September 11, 2024 • 52 mins
Welcome to the first episode of Season Four of But Are You Happy.
In this episode, Clare Stephens sits down with one of her idols, Missy Higgins—the Australian musician whose emotive songwriting has deeply connected with so many people.
They discuss prioritising happiness over expectations, navigating a new phase of life, and how music can be therapeutic when processing pain. Missy shares how creating her latest album, The Second Act, has helped her heal.
Is Missy Higgins happy? You’ll have to listen to find out.
We’re releasing this episode on R U OK? Day, a day dedicated to encouraging connection and open conversations about mental health. You can find helpful resources here.
THE END BITS
- Missy Higgins’ new album ‘The Second Act’ is out now. Listen here.
- You can find all the dates and information about her tour here.
- Missy will be inducted into the ARIA Hall Of Fame on November 20.
GET IN TOUCH:
Send us a voice message or email us at podcast@mamamia.com.au to share your feedback about the show or to suggest a guest.
CREDITS:
Host: Clare Stephens
Guest: Missy Higgins
Executive Producer: Naima Brown
Audio Producer: Scott Stronach
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
Support the show: https://www.mamamia.com.au/mplus/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Mamma Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and
waters that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Somehow along the way, I'd made really bad decisions, or
I'd not been strong enough, or something like that, and
so I was dealing with so much shame. And as
soon as I sat down at the piano, the first
line I sung was it was never meant to be
like this. It was never meant to be like this.
And I just sang that line over and over again
and cried because it just opened up something in me.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Hello, and welcome to but Are You Happy? The podcast
that asked the questions you've always wanted to know from
the people who appear to have it all. I'm Claire Stevens,
and on today's episode, I'm talking to somebody who I
was very nervous to share a room with because she's
the person who wrote the words and the score to
(01:07):
My emotional Journey to adulthood. Missy Higgins is a multi
award winning singer songwriter whose raw and vulnerable songs have
made her a timeless icon. In the last few years,
she's started to talk more openly about her personal life,
and she's revealed the complicated reality behind the very talented,
(01:30):
very famous, and very young woman who became a household
name just a few years after she'd finished school. Missy
Higgins navigated depression, heartbreak, her sexuality, writer's block, a crisis
of meaning, motherhood, and separation in the public eye. And
here we talk about the tricky work of finding happiness. Thursday,
(01:54):
the twelfth of September is r UOK Day, and I
hope this conversation is a reminder of the fact that
luks can be deceiving, and things can be more complex
under the surface, and how crucial it is to ask
the people around you if they're actually really okay. Here's
Missy Higgins. I wanted to start by asking whether you
(02:18):
had a happy childhood.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I did have a happy childhood. Actually, I had a
really happy childhood.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
I mean, as far as my home family life goes,
my family was really really close and always felt like
a very secure grounding place for me.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
They were my safe place. I remember I was a really.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Outgoing kid until I turned about six, and then I
started to get very introspective and introverted, and then I
struggled at school a bit. I remember wanting to switch schools,
and when my mum finally.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Agreed, I literally walked.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Out of my primary school with my backpack without looking back,
didn't say goodbye to anyone. I was like good riddance,
and then I started somewhere else that I really enjoyed.
But I do remember in high school feeling like I
was very different from everybody else. All my diary entries
were like was I born on another planet? Like why
(03:13):
do I feel like such an alien? And why am
I so different? And I mean probably every teenage girl
was writing the same things in their diary, But I
struggled on and off with feeling a little bit different
from everybody else and a little bit like I couldn't
quite find my place.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And when you were in later high school, you had
an episode of depression, and you found out that your
dad and some people in his family had experienced it
as well. Do you think you could tell that growing up?
Could you tell that your dad struggled with happiness at all?
Speaker 1 (03:51):
No?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
That was the thing that was the thing that shocked me.
I had this breakdown in year eleven where I literally
collapsed and they couldn't wake me up, and I had
to go to hospital. I was semi conscious, so I
do remember it, which is weird, but I couldn't open
my eyes.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
I was like locked in my body.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
But I remember having a conversation with him after that, saying,
think I'm depressed, and depressed or depression back then was
not a word that everybody used like they did now.
It was a little bit like it was almost like
a very medical term, and not many people talked about it.
And I said that to him, and he was just
quiet for a bit, and then he said, well, I
think it's probably about time that I told you that.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
I've had it to.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
My whole adult life, and I've been medicated on and off,
and it's in our family. Our family have struggled with
it for generations. And I was so so taken aback
when he told me that, because he'd always been like
father Christmas in a way. Dad was just the loveliest, warmest,
happiest person who was always just so thrilled to see
(04:54):
his kids every day when he came home from school.
I remember running up the hallway to meet him and
hold on to his legs as soon as he came
in the door. I remember the sound of the garage
door coming up and his car coming in every day.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
So when he told me that, I was really really surprised.
And it's also the thing of like, oh, my parents
are humans and they've got a whole inner world. It
was really the first time that I learned that about him.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Do you think it connected you to him in a
different way, understanding like an emotional reality that you haven't seen.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah, definitely, I think so.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I mean I felt a bit unstable, I think at
first hearing that, because I was like, well, You're supposed
to be the rock for me, you know, like you're
supposed to be the one that has it all together,
and now do I have to look back at my
whole childhood and go, oh, my dad was just pretending
Or there was that whole kind of feeling of like
being on unstable ground for a bit. But then once
(05:50):
I thought about it in a much more mature way,
I realized that now we can talk about it together,
and now we can kind of support each other like friends.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
You then went on medication, and would you have been
on medication when you wrote the Sound of White.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah, I've been on medication when I've written all of
my albums, which there's only a very small racket of
my adult life that I haven't been on medication.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Which I find I think that's actually quite moving to know,
because some of the stigma around medication can be that
it dulls or numbs or emotions. And to me, I'm like, well,
clearly you have access to the full range of human emotions.
If you've written such powerful music while on medication, have
you ever felt that it's dulled or kind of MUTI I.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Mean, the thing is, it's different for everybody, and some
people I hear it does do that for them and
they feel a bit zonked out. But most artistic people
I know who suffer from depression get so crippled by
their depression that they can't write and they're in a
kind of haze or malaise. And that's what I was like,
(07:00):
if I'm depressed, I can't get out of bed, let alone,
go and sit at the piano and you know, pour
my heart out. I don't want to speak to anyone.
I don't want to express my feeling. I'm sure there
are people that are different that are like, no, I
need to be miserable in order to write, But I
can definitely still be miserable on antidepressants, You're like, don't worry.
