Missy Higgins on turning adolescent angst and mid-life heartbreak into song

[Music] hi I'm Conrad Marshall and from the Sydney Morning Herald and the age welcome to good weekend talks a magazine for your ears featuring in-depth conversations with Fascinating People from Sport and politics science and culture business and Beyond every week you can download new episodes in which top journalists from across our newsrooms talk to compelling people about the definitive stories of the day in this episode episode we speak with Missy Higgins the Australian singer songwriter has just produced a new album second act which is as raw as a breakthrough from 20 years ago it's an emotional work charting her life after a marriage breakdown she talks about the travails of being a single mom along with the shows she's playing around the country right now Higgins is the subject of our cover story this week and hosting this conversation about the generation of women touched by the artist Who come out to support her now is the writer behind that profile good weekend senior writer Melissa F thanks Conrad and welcome Missy thanks for coming in thank you thanks for having me I wanted to start at a place where you spoke about in the third interview I think that we had we have we do two interviews for good weekend profiles and then a factchecking interview and in the last interview that we had together you you spoke about this new album that's coming out next week the second act and you talked about making it in uh a a dark house at night quiet house after the kids had gone to bed and you said that it was an image that stayed with me like you had a whiskey on the piano and and you said that that this house this dark quiet house held the weight of the songs that you were trying to convey can you talk a bit about that yeah I guess when I set out to record the album I wanted it to be um I wanted it to reflect the mood and the place the feeling of place of where I wrote the song so I wrote the song yeah just in a little room at the back of my house um and it was very always very quiet cuz it was always late at night and um when I was recording the demos I just record demos into my phone I had to do I had to sing the songs in a kind of a whisper because I didn't want to wake the kids up and yes I often had a glass of whiskey top of the piano because it helped me get into the mood and uh yeah that was the same as when I was writing the songs you know like I uh I think I was going through such a tough time that that Mo that you know those few hours at the end of the night once the kids had gone to sleep that was my my time to be by myself and reflect and just kind of let go a little bit so um yeah when it came time to recording it I just wanted to do the same thing because there was something really so intimate about the demos and the way that they ended up sounding and the songs are so uh they're just they're such a vulnerable quality to them I guess I didn't want to lose that by kind of schmicking up the production too much yeah this is a Missy that's kind of a Missy Higgins that's going almost hacking back to the Missy Higgins that did the sound of white like a very different person in a very different time of your life but there's this emotional kind of the album is so raw um did do you feel that is that what you sort of felt like yeah there's a real I mean when I finished recording this album I realized that there was a real parallel between my first album and this one in that I don't think any of my albums in between have been as raw and as honest and vulnerable and kind of unselfconscious too I think when I was writing for the sound of white you know most of them were written as a teenager in my bedroom not ever imagining that someone would ever hear them so I never had that in the back of my head and with these songs I didn't either because they all came from such a place of just like desperation to to figure out what these kind of hard emotions were that were all coming up in me like trying to move on from heartbreak and trying to figure out what the rest of my life was going to look like as a single mom and trying to to rewrite the story for myself that had been you know my old one had been burnt to the ground so I needed to you know figure out what came next and um I wasn't thinking about an audience I wasn't thinking about anyone listening to these songs or judging them or if they'd make it on the radio I just needed to untangle everything that was inside me yeah I mean the album is not I think your manager when I interviewed him he said this is not an album of like Revenge songs or like it's not you know Alanis Moret Jagged Little Pill or ol Olivia rodri Rodriguez um what's what's her I can't remember the name of s SB yeah not at all it's actually not about my marriage at all or that relationship or my ex-husband like it's it's very much about me moving on and try to trying to figure out yeah what my new identity is going to be and finding myself in a place that I had never planned for which you know I guess no one really ever plans to yeah get divorced and be a single mom um and I yeah I just found myself really really lost so this album was a way of trying to kind of dig myself out of that place bit by bit song by song yeah and we talked a lot about this in the interview VI but your song's the story for the ages is really about like what we think about taking on marriage as this this story that we're part of and it's going to be forever and then what happens when it falls apart and trying to Grapple grapple with that um and I think yeah I think we talked we talked a lot about how you particularly looked at your parents for a an example of a marriage that was very strong and stable that provided you with that stability and then how you feel now and grappling with that as well yeah I think growing up in a family that was very just very