Rina Ford Debuts “Heart Wants” with ONNA
Arriving on the eve of Valentine’s Day, “Heart Wants” reads like a confession, a love song stripped of grand gestures or certainty, where the heart doesn’t negotiate.
Rina Ford writes this way by instinct. Born in Ukraine, she spent her childhood moving between Ukraine and the United States, growing up on folk songs her family carried with them wherever they went. At home, those melodies filled the background, joined by the hymns of the choirs she heard each week at church. By her teens, she taught herself to play the guitar and began exploring other genres, slowly turning what she grew up on into songs of her own.
Her influences ranged from Slavic ballads to the punchy candor of Avril Lavigne and No Doubt, then later to the raw edge of Nirvana and the sharp, effortless style of Blondie, and to the writing of The Doors, Leonard Cohen, and David Bowie. More recently, she's gravitated toward ‘60s and ‘70s French pop and classic vocalists like Julie London, Jo Stafford, and Billie Holiday. She tends to fall fully into one artist or era at a time, absorbing what moves her and carrying it forward.
At its core, “Heart Wants” is a study in emotional honesty. Written during a period of self-reflection, it sits with the complicated reality of desire, wanting someone without wanting to lose yourself. Ford describes it as a reckoning with her own limits and desires. “When I was young, I was in an open relationship and didn’t want to be,” she says. “The idea of being in an open relationship goes against my nature, which is hopelessly loyal to one person and one person only.” Rather than offering answers or closure, she lets the feeling stand on its own. “Give me something to think about, but not you,” she sings, before admitting what many of us try to talk ourselves out of: “the heart wants what it wants.”
“Music draws from nature endlessly,” she says. “Different seasons bring out different emotions, melodies triggering a certain nostalgia. It can all bring us back to how we connect to the earth, emotionally, physically, and culturally."
Choosing to launch her first single with her friend and ONNA co-founder Coco Reilly felt natural. Ford refers to Reilly as both a mentor and a close friend, the two musicians having spent years trading demos and support, writing music, and exchanging ideas over late-night calls and patchy connections. The shared creative history made partnering with the label feel like continuing a collaboration already built on trust, one that fit naturally with ONNA's approach.
ONNA builds each project around stewardship, allowing the music to give something back to the landscapes that inspired it. The form shifts from artist to artist, but the intention stays the same. For Ford, the choice felt immediate: returning to something personal, the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv Botanical Garden.
The Ivan Franko National University of Lviv Botanical Garden is the largest botanical garden in western Ukraine, home to roughly 6,000 plant species, 85 of which are threatened. Its tropical and subtropical collection is significant enough to be listed in Ukraine's State Register of Scientific Objects Constituting National Heritage. Tucked into the center of the city, the garden has served as more than a research site since the war began. Staff have led nature programs for refugee families and children relocating to Lviv, and run a rehabilitation program called "Nature Heals" for returning veterans. It's a place that has quietly shifted from preservation of plants to preservation of people, without abandoning either.
The gesture mirrors the spirit of the song itself. Care that begins close to home, then moves outward. For ONNA, supporting releases like “Heart Wants” means making space for both art that tells the truth and art that gives something back. For Ford, it simply felt right. A first single that listens inward, and a first step that returns something to the place that first taught her how to listen at all.