Regularly miserable, but not so miserable that I can't function.
(07:25):
I've always said, it makes me feel like I can
get my head just above water in order to breathe,
and then I can get on with doing the things
that you need to do in order to fix yourself,
like exercise and see people and eat well. But if
I'm not, then I just fall into this hole that
I can't sink to get myself out of.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
To me, it can feel like I think the biggest
thing with depression that maybe if you had never experienced
it you wouldn't know, is that it's about energy. It
can feel like you just have absolutely no energy, and
to me, medication can provide just that little bit of
energy to then get momentum. And once you have momentum,
it's a lot easier to get out of bed and
(08:06):
do the things that give you some joy.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah. Absolutely, it makes me feel like I'm made of concrete. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
And I remember in my mid twenties I tried. I
tried to go off the meds, which I do pretty regularly,
just to see if I can do it. And it
works for a while, but then I always end up
having to go back, but I tried for a couple
of years to go off them, and I went on
this massive, big journey of self discovery, reading all these
wellness books about I don't know. I thought spiritually, I
(08:35):
must not have just found myself. So I went to
India and I meditated, and I went to Brazil and
down the Amazon, and I stayed with you know, an
inca village of people, and I tried to find myself
in all these exotic places. But I was actually miserable
while I was doing it all. I mean, I felt
(08:56):
everything extremely as I was doing it. I felt extreme
high as and extreme lows. But it was a very
hard time, and it was a very unstable time.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Do you think of yourself in terms of depression? Do
you think of it as you have depressive episodes or
do you think there's such thing as a depressive personality?
Do you see depression as part of who you are
or distinct from who you are?
Speaker 3 (09:21):
I see it as part of who I am, despite
not wanting it to be who I am. But I
think looking at the patterns over the past fourteen fifteen, sorry,
hang on now, I'm older than that. Twenty four twenty
five years Jesus Christ. I think the ups and downs
are part of who I am, and I think I've
(09:42):
tried to fight it for so long, and I think
that's probably part of the problem. I think what's helped
as I've gotten older is realizing that it's just something
that's going to pass through if I don't fight it
too much. And also, I think the shame of it
and the denial of it is what prolongs it. So
if I just go, oh, God, all right, I'm heading
(10:02):
into a bit of a dark period, and I kind
of go easy on myself about that and don't beerate
myself for it, and let myself stay in bed for
a while, then it passes through much more quickly than
if I'm hating myself for being depressed on top of it.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, you released the Sound of White and your profile
just exploded. You were everywhere, and I imagine to you
it felt like it was quite quick because you won
Triple J on Earthed, but then went overseas and then
(10:40):
came back and everything just went nuts. Did fame feel
how you expected it to feel?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
To be honest, I'm not sure I ever tried to
imagine what fame would feel like. Because it happened so
young and so quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Were you thinking about as a teenage girl being like,
but what would it feel like to be famous?
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I don't think I really was.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
All I was thinking about was what would it feel
like to sing in front of a lot of people?
Because that's what I wanted to do. I loved performing
so much. I was like, and I was singing a
lot of cover songs and jazz songs. I was like,
what would it feel like to sing in front of
four hundred people? And because I got such a rush
from singing in front of a small crowd, I thought,
imagine if it was a big crowd, how much of
(11:21):
a rush that would be. But I never thought about
being famous. So when that happened, it really took me
by surprise. And I think the fact that I was
introverted and pretty private that was a hard thing to
get accustomed to, and it took me many, many years
(11:42):
to become accustomed to it.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
It was a different kind of fame when your music
first really hit Australian audiences, I feel like it was
right now we've got more of like a fractured idea
of fame because we're all watching different things. We're on
different platforms. There are people who are famous that I've
never heard of, and people you might think are famous.
But in the era where it was you, you were
(12:08):
a household name, people would just absolutely obsessed with Missy Higgins.
How did it feel to like walk down the street.
Is there a sort of self consciousness that comes up
when you know people know who you are? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
I remember seeing a therapist quite a lot back in
those days and just saying, I'd become so paranoid about
people recognizing me that I was hearing my name everywhere,
And because Missy has two s's in it, anytime anyone
was talking and I could hear the s, I always
just thought, oh my god, the same Missy, the same Missy.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
So I became kind of hyper aware slash paranoid about it.
And Yeah, it just made me really anxious. And I
don't like being looked at or talked about. And I'd
just come out of a pretty toxic relationship to where
the guy I was with was really ridiculing me and
my music and made me feel really horrible about myself.
(13:04):
So in my mind I was projecting that those people
were saying really horrible things about me and ridiculing me.
So yeah, it became really hard to leave the house.
Paris Hilton was big at the time. She had these
big black glasses.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yeah, and I bought exact same ones. It was just
so embarrassing to look back on.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
But I left the house in that and you just
look so much more like you're a famous face and
trying to hide behind these glasses. But yeah, I did
that just not wanting to be noticed. I'm not sure
it worked.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So sound of white goes absolutely nuts. Do the people
that are already in your life, like friends from school
or acquaintances that you weren't that close to, do people
behave differently to you? Does it change the nature of
your relationships?
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah? Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I mean I think I'm a pretty good judge of
character and I always have been, so I remember feeling
like I can tell the people that are being genuine
to me because they are genuinely nice people, and the
people who were you just sick of fanting. But it
was a strange thing to get used to. I remember
when I went to America a couple of years later,
(14:13):
I was.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Like, oh my god, people are being rude to me.
It's awesome.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
It was this like there was this authentic interaction that
I was having with people for the first time in
so long that it was kind of jarring at first,
but then refreshing because.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
People in the industry or like social.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Interactions literally, you know, at the corner store.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, Americans can be rude.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
But it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
It wasn't really that they were being rude. It was
a normal interaction. They didn't give a shit about me,
because why would you. I'm just a customer. But I
was used to people going.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Oh, hello, yes, what can I do to help you,
which is pretty strange for that to start happening all
of a sudden when you're just a nobody.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah, do you think you develop an ego?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I didn't because I thought that they were all a
bit weird for doing that. Like I just thought that
those people must have an issue. There must be something
wrong with those people if they're being around me. And
also they just felt like such a distinction and a
separation between the Missy Higgins that they thought I was
and the Missy Higgins I knew that I was.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
It was like they were looking at this.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Mirage that was superimposed over my face when they were
looking at me.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Which is probably a really healthy way to look at fame.
