Bonner Rhae’s debut album, Forward Address, out today, offers her take on unpretentious country music—which is to say, it’s a collection full of well-honed storytelling and razor-sharp character-building. Within 10 songs, the influence of fellow Lone Star singer-songwriters like Miranda Lambert and Maren Morris weaves throughout songs about young love and subsequent heartbreak, moving on and letting go, chasing small-town dreams, and what happens when you don’t.
“Looks ain’t always what they seem / On the fast track to used to be,” she sings on “Small Town Beauty Queen,” one of Forward Address’s most-affecting tracks. It’s a story of faded ambition, with lines like, “Who needed education with a face like mine? But beauty fades and love ain’t blind.”
“In the end, Rhae’s decision to chase her dreams proves to be the right one…her unrelenting talent wins out.”
“This is the only song on the record that I did not write,” Rhae says. “I used to sit in my childhood bedroom and play this song as I was teaching myself to play the guitar. I’ve always loved it, so when I was playing it in a post-production meeting and my producer, Walt Wilkins suggested we cut it, I was sold. This is my own little take on this beautiful Brandon Jenkins tune.”
Rhae grew up in Alvin, Texas, a half-hour outside of Houston. After teaching herself to play the guitar, she learned the power of putting feelings to words and words to music, both natural steps that quickly followed. Forward Address is full of nods to Rhae’s home state: “Whiskey Wishing”—Rhae’s first co-write—was penned with Jamie Lin Wilson, one of Texas’s strongest songwriting exports, and Kyle Hutton, a producer on the album and one of Rhae’s mentors. The album was also co-produced with Walt Wilkins, a storied songwriting legend in the state’s music scene.
The album’s title track centers around letting go. “Now there’s a new town and a new routine, fresh flowers by the kitchen sink, a box full of the memories,” she sings on the song, which The Boot noted for its “shimmery production and soothing pedal steel” as well as Rhae’s “wise and comforting delivery.”
“I got this idea in my head like, ‘What if there was somewhere you could send all the hurt away and just get rid of it?’” she recently told The Daily Yonder. “Obviously, you can’t just send things away, you have to deal with them and do the hard work yourself. I wrote that song not really with the intention of it being such a breakup song, I guess. But, again, sometimes I think you write what you need unconsciously.”
“Hey Girl” is an ode to college days and two-stepping; “Behind A Smile” reimagines a track written long ago by Matt Parrish and Justin Lofton. “You Had It Coming” offers Rhae’s take on what is most aptly described as a revenge song.
“I didn’t feel like I had anything out in the world that gave any real glimpse of my potential,” she says of Forward Address.
“Writing these songs and going through the process of getting them out into the world allowed me to learn more than I could have expected about myself and what I wanted for my life and emboldened me to take ownership of the direction of my path. I hope this collection of songs inspires those feelings in the hearts of its listeners.”
