath it. So this project and this song is me saying ‘I’m gonna do that in reverse.’”
As for where the actual change has happened, Finken says the true sense of growth comes from where those stories were found.
“I use my music as therapy, I use it to say things that I maybe wouldn’t otherwise. So music is my chance to kind of get a whole bunch of stuff out,” Finken laughs, adding “That means a lot of my songs have been about me and my experiences."
For this project, instead of writing from personal experience, Finken decided to draw inspiration from her conversations with other people, and what better place to start than with her family.
“One of the things that hit me first, and very easily, was talking to my mom about my grandma,” Finken said.
Growing up in Knoxville, Finken has felt that her ambitions weren't necessarily treated as realistic, which caused her to feel separation from the rest of her family. That perception was revealed to be a little less clear than she thought.
“I always kinda saw it as though I was the dreamer and was always swinging big. I wanna get out of here — I want to embrace art, I want to make music, I want to sing, I want to act — and I felt that these things were not supported here. But talking to my mom, she told me ‘Your grandma wanted to be a dancer and would practice all the time. I see a lot of what you did as a kid in what my mom [Finken’s grandma] did, but she wasn’t given the opportunity.”
Being a woman in the rural Iowa town of Lovilia, Finken’s grandma had a lot of expectations to fulfill. Her own ambitions of being a performer were sidelined, partly due to her husband serving in World War II and, during and after his absence, having her own children to raise. For Finken, this story provided a renewed sense of connection, and writing a song about it was the perfect way to express that feeling.
“Hearing all of that just made something click and the song was immediate ... Maybe it's inherent, the yearning, the ambition. We have ties and I didn’t even know it. That meant a lot to me to hear that, and that’s what sparked ‘Blood Runs Through Me’ specifically,” Finken noted.
The song is the first of many to come in the next few months, and while the sound is different, fans can expect plenty of vintage Finken as well.
Her vocal swells may draw comparisons to artists like Chris Cornell or Pink. Her rock stylings may bring to mind rock royalty like Joan Jett or Pat Benatar. Her hair, her clothes, her stage presence may all collate into neat little categories, but there is no comparison that lives up to Finken’s uncompromised sense of self. Her career has had a number of brushes with mainstream success, and through it all she has held on to the truth that success and fulfillment can only come from being who you truly are. And Finken? She's an icon.
Stream “Blood Runs Through Me” on all streaming platforms. While you’re waiting for the next song on this project to drop, check out her albums Fairytales/LoveAffairs, Speak to Me, Gauntlet and her band album Bonne.