Like that's probably if someone were to analyze it, it
is that idea of like there's the actual you and
there's a projection of you, and that projection has nothing
to do with who you actually are.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
I think it's probably good.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah, yeah, I can't remember anybody ever saying anything negative
about miss Higgins in that era, and I can remember
all the media coverage being really really positive. But I
can imagine that the Internet was kind of around, and
I can imagine that there would have been things that
weren't that nice. How did you take that on? And
(16:04):
were you able to separate yourself from what people were
saying about you?
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Well, that's the kind of ironic thing, is that I
didn't take on any of the nice things. But yeah,
whenever I heard anything negative, it was like I couldn't
sleep for days and it was all that I could
think about. And I still remember the negative things that
were said about me.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
What do people say?
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Well, I remember the early days of Internet. There were forums,
like I guess there's forums now on Reddit and stuff
was when I read it.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Back then, there was.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Like specific websites that were set up as fan forums,
and I had one, and in that website there was
like different categories of Miss Higgins that you could talk
about and dissect, and I had I think it was
maybe my second album ish where I had changed my
(16:54):
live band, I'd swapped some of the musicians out to
be different players. And my hardcore fans that felt this
sense of ownership because they'd been with me since the beginning,
since before the Sound of White, they would not stand
for it. They just thought I'd changed, and they were
picking apart the way that I spoke to the audience
and how I sounded up myself, just the fact that
(17:17):
I had dared to evolve without consulting them first. They
were just livid and they were just tearing me apart.
And I remember I literally didn't leave the house for
two days after that. I just fell into such a
deep depression. And yeah, it wasn't that long after that
where I had a talk with my manager about it,
and he's just like, you just can't read that stuff.
(17:40):
And I don't think I've googled myself since really, yeah,
in over twenty years, I just will not look up myself.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I don't want to read reviews.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
I don't want to read articles unless somebody literally sends
me at going, this is very flattering. You should read
this about yourself. I'm not going to do it because
I'm just too sensitive. I think I just take too
much of it on board.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Do you ever come across stuff accidentally or.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Like comm comments?
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, but I tried. They don't happen very
much on Instagram. I find I don't ever look on
Facebook because the algorithm means that people that aren't following
me can see it, which means that there's always going
to people that don't like what I'm doing. I definitely
don't go on Twitter because that's a fucking binfire.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I one should go on Twitter, ever.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
And so I've found that because people following me, they're
usually pretty supportive on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
What's the kind of stuff that I find that when
you're kind of doing anything creative, there's certain things people
can say that just doesn't affect you. You're like, okay, cool,
I'm not for you. That's all good, But then there
are certain things that really do cut through. And what
you say about the band was the thing that was
(18:52):
upsetting the fact that people were like assuming your intention
or assuming the fact that you thought you were too
good or what like? What was it about that that
was hurtful?
Speaker 3 (19:03):
I think at that point in my career, I was
starting to get a bit jaded, because I was feeling
very scrutiny and very judged at that point because so
many people were having opinions about me and my image
and my sexuality and just wanting to know way too
much about me. I was already in this state of
(19:25):
defense the entire time, and so I do remember that
show in particular that they commented on I was feeling
a bit like, maybe a bit resentful, and I think
that was probably coming through I wasn't in a great place,
and so then writing that not only validated my kind
of fear of being torn apart publicly, but it also
(19:46):
made me realize that there was probably a truth to it,
because I wasn't being my best and I was a
little bit resentful towards the audience, and I don't know,
I didn't really know what to do about that.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
I was in a kind of a bit of a
loop feedback loop.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
When you are incredibly successful, money often follows did money
change your lif life? From your music and you're touring
around America. I can imagine you had more money than
other people your age who you might have grown up with.
Did it make you happy?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
I do remember getting a big check. I think it
was maybe about a year after the Sound of White
came out, and I was like, I could buy a
house and I'm twenty one. Oh, and it was this real,
like oh my god, what has happened to my life
kind of thing. But I was also on this, you know,
I was still riding the roller coaster of how the
(20:43):
hell am I at this point at such a young
age and successful album and famous and all that kind
of stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
So yeah, I was pretty stoked.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I think the fact that I had managed to make
a career out of music when my dad had always
told me, he was always supportive of it. He always said,
you need to get a UNI degree. At the very least,
go and get an arts degree so you have something
to fall back on, you know, if you're going to
do music, kind of implying that it's almost impossible to
(21:14):
make a career out of music.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
And then when that happened, I was like, I think
I've done it.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
I think that this means that I can probably keep
doing it for the rest of my life, so it
kind of, yeah, it felt extremely gratifying that I could
relax about having to get a back up job or
have a backup plan.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Did you spend it on exciting things like when you're twenty?
I can't imagine having access to any kind of I
bought a house.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I put a down payment on a house.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I should say, oh my gosh, not even stupid clothes
or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
No. I was never a closed person, That's the thing.
I was never a things person. But I bought a
little unit and my sister and I moved into it
and it was just the best feeling ever.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
After the break, Missy opens up about how grief and
shame inspired her new album and why her music holds
so much significance to her. I have a theory that
the world lies to us a bit about happiness, and
(22:17):
sometimes it's those moments that are really shiny and exciting
from the outside that actually aren't on the inside. And
kind of the way we live now, especially on social media,
where people are flattened to two dimensional images, it kind
of exacerbates that. Do you have an example of a
time where the world would have thought you were happy
(22:40):
and you weren't well.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
I guess it's tricky with me because most of my
songs are miserable. So I don't know if anyone thinks
that I'm happy but you're it's probably the opposite for me.