strong and together and I don't know we we always kind of prided ourselves on being a really close family um having these family dinners and I don't know I guess I just always held my mom and dad's marriage in really high regard you know as life goals um and and I wanted that for my kids as well I wanted a really together family you know that lasted the test of time and um I was yeah I was just so I guess I was just so disappointed in myself for somehow not making that happen and and not making it work and so I guess there was a lot of shame that I was grappling with and when I was writing these songs I I I was just yeah yeah trying to confront that head on and go what where's this shame coming from where's this guilt coming from and is it Justified or should I give myself a bit of a break there's a song called the second act which is the title track of the album where I I'm trying to tell myself to to go easy on myself you know that we're all we're all humans we're all kind of fumbling our way through and nobody knows what they're doing everyone's just acting well I think I'm ready ready the Turning of the wheel find fresh waters for these Old Wounds to heal all it tooky suceed I love your reflection about we put this value on forever um but it's a big thing to carry on your shoulders it is and then also I loved your reflection I think it was again in probably the last interview we had where you talked about maybe you know maybe it's better to have a couple of you know Soul nourishing relationships rather than long one long mediocre one yeah I think a lot of people settle settle for a long mediocre one to be honest yeah I think I just it's funny coming out the other side of it um you start noticing these kind of very strong kind of cultural obsessions that we have and one of them is longevity at all costs I think like staying in a marriage at all costs you know or staying with the one job you know everyone applauds that you know these people these old people who've been doing the same thing for 50 years or 60 years but no one seems to prioritize whether that person was actually happy doing that or feeling fulfilled you know it's all about did you stick it out you know it's this kind of hard work ethic that we've got so I just wish there'd been a bit more um yeah a bit more focus on on a really good quality relationship regardless of how long that lasts and I like the idea of looking at my marriage as this beautiful thing that lasted 9 years you know not this failure that only lasted 9 years absolutely N9 years is a long time it is it is um and we did it really well I think like we we had a great friendship and a lot of love for each other and we've managed to navigate the end of it really well too so I'm quite I'm quite proud of us in that respect yeah that I think that's that's lovely that the co-parenting relationship is morphed into a loving relationship as well it's that's important yeah I think so and I think that I can be proud of myself for that because um you know that that takes a lot of effort and it takes a lot of kind of compassion when you don't necessarily want to feel compassion you know like there can be resentment or anger bubbling up and you're like no we we've got to stay civil we've got to remain friends we've got to do this together even if it's tricky and so yeah we've we've we've maintained a really good kind of level of respect for each other I think throughout it all and I think both of us know that it's important that we remain a pretty like as close as possible for the kids sake yeah yeah uh was part of the piece I went to see your show at the pet that so this is such a special show because you're you're doing your new stuff in the beginning and then the entire sound of white your breakthrough album which was an absolute Mega selling album um so you do in the second act of the show you do the whole thing not not in order of the songs is it it's sort of a bit jumbled up it no yeah it's not quite in order of the the album it didn't really work for for a live show cuz you know scars right up the front of the album so I didn't want to play that first yeah and so what I loved um and as part of the article I spoke to Rachel Perkins your friend and filmmaker and she had the same thing that I had which was this just just loving watching people around us as they I mean as they cried and laughed and I cried and laughed I was just so I was so so shocked at times at how kind of B like raw and revealing you were on stage what has it been like on this tour you've done 40 shows to about 80,000 people now like what what's it been like yeah it's been like one massive therapy session to be honest like 5 months of therapy um if therapy was you know standing in front of a few thousand people and being applauded for expression expressing your emotions um yeah it's been so amazing I think it's been the most incredible tour I've ever done because it's not only playing my new music and telling these stories and anecdotes that are so raar and honest and kind of unflattering like I'm just talking about being a mess the whole time really in the First Act and then um you know singing songs about hating myself and things like that you know like it's not very I said to someone I was like it's not very sexy this new album like it's not like anyone's going to want to date me after this and then this and then there's an interval and then the second half is me playing the sound of white and we will only need each other we'll bleed together our hand will not be T to holding others cuz we're the special to and we could only see each other we'll breathe together These Arms will not be Tau to need others cuz we the special to [Music] and I've just been so blown away by the reaction to this anniversary tour like so many people have kind of come out of the woodwork and told me how important my first album was to them and even young