People think I'm miserable, but I'm actually most of the
time quite a happy person.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
I mean, like I was talking about before, in the
early days in my early twenties, with those first couple
of albums, when I was touring America, I did so
many shows in the space of a year. I think
that I completely burnt myself out. But I was finally
getting somewhere over there, Like I went gold with my
(23:18):
second album, and that was something that I'd been building
up for. I'd been doing so many shows, I've been
working so hard for it, and everybody at the record
label was applauding it, and it's like, let's use this
as a springboard for the next album. And it got
to that point I was like, Nah, sorry, I can't
do another album. I'm completely burnt out. I've been touring
(23:41):
for so long that I have nothing to write about
apart from touring the road. How many songs can you
write about wheels on the road? Two of us is Yeah,
I hadn't had any relationships and had no breakups to
write about. I felt like I'd been in this yeah,
this weird loop for at least two and a half
(24:01):
years touring that album, and I had to give it
all up.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I tried writing. I tried for two years to write
for my third album. Thing came.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
I remember hiring this tiny little room above a flower
shop in Northcote in Melbourne and going there every day
thinking I was nick Cave with my briefcase and my suit,
treating it like a job, treating it like a nine
to five, and it still didn't work. And after two
years of that, I just I took my manager out
(24:32):
for lunch and I told him that I had just
nothing left.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
I couldn't write. I was miserable.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yes, I'd reached a level of success in Australia and
America that you know, I could have only dreamed of,
but I wasn't happy.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Do you think the success was paralyzing like when you
were trying to write and you couldn't. Was it that
you felt like you had nothing to write about? Or
was it that you were aware that whatever you wrote
would be heard by so many people? And there was
pressure on it in a way.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
That Yeah, I think I felt very scrutinized from every direction,
like in my personal life and with my music. There
was a massive amount of pressure to back that up
with another successful album. But I think it probably came
down to the fact that I just I didn't enjoy
what I did anymore, Like I didn't enjoy playing live
(25:24):
shows anymore because of the fact that I had been
doing it for too long without a break. You know,
if you do anything for too long without a break,
you don't appreciate it. And all I really needed to
do was to find a better balance, I think, but
I'd gone too hard and I hadn't said no to anything,
(25:44):
like whatever the US record label wanted me to do,
I'd said yes too. It was too much. I wasn't
listening to myself at that point. I think I didn't
have any idea how to tune into my mental health
and go, hey, you probably need to just step back
for a bit because you're getting a bit burnt out.
It was like, no, you're burnt out, but you got
(26:04):
to keep going because this is the business. You're in
the business now, and there's a massive label that is
writing on this album being successful. So I think I
just became part of a huge machine and it just
started to feel very gross and impersonal and it sucked
all of the love out of music for me.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
You've said that you also worried that music was selfish
and you weren't contributing enough to the world. It's funny
you're not the first musician, Like we've had another musician
on this show who said that, And I think it's
interesting that musicians say it because I think there's like
an emotional intelligence slash depth that makes you constantly question
(26:48):
your place in the world. Whereas I think it's funny.
I think a lot of say influences aren't questioning.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Yeah, I'm very influential. I must be effectively the world positively.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
But it's interesting that you do kind of grapple with that,
like have a crisis of meaning and you went and
tried to do other things. It came back to music,
and it was a bit of a weird like the
universe was directing you back to music. With Sarah McLaughlan
and the opportunity you got in terms of music and
(27:23):
whether it's selfish, How do you feel about that now?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
I feel like yes, it's selfish, but that's completely okay,
and ultimately that's kind of what helps people the most.
Meaning if you write music from a completely selfish place,
it has a better chance of really hitting home for
somebody because you're not trying to make anything that sells.
(27:48):
You're not trying to make something that as many people
as possible can relate to. You're just being honest, and
honest is the thing that cuts through, and authenticity is
the thing that people need most. And if ever I'm
going through something really really difficult and I find a
way to put it into words, if someone can hear
(28:08):
that song and feel not so alone in whatever they're
going through, then that's great. So I think it's okay
to be selfish. But I think it's also important to
realize that art is what the world needs most, an honest,
authentic art where people are not putting under pretense of
(28:29):
I've got it all sorted out and I'm really strong
and powerful and wise, and this is how you should
live your life. You know, I don't want to tell
anybody how to live their life. I think that would
be really disingenuous because I have no idea. So I'm
not going to pretend. The more people that do that,
I think the better the more people that stop pretending
and just go.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Oh my god, how hard is life like? This life thing?
Speaker 3 (28:52):
It's really bloody hard, guys that you agree, Yeah, And
with this new album, I just I didn't think about
an audience. I sat down because I was really really
trying to grapple with the fact my marriage had fallen
apart and all I ever wanted was to find someone
to be with forever and stay as a family unit forever.
(29:14):
And I felt like such a failure for that not happening,
and I felt like it was my responsibility to keep
the family together. And somehow along the way I'd made
really bad decisions or I'd not been strong enough, or
something like that, and so I was dealing with so
much shame. And as soon as I sat down at
the piano, the first line I sung, it was never
(29:38):
meant to be like this, It was never meant to
be like this, And I just sang that line over
and over again and cried because it just opened up
something in me, and I realized, oh, that's it for me.
The biggest tragedy here is that my narrative that I
had for myself has burnt to the ground, and now
I have no narrative and I feel completely lost. And
(30:00):
as I kept writing every song, something else in me
opened up, and I realized something else about my shame
or my grief, and I tackled it from a different
ang and it helped me so much. And now that
I've released it and I've played these songs live, I
can feel that they connect with other people that are
(30:22):
going through exactly the same thing. But that wasn't what
I intended when I sat down to write it. I
think if I had sat down and thought, how am
I going to help people that are going through the
same thing as me, I would have probably written a
song full of these fake answers that I didn't have,
and that would have people wouldn't have felt the power
in them. I don't think they wouldn't have felt the
(30:44):
songs deep in their heart because they would have known
that it wasn't authentically in my story.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
It feels that your album The Second Act almost feels
like uncharted territory artistically, which seems so bizarre when we
know that a huge number of women who are in
their thirties, forties fifty sixty marriages have ended. Why do
(31:13):
you think there's such shame? Why do you think you
felt such shame?
Speaker 3 (31:17):
I don't know, but I know it has something to
do with being a woman and feeling like it's our
responsibility to make sure everyone is okay and keep everyone together,
keep everyone happy. I definitely felt like I was the
one that should have tried harder to make it work,
and somehow I failed to give my kids the family
(31:41):
that I.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Grew up with.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
And as far as why people haven't written songs about
it before, I don't really know. I think I do
feel like there is that pressure as a songwriter and
as an artist to come up with songs that do
sound more empowered. As a woman, I think there's that
vulnerability and fragility that you don't really want to admit to,
(32:07):
and I think in the back of your head, you're like,
no one wants to hear how miserable I am, and
no one wants to hear about divorce. No one wants
to hear about being a forty year old single mum.
Like it's not sexy. The radios aren't going to play this.
But I guess I'm privileged to be at a point
in my career where one nobody plays me on the
radio anyway, but I don't need that because.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Who listens to the radio anyone?
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Sorry, But I mean, I just think that I feel
really lucky to have a fan base that have followed
me through my whole career and still want to hear
what I have to say and what I put out.
So I don't know, I think I felt like I
didn't have to cater to anybody because I'm comfortable. I
(32:54):
don't need to sell too many units in order to
kind of put food on my kid's table. I can
just write what I want at this point in my life,
and I feel like I probably have enough validation and
enough confidence in myself as an artist. I have enough
fans that have followed me my whole career that I
trust that they'll be there for this one. And I know,
(33:16):
I know that there's going to be so many people
that relate to it, because, as you said, it's it's
non original thing.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And it is. I said at the beginning of this
that for me, you've been this, you know, soundtrack to
my life, and it's eerie how much what you write
about has always mirrored where I am, and that is
not unique to me, that is why you're so incredibly successful.
But I have friends who say, if you think your
(33:42):
relationship is good, have a child, and it's like putting
it into a blender. That's how she describes it, that
the first year after having a childhood's like putting a
relationship into a blender. How have you gone about thinking
about happiness and making decisions? Like the decision to separate?
(34:04):
Was that about prioritizing your happiness?
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, that's all it was about.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
I mean my happiness and my partner's happiness. We were
both miserable and had been for a while, and we
just looked at each other and went It started off
with I think that we should live in separate houses,
and then that kind of slowly progressed to well, I
mean we're living in separate houses. We're pretty much separated,
and yeah, throwing kids into the mix. I think what's
(34:31):
tricky about having kids with somebody is you have no
idea what the other person's going to be like, has.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
No idea, You have no idea. You think that you do.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
You think you're like, they're a really good person. They're
crying with kids.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Yeah, yeah, And I'm not saying that to say my
partner's a bad dad because he's an excellent dad, But
you have to have the same parenting style as that
person as well, And depending on how you grew up,
how you were parented, you're going to have different ideas
of discipline, what to do when a child's kind of
loud and messy and chaotic, and how to handle that.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
And I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
I think in the end, we just went, is this
going to be easier if we're not in same house together, Like,
if we can do this on our own, separately, And
ultimately that's going to be better for the kids because
it's going to make happier parents and it's going to
make calmer parents. And what they need is as much
stability as we can possibly give them. And we realized
that it's going to make for a much more stable
(35:30):
vibe at home if we can do it separately.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
One of the songs on your album is called Blue
Velvet Dress, and it's about you performing on New Year's
Eve and it's kind of that tension between how things
look on the outside and what was going on behind
the scenes. Can you tell us the story of what
was happening that night when you're performing?
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Yeah, so him and I had broken up that day,
and I was set to perform at the ABC New
Year's Eve broadcast in twenty twenty one. I'd also been
sick and kind of isolating in a hotel room for
the past two days, so it was really intense. You know,
these were COVID days. I remember thinking, I have to
(36:16):
get up in front of millions of people on live
television and sing and put on a brave face.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
And I didn't know how I was going to do it.
I'd been crying all day.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
And I put on my blue velvet dress and I
got up there and I did it, and I smiled
and I did my best acting job ever.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
And I don't know. It was bizarre, because in a way,
it was actually.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
A really good excuse to forget about what had been happening,
because I had no choice. I was like, you're in
performance mode now, don't think about it. So I didn't
for those ten minutes that I was on stage.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
And then when I.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Got off, the fireworks started over the Sydney huber Ridge
and the girls in my band and I just all
held each other and looked up at the fireworks and cried,
or I cried, and they held me, and it was
kind of an amazing feeling because I was so miserable.
But I was also watching these fireworks, going it's a
(37:18):
new year, it's a new year, and it's a new chapter,
and my life will never be the same again. And
it was terrifying and a little bit exhilarating at the
same time and just really really intense. But I wanted
to write a song about that night because I just thought,
what a crazy way to separate from somebody on news,
(37:41):
even live television. So I write a song called Blue
Velvet Dress, and the dress ended up being kind of
a metaphor for my old self.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I think that is such a powerful example of how
you never know what someone's going through, Like you would
have anybody in the audience, anybody watching, would have seen
you performing and thought that someone who has it all together,
because you're brilliant every time you perform, and the dress
is beautiful, and they would have just thought that everything
(38:11):
was completely fine and not had any idea of that
private pain. Now that it's been a few years, do
you feel like the separation has opened up a new
path for you? Obviously the album there's a lot of
sadness and there's a lot of complex emotions that need
to be processed. But can you see the way forward
(38:31):
and how it's opened the door for happiness.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Yeah, I think I don't know if it's opened the
door for happiness. I think my happiness and sense of
mental well being is always going to be a process,
and I'm always going to be someone that's hyper sensitive
to the world and everything going on around me. But
that's something I've come to accept and I've come to
(38:58):
realize that it's probably why I'm good at writing songs,
because I just I take everything in and I feel
things very very strongly. But I feel like I'm in
a really good place right now. I think that the
it's been enough distance from the separation, and I've processed
a lot of things through this album, through writing these
songs and to be honest, performing them live like I
(39:20):
did forty shows, singing at least five songs from the
new album every night and telling pretty honest anecdotes in between,
and that was so therapeutic, Like I've really felt a
sense of solidarity between me and the audience, and I
(39:41):
really felt them with me every step of the way,
and getting off stage and having told my story and
having laughed about the fact that I'm kind of miserable,
I was like, guys, I'm in it. I'm singing to
you live broadcasting from the mess that I'm in. I
don't have any answers, and I am struggling, but I'm
(40:03):
really glad to be here with you today and singing
these songs, and my love's going out to anyone else
going through it.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Do you think it is happiness or do you think
it's something else? Like do you think that maybe it's
not happiness you're pursuing, it's like clarity or meaning, or
like something bigger than happiness.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
I think, more than anything, if I'm really honest with myself,
I think that I want to be known. I want
to be really known and understood because I think that
everybody is such a complex person and you only show
people little tidbits here and there, and to be really
(40:41):
known and to be loved for exactly who you are,
I think that that's what I want more than anything,
and I have that with my friends and my family.
So I think intimacy and connection is what I cherish
the most.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
So if I have that.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
As well as a sense of meaning and purpose, as
long as I'm doing what I feel like I was
meant to do and what I'm good at, and it's
helping people in any sort of way. I feel like
that's a really, really satisfying feeling to know that I'm
doing I'm doing the thing that I was meant to do.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
I don't know about happiness. I do like being happy.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
It happens ocasion, but I think, yeah, a sense of
purpose and meaning and connection is probably more.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Important to me.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
More of my conversation with Missy Higgins after this short break.
Speaking of meaning and connection, you have a song called
Song for Sammy that my sister and I have shared
with each other, and we say that it makes us
vomit with emotion. It is the best representation of how
(41:56):
it feels to be a parent. It's just it's so
beautiful and also sad, and also the idea of the nightmare.
What do your kids bring to you?