singer songwriters kind of coming up now or telling me that I was an influence or that my first album was an influence on them and I really had no idea I mean I knew it was popular back in the day but I didn't realize that people still listen to that album or they still thought it was you know an important piece of work and yeah it's um it's changed my whole perspective on that album in what way like you appreciate it more or yeah I think I appreciate it more I mean I always appreciated it for kicking off my career and being the reason why you know um I was able to uh tour so much and keep on touring because of the success of of that album and build upon that but I appreciate it even more now because I realize that it's yeah it's it's stood the test of time for a lot of people and I I don't know why that album in particular but it has so it must have some sort of special quality to it and um you know there's a I almost don't feel responsible for it because I feel like a completely different person to who I was 20 years ago but I'm yeah I'm really grateful for it yeah I think it's fascinating because I had no idea that there was this group of totally rusted on Missy Higgins fans that really follow you around and they've really sustained your career I think because that you don't get played a lot on Commercial radio um but these I think it's something to do perhaps with the the honesty and vulnerability of the songs but also that these and they are they mostly are women but they're men too um who have had it kind of like I say into in the story like kind of you know it's part the neuro wirring of their CU they're in adolescence and it's all around there anyway and it's it's that you know those albums when you are just that this really important to you when you're a teenager or a late teenager and it becomes part of you know your brain almost I think maybe maybe it's about that but it was definitely em it was very emotional like I felt the the shows were emotional um partly because of the old stuff but also your new stuff like that that song about you know a complicated truth about having to tell your daughter about why you can't live with Daddy anymore was it's just people cry in the audience and I think they're crying for all sorts of different reasons what's what's your take on that yeah there's um there's there audible sobbing in the audience when I play that song it's quite it's quite intense can you paint the picture of the how you write that song and yeah I wrote that song um after my daughter had obviously some sort of she'd had some sort of realization um whether it was after reading her you know her fairy tales or her story books or maybe noticing the TV shows or the families at school not looking like ours and um she started asking why daddy couldn't live in the same house with us and she started asking about marriage and you know I explained to her what marriage was and what it meant and then and then was like well if you gave each other rings and made promises then how how can you just decide to not be married and break that promise and I was you know we were driving along in the car while she was asking me these questions from the back seat and my heart was just breaking and I really I didn't know really how to answer her in a way that a 5-year-old might understand um and it happened it happened a few times in a row um so yeah one of those days when she was when the kids were at their dad's house I had the house to myself and it was feeling particularly empty and it was a cold windy day outside and I just sat down at my piano and I thought I'm going to try and put into words what I couldn't say to her in the car the trees are swaying out the window and you're not with me today you're with him and that's okay that's okay I hope you're running around in circles hope you're laughing till you drop hope you're feeling safe I hope you're feeling loved the days are longer when you're not here I've been staring at the sky wondering what I used to do with all my time you're univers St and it took a long time to write that song because I really wanted to say it the right way and I knew that it would be a special thing for her to listen back to one day you know when she was old enough to understand but I was I was hoping that it might well for both my kids really I was hoping that it might um allow them to understand things from our perspective a little bit better but it's also works both ways I think it's like it were it sort of hits for parents who are struggling to to tell their kids a similar thing at the moment but also for those adults who were those children in the back seat do you think yeah there's a lot of um adults that come up to me or message me about that song and say you know I was I was sitting with my mom um during that song and we were both holding each other and crying and my mom was saying this is exactly what I felt you know when me and your father split up or um yeah there's there's a lot of kind of parent child relationships or but coming to my shows and and and then come kind of sitting in the audience and seeing themselves in that song um so yeah whether it's the child or the parent or you know someone who went through that a long time ago when they were young I find that a lot of people can can relate to [Music] [Music] it how do you feel being so vulnerable on stage how does that how does that feel for you um I think I've had a lot of practice over the years I think my songs have always been pretty vulnerable um pretty you know straight from the heart but I think over the last 20 years I've kind of I've started giving myself more and more on stage and I think as I've gotten older I've become more comfortable to really be myself completely up there and little by little I've found that the more real I can be the more it's appreciated you you know I've never been a kind of a character performer I've