Speaker 3 (42:10):
My kids definitely bring to me a sense of purpose
and meaning, probably more than anything else. But I don't
want to rely on them as my soul as the
sole giver of meaning in my life or the things
that are going to make me feel.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Appreciated or loved. They definitely make me feel loved.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
But I think it can be tough being a parent,
and particularly a single parent, because you know, there's a
lot of demands and bad moods that you have to
cop the brunt of, and a lot of my self
narrative is going, don't take it personally, Missy. They're dispending,
they're dispanding, they don't really hate you, and you're not
(42:51):
really ruining their life. So it's like you really do
need to get gratification outside of your parenting.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
I think that that's very healthy.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
But I know that I am I'm their rock, and
that gives me a sense of purpose. The fact that
I'm consisting distantly there for them. I'm consistently loving and
supporting of them, or at least I try to be.
I think that that gives me a sense of meaning,
probably more than anything else. I don't know, maybe probably
(43:24):
equal to music, though, to be honest, at this point
in my life, I really get so much gratification out
of what I do.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
I think because I've been through.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
That whole existential crisis in my twenties about whether what
I do has any meaning or makes any difference.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
I've been through that.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
I feel like I'm back to music now with a
renewed sense of gratitude, and I know that what I
do makes.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
An impact, even if it's small, it does make an impact.
And that's enough.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
That's enough for me, and that's more than you can
really ask for in life. So yeah, music and parenting,
I think are the things that give me the most
sense of fulfillment.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Has been a mum changed the way you look at
the world.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Oh yeah, I mean, how could it not.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
It changes your entire being, although I think that it
really changes when they get older. I think I was
very consumed with being a parent for the first I
don't know, maybe six years or so, maybe longer, and
just now I'm getting to the point where I'm like,
(44:32):
I can see myself again when I look in the mirror,
Like I don't just see a mother of my kids,
I see myself. Maybe it's because i'm single again too.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
I'm like, I'm on the mine.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
But I'm also really remembering who I was before I
was a parent, And that's kind of a relief, because
I mean, I think that this is probably what needs
to happen. You do need to be so consumed by
your kids in the early years because they need you
so badly. But once they start getting a little bit
more independent, you start having to loosen your grip on
(45:06):
them again, which is healthy and I imagine keeps happening.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Until leave home more and more.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
But I feel like it's loosened up a little bit
enough now that I'm like, Okay, so what do I
like to do again, and what do I want to
do with my free time?
Speaker 1 (45:22):
And who am I?
Speaker 3 (45:23):
And you know, starting to look at myself again as
an individual person rather than constantly tethered to my two
little offspring.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
When you think about being an old woman, I'm looking
back at your life, what do you think it will
be that will have made you happy?
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Like?
Speaker 2 (45:48):
What gives you the perspective when you're kind of really
in the grind of day to day life and you
take second to zoom out, what do you think it
will be that gave you a happy life?
Speaker 3 (46:02):
I mean, it's a cliche, but family and friends. It's
always those moments of connection and communion with people that
I love that really know me. I guess because over
my life there's been a lot of people that have
come and gone, but my friends who know me for
who I am behind the scenes, not as Missy Higgins.
(46:25):
But just you know, Missy, they're really dear to me,
and they're really important to me, And you know, I
think I'll remember specific occasions where we've all gone away
together or all stayed up late talking. I love the
girls in my band, the girls that we tour with.
I have a really really special connection with them because
(46:47):
we go through this crazy thing together that not many
people can relate to. But when I look back on
my life, I think they're the moments that I'll cherish.
And seeing my kids emerge, you know, into the human
beings that they were always going to become, My family
and my friends, those kind of moments I reckon. I
(47:08):
don't think I'll remember any of arias that I won,
or you know, any of the famous people that I
met along the way. I don't think they're going to
be the things that I look back on and go, yeah,
that's what made me happy. I think it's going to
be those moments of real connection and understanding.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
What would you say is your biggest challenge to happiness
at the moment.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
I mean, I am my own worst enemy when it
comes to self criticism.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
I think I overthink everything.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
What do you tend to beat yourself up about? Like,
surely not music.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
I know I'm very very proud of myself at the
moment for this new album. I think it's the best
thing I've ever done. But I guess in general, I
tend to just talk back to myself and go, you
need to do more, you need to be better, you
need to be this or that I have. I'm possibly
(48:09):
high standards for myself, so I'm always self critical. I
think that that's part of the reason why I've got
where I am, because I do hold myself to a
very high standard. But it can also make for a
not very nice little narrative that goes on in my
head when I'm laying in bed at night. I'm a
real introvert, so I find that it's easy for me
(48:31):
to push people away because I just need time by myself.
Like there's a friend of mine at the moment who
can't quite understand that when I'm going through a hard time,
that I won't let her be there for.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Me, And I'm like, I really really love the.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
Fact that you want to be there for me, but
I process things in a different way to you, Like
I honestly don't want to talk it out, and I
don't think it would be good for me because it
drains me and I really just need to spend time
by myself, be with my kids. I'll process this in
my own time. I'm not just saying that I want
to be alone. I really actually I do want to
(49:10):
be alone and I need to be so I think
that that can be a little bit hard and sometimes
can alienate me a little bit from my friends. So
it's like finding a balance between keeping my friends in
my life and making sure that they know that I'm
important to them, but trying to make them understand that
I operate in a bit of a different way and
that I need to be a bit of a hermit sometimes.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Right now, you've got this album. You've been through really
challenging a few years, where you've talked about the fact
that you didn't think this was the direction that your
life was going to go in. But right now, are
you happy?
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (49:54):
I'm very happy at the moment. Yeah, I can honestly
say that. I mean I wasn't at the beginning of
this tour. During rehearsals, I was bulling my eyes out
while playing these songs, going I don't know how I'm
going to get through this, but I think the cathartism
of playing these songs every night and talking to the
(50:14):
audience about what I've been going through and probably just time,
you know, like heartbreak takes time. I feel like I'm
in a really good place right now where I don't
feel like I need anybody else to fulfill me. And
that's taken quite a long time to get to this
point because I guess it's so much part of our
cultural narrative that in order to have a successful life
(50:37):
you need to team up with somebody else and make
a vow and be in it together. And people are
always looking at you like, oh you lonely. But I
feel really fulfilled. I feel really fulfilled with my music,
and I feel fulfilled with being able to just really
concentrate on my kids and spend some very very quality
(50:57):
time with them and being surrounded by my friends and
family unless I'm feeling introverted to in which case they've.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
Got a better off go away. Thank you so much
for your time today. I really appreciate it, no worries.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Something that has always struck me about Missy Higgins is
that there's an integrity and a depth there where she
seems to be able to see through superficial distractions. She
knows what's important and what isn't and I really want
that for myself. For more from Missy, go and listen
to her brand new album, The Second Act, and you
(51:33):
can find dates for her final encore shows on her website.
I want to thank Missy Higgins for her vulnerability, and
if there's anyone you know who you think might get
something out of this conversation, please share it with them.
If you want to recommend anyone for the show, you
can message me on Instagram, and if you like the show,
leave us a review. We always love your feedback. On
(51:56):
next week's episode, I chat to an athlete who was
recently at the paras Olympics and who caught my attention
because he lost, and he was incredibly candid about what
that experience was like, and I wanted to talk to
him about failure and how it feels to work towards
(52:16):
a goal for your entire adult life and then not
achieve it and know that you can't really go back
and redo it. It's a really, really moving conversation and
I hope you'll join us. The executive producer of But
Are You Happy is Nama Brown, and the producer is
Charlie Blackman. Audio editing by Scott Stronik. And I'm your
(52:40):
host Claire Stevens.
You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Mamma Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and
waters that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Somehow along the way, I'd made really bad decisions, or
I'd not been strong enough, or something like that, and
so I was dealing with so much shame. And as
soon as I sat down at the piano, the first
line I sung was it was never meant to be
like this. It was never meant to be like this.
And I just sang that line over and over again
and cried because it just opened up something in me.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Hello, and welcome to but Are You Happy? The podcast
that asked the questions you've always wanted to know from
the people who appear to have it all. I'm Claire Stevens,
and on today's episode, I'm talking to somebody who I
was very nervous to share a room with because she's
the person who wrote the words and the score to
(01:07):
My emotional Journey to adulthood. Missy Higgins is a multi
award winning singer songwriter whose raw and vulnerable songs have
made her a timeless icon. In the last few years,
she's started to talk more openly about her personal life,
and she's revealed the complicated reality behind the very talented,
(01:30):
very famous, and very young woman who became a household
name just a few years after she'd finished school. Missy
Higgins navigated depression, heartbreak, her sexuality, writer's block, a crisis
of meaning, motherhood, and separation in the public eye. And
here we talk about the tricky work of finding happiness. Thursday,
(01:54):
the twelfth of September is r UOK Day, and I
hope this conversation is a reminder of the fact that
luks can be deceiving, and things can be more complex
under the surface, and how crucial it is to ask
the people around you if they're actually really okay. Here's
Missy Higgins. I wanted to start by asking whether you
(02:18):
had a happy childhood.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I did have a happy childhood. Actually, I had a
really happy childhood.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
I mean, as far as my home family life goes,
my family was really really close and always felt like
a very secure grounding place for me.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
They were my safe place. I remember I was a really.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Outgoing kid until I turned about six, and then I
started to get very introspective and introverted, and then I
struggled at school a bit. I remember wanting to switch schools,
and when my mum finally.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Agreed, I literally walked.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Out of my primary school with my backpack without looking back,
didn't say goodbye to anyone. I was like good riddance,
and then I started somewhere else that I really enjoyed.
But I do remember in high school feeling like I
was very different from everybody else. All my diary entries
were like was I born on another planet? Like why
(03:13):
do I feel like such an alien? And why am
I so different? And I mean probably every teenage girl
was writing the same things in their diary, But I
struggled on and off with feeling a little bit different
from everybody else and a little bit like I couldn't
quite find my place.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And when you were in later high school, you had
an episode of depression, and you found out that your
dad and some people in his family had experienced it
as well. Do you think you could tell that growing up?
Could you tell that your dad struggled with happiness at all?
Speaker 1 (03:51):
No?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
That was the thing that was the thing that shocked me.
I had this breakdown in year eleven where I literally
collapsed and they couldn't wake me up, and I had
to go to hospital. I was semi conscious, so I
do remember it, which is weird, but I couldn't open
my eyes.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
I was like locked in my body.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
But I remember having a conversation with him after that, saying,
think I'm depressed, and depressed or depression back then was
not a word that everybody used like they did now.
It was a little bit like it was almost like
a very medical term, and not many people talked about it.
And I said that to him, and he was just
quiet for a bit, and then he said, well, I
think it's probably about time that I told you that.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
I've had it to.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
My whole adult life, and I've been medicated on and off,
and it's in our family. Our family have struggled with
it for generations. And I was so so taken aback
when he told me that, because he'd always been like
father Christmas in a way. Dad was just the loveliest, warmest,
happiest person who was always just so thrilled to see
(04:54):
his kids every day when he came home from school.
I remember running up the hallway to meet him and
hold on to his legs as soon as he came
in the door. I remember the sound of the garage
door coming up and his car coming in every day.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
So when he told me that, I was really really surprised.
And it's also the thing of like, oh, my parents
are humans and they've got a whole inner world. It
was really the first time that I learned that about him.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Do you think it connected you to him in a
different way, understanding like an emotional reality that you haven't seen.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah, definitely, I think so.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I mean I felt a bit unstable, I think at
first hearing that, because I was like, well, You're supposed
to be the rock for me, you know, like you're
supposed to be the one that has it all together,
and now do I have to look back at my
whole childhood and go, oh, my dad was just pretending
Or there was that whole kind of feeling of like
being on unstable ground for a bit. But then once
(05:50):
I thought about it in a much more mature way,
I realized that now we can talk about it together,
and now we can kind of support each other like friends.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
You then went on medication, and would you have been
on medication when you wrote the Sound of White.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah, I've been on medication when I've written all of
my albums, which there's only a very small racket of
my adult life that I haven't been on medication.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Which I find I think that's actually quite moving to know,
because some of the stigma around medication can be that
it dulls or numbs or emotions. And to me, I'm like, well,
clearly you have access to the full range of human emotions.
If you've written such powerful music while on medication, have
you ever felt that it's dulled or kind of MUTI I.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Mean, the thing is, it's different for everybody, and some
people I hear it does do that for them and
they feel a bit zonked out. But most artistic people
I know who suffer from depression get so crippled by
their depression that they can't write and they're in a
kind of haze or malaise. And that's what I was like,
(07:00):
if I'm depressed, I can't get out of bed, let alone,
go and sit at the piano and you know, pour
my heart out. I don't want to speak to anyone.
I don't want to express my feeling. I'm sure there
are people that are different that are like, no, I
need to be miserable in order to write, But I
can definitely still be miserable on antidepressants, You're like, don't worry.
Regularly miserable, but not so miserable that I can't function.