never been somebody who has a stage persona it's always been just me you know like my friends come to the shows and they're like yeah you're just yourself up there yeah um and I feel like with this album in particular it's so full-on and honest I kind of have to I have to preface it with a bit of a you know a Content warning or yeah well I don't know I feel like it's almost weird if if I was to be really kind of demure and quiet in between the songs and then just come out with this fullon like bearing my absolute guts to this to the audience if I don't kind of um chat to them like human beings or friends as well like it's got to be all part of the same show I think so so it feels like we're just otherwise it might feel a little bit uncomfortable like wow she just revealed so much and then she's really quiet and reserved in between songs like what's going on does she does she regret writing such an honest song is she shy about it so I need to let them know that it's okay I'm fine with the fact that I've I've admitted all this stuff in my songs because I'll chat to you about it like it's all part of the same thing it's all me you know yeah yeah and the other song that I really love is um you should run which is about dating I guess dating as a single mother really and like all of the all and and also this time of life you know like it's just not the same as it was that you you come as you say in the song like it's a package there's like two little humans and the house is messy and you know and also you can't make him or or her whatever number one it's it's really it's really tricky yeah there's quite a there's maybe four or five songs on the album about trying to date again after this big breakup and being a single mom because yeah it is so complicated and it's so messy and you feel like you're just bringing so much into the Rel like so much baggage and they're never going to be your priority and I think that's really hard for some people especially if they don't have kids it's really hard for them to accept that you're really not going to have that much time to see them especially during the week and it's all going to depend on you know whether you've got them whether you've got the kids or not and what your schedule's like and it's just your capacity for giving yourself to somebody else isn't like it was in your 20s when you were single you can't give you can't give a 100 100% no no and it's a shame because you know it's that's I remember that being such a beautiful feeling like you just fall completely into something you know before kids you could just you know immerse yourself in each other and just lie around in bed all day and just like stare into each other's eyes and get lost but it's just not that's just not life anymore so um yeah it takes a bit of adjusting yeah I wanted to talk briefly with you about the way that you manage your tour and your band uh because that sort of came up when I was talking to people about um how you do that you've got a lot of you make a real effort to um include women who have young kids it's almost like you had a a band full of pregnant people for a while and now we've got a crash backstage so how does that work what do you do to make that work yeah I just um well I know that a lot of women um when they get pregnant in my industry people stop calling and they stop hiring them for tours they stop even asking if they want to do it um but I I made a concerted effort to not only like ask if they wanted to do it when they were pregnant also when they had newborns but encourage them and say you know we'll I'll pay for a nanny you know we'll we'll get you a separate car with a car seat and just kind of make it as um doable for them as possible um because I know that it can get really really hard and you can feel a bit invisible once you start once you're pregnant then you have a kid because people think you're just not able to do the things that you did before and yeah it can be harder I mean you've got a baby in toe and that's not always easy but it can be a beautiful experience taking your kid on the road and having them with you and you know when they're really young you can do that because they don't have to go to school so it can be a special time and because there's so many women in my band we all just we all just love it and we all love having kids backstage and you know sometimes everybody has their kid at a show so sound Che is literally like there's more kids on stage than there is grown-ups but um yeah it's really it's really sweet I love it it brings a really good vibe to the to the to Backstage and also probably does extend the career of some of your band members were saying well one of them was saying that she didn't even know whether as a touring session musician that she would have a career after after kids yeah because historically it's been you know a time when women do disappear and people stop calling and um once that happens for a few years you just get out of the loop and so people people just don't think you're available anymore and um it's something it's one of those things where you just kind of you kind of have to stay in it in order to have that longevity so women don't that you know a lot of the time they don't want to take that time off because they want to still be able to do it in you know in 10 years time or 15 years time but in order to do that they've got to make sure that people know that they're they're still a touring musician so um Missy you've now finished these 40 shows what's next for you what's next is well because all the the shows sold out which is kind of mind-blowing in itself um we have decided to put on a bunch of uh big shows at the end of the year so like half a dozen Encore shows so that anyone that missed out on tickets could hopefully come to one of those and we're playing at the Sydney may music ball and the Sydney Opera House for court