(07:25):
I've always said, it makes me feel like I can
get my head just above water in order to breathe,
and then I can get on with doing the things
that you need to do in order to fix yourself,
like exercise and see people and eat well. But if
I'm not, then I just fall into this hole that
I can't sink to get myself out of.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
To me, it can feel like I think the biggest
thing with depression that maybe if you had never experienced
it you wouldn't know, is that it's about energy. It
can feel like you just have absolutely no energy, and
to me, medication can provide just that little bit of
energy to then get momentum. And once you have momentum,
it's a lot easier to get out of bed and
(08:06):
do the things that give you some joy.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah. Absolutely, it makes me feel like I'm made of concrete. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
And I remember in my mid twenties I tried. I
tried to go off the meds, which I do pretty regularly,
just to see if I can do it. And it
works for a while, but then I always end up
having to go back, but I tried for a couple
of years to go off them, and I went on
this massive, big journey of self discovery, reading all these
wellness books about I don't know. I thought spiritually, I
(08:35):
must not have just found myself. So I went to
India and I meditated, and I went to Brazil and
down the Amazon, and I stayed with you know, an
inca village of people, and I tried to find myself
in all these exotic places. But I was actually miserable
while I was doing it all. I mean, I felt
(08:56):
everything extremely as I was doing it. I felt extreme
high as and extreme lows. But it was a very
hard time, and it was a very unstable time.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Do you think of yourself in terms of depression? Do
you think of it as you have depressive episodes or
do you think there's such thing as a depressive personality?
Do you see depression as part of who you are
or distinct from who you are?
Speaker 3 (09:21):
I see it as part of who I am, despite
not wanting it to be who I am. But I
think looking at the patterns over the past fourteen fifteen, sorry,
hang on now, I'm older than that. Twenty four twenty
five years Jesus Christ. I think the ups and downs
are part of who I am, and I think I've
(09:42):
tried to fight it for so long, and I think
that's probably part of the problem. I think what's helped
as I've gotten older is realizing that it's just something
that's going to pass through if I don't fight it
too much. And also, I think the shame of it
and the denial of it is what prolongs it. So
if I just go, oh, God, all right, I'm heading
(10:02):
into a bit of a dark period, and I kind
of go easy on myself about that and don't beerate
myself for it, and let myself stay in bed for
a while, then it passes through much more quickly than
if I'm hating myself for being depressed on top of it.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, you released the Sound of White and your profile
just exploded. You were everywhere, and I imagine to you
it felt like it was quite quick because you won
Triple J on Earthed, but then went overseas and then
(10:40):
came back and everything just went nuts. Did fame feel
how you expected it to feel?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
To be honest, I'm not sure I ever tried to
imagine what fame would feel like. Because it happened so
young and so quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Were you thinking about as a teenage girl being like,
but what would it feel like to be famous?
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I don't think I really was.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
All I was thinking about was what would it feel
like to sing in front of a lot of people?
Because that's what I wanted to do. I loved performing
so much. I was like, and I was singing a
lot of cover songs and jazz songs. I was like,
what would it feel like to sing in front of
four hundred people? And because I got such a rush
from singing in front of a small crowd, I thought,
imagine if it was a big crowd, how much of
(11:21):
a rush that would be. But I never thought about
being famous. So when that happened, it really took me
by surprise. And I think the fact that I was
introverted and pretty private that was a hard thing to
get accustomed to, and it took me many, many years
(11:42):
to become accustomed to it.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
It was a different kind of fame when your music
first really hit Australian audiences, I feel like it was
right now we've got more of like a fractured idea
of fame because we're all watching different things. We're on
different platforms. There are people who are famous that I've
never heard of, and people you might think are famous.
But in the era where it was you, you were
(12:08):
a household name, people would just absolutely obsessed with Missy Higgins.
How did it feel to like walk down the street.
Is there a sort of self consciousness that comes up
when you know people know who you are? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
I remember seeing a therapist quite a lot back in
those days and just saying, I'd become so paranoid about
people recognizing me that I was hearing my name everywhere,
And because Missy has two s's in it, anytime anyone
was talking and I could hear the s, I always
just thought, oh my god, the same Missy, the same Missy.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
So I became kind of hyper aware slash paranoid about it.
And Yeah, it just made me really anxious. And I
don't like being looked at or talked about. And I'd
just come out of a pretty toxic relationship to where
the guy I was with was really ridiculing me and
my music and made me feel really horrible about myself.
(13:04):
So in my mind I was projecting that those people
were saying really horrible things about me and ridiculing me.
So yeah, it became really hard to leave the house.
Paris Hilton was big at the time. She had these
big black glasses.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yeah, and I bought exact same ones. It was just
so embarrassing to look back on.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
But I left the house in that and you just
look so much more like you're a famous face and
trying to hide behind these glasses. But yeah, I did
that just not wanting to be noticed. I'm not sure
it worked.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So sound of white goes absolutely nuts. Do the people
that are already in your life, like friends from school
or acquaintances that you weren't that close to, do people
behave differently to you? Does it change the nature of
your relationships?
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah? Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I mean I think I'm a pretty good judge of
character and I always have been, so I remember feeling
like I can tell the people that are being genuine
to me because they are genuinely nice people, and the
people who were you just sick of fanting. But it
was a strange thing to get used to. I remember
when I went to America a couple of years later,
(14:13):
I was.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Like, oh my god, people are being rude to me.
It's awesome.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
It was this like there was this authentic interaction that
I was having with people for the first time in
so long that it was kind of jarring at first,
but then refreshing because.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
People in the industry or like social.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Interactions literally, you know, at the corner store.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, Americans can be rude.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
But it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
It wasn't really that they were being rude. It was
a normal interaction. They didn't give a shit about me,
because why would you. I'm just a customer. But I
was used to people going.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Oh, hello, yes, what can I do to help you,
which is pretty strange for that to start happening all
of a sudden when you're just a nobody.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah, do you think you develop an ego?
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I didn't because I thought that they were all a
bit weird for doing that. Like I just thought that
those people must have an issue. There must be something
wrong with those people if they're being around me. And
also they just felt like such a distinction and a
separation between the Missy Higgins that they thought I was
and the Missy Higgins I knew that I was.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
It was like they were looking at this.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Mirage that was superimposed over my face when they were
looking at me.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Which is probably a really healthy way to look at fame.
Like that's probably if someone were to analyze it, it
is that idea of like there's the actual you and
there's a projection of you, and that projection has nothing
to do with who you actually are.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
I think it's probably good.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah, yeah, I can't remember anybody ever saying anything negative
about miss Higgins in that era, and I can remember
all the media coverage being really really positive. But I
can imagine that the