so some really beautiful venues so hopefully anyone that didn't manage to get to one of these 40 shows can come to one of those at the end of the year and the other thing I wanted to talk to you about was you were talking about um your Reflections you you turned 40 last year that you've started to sort of think a bit about women aging and how that affects women who are um who are middle-aged yeah I mean maybe it happens to everyone once they turn 40 but you start you start kind of reflecting on um the fact that you're starting to not look like you did and you're starting to not look like all the other um the the younger generation of female singers doing what you are doing and uh yeah I'm I'm grappling with it a little bit because it's there is this kind of cultural obsession with women staying the same age and um and not being desirable anymore once they start to get wrinkles and they start to Sag a bit whereas men seem to stay Desir once they get wrinkles and start to Sag it doesn't seem to matter um in society's eyes that that men age they still remain kind of sexy and and um it's quite confronting as a woman to be like okay I'm moving into that age where um people start uh treating you differently and it's not so much it yeah you you're moving into kind of a different category I mean I've never I've never used my I feel lucky that I've never used my body or sex appeal I don't think to to sell music which I'm glad about because there's a time limit on that whereas there's not a time limit on your brain or Your Capacity to like make good music so I feel I'm glad that I didn't do that um because now I don't have to worry so much about like maintaining my sexiness or my like bikini body to in my video shoots um but I think any woman moving into their 40s is yeah is confronted with that and it's it's a conscious decision to go I'm going to I'm going to talk to myself with compassion I'm going to talk to myself to my reflection in the mirror in a way that I would want my child to talk to themselves and I'm going to especially when you have a daughter like I'm looking at my daughter and going I've really got to learn to love myself no matter what I look like so that I'm modeling that for her cuz if I'm always kind of criticizing myself or I'm I'm moaning about getting older then she's going to be terrified about getting older as well so she's going to you know she's going to adapt or she's going to adopt those um kind of negative feelings towards your so yeah I think having a daughter and also just moving into this stage of my life is kind of there's a lot of conscious kind talking that I have to do to myself yes I which isn't always easy but like every day I'm trying to remind myself that it's important yeah yeah and lastly Missy I was wondering where you are at now like you said this has been like a f month therapy session and you've sort of um come out the other side you've had all these people come to your shows you've been it must be so bizarre doing your that that kind of teenage Missy Missy Higgins and the the sort of 41y old Missy Higgins material but where where are you at now do you feel like you have any answers to the questions that you're posing around midlife and these sorts of crises that we Face often in this this weird as you said the weird middle act I think you you said was one of your quotes yeah the in between between between no I don't have any answers I guess my the only thing I've figured out is that there isn't really any answers I think there's kind of a WI a wisdom to you know coming to that realization that it's all just everyone's just fumbling their way through and I've leared I think over the course of the last five months that time will just do whatever it wants to do with you and there's no forcing yourself to be at a stage you're not and there's no forcing yourself to be ready for something if you're not like I can't force myself to be completely over the Heartbreak and and really confident and empowered for the next stage if I'm not feeling that yet but it'll probably come and I'm getting closer to that and the last 5 months has definitely helped get me closer to that I don't think I'm grieving anymore um I actually feel like I'm like I'm in a really good place right now because I'm not I'm I'm really enjoying just being by myself I don't feel like I need a relationship at all in fact I think it's probably much better to not because I don't have any time or space and that's kind of stressful the thought of trying to make time for someone else um and I'm putting any extra energy I have into just trying to be the best mom that I can um especially after 5 months of touring and not being there as much as I would have liked um but yeah I think that the last 5 months has helped me move through the difficult grieving stage and be more prepared for I guess the unknown future and accepting that I'm never going to know what's going to happen tomorrow but kind of being okay with that you know I don't have to write my I don't have to write a story for myself cuz if I did you know I'd just be disappointed that it didn't come true so just take whatever happens and always be open to new experiences that's my current motto thanks Missy for coming in um it's been lovely talking to you over various times now so thank we've had quite a lot of big chats now we've gone deep we have so thanks for coming in Missy no worries thank [Music] you good weekend talks is brought to you by the Sydney Morning Herald and the age so subscriptions power our newsrooms to support independent journalism search subscribe Sydney Morning Herald or the age and if you enjoyed this episode please remember to subscribe rate and comment wherever you get your podcasts this episode of good weekend talks is produced by Chi Wong editing from Conrad Marshall Tom mckendrick is head of audio and Katrina Strickland is the editor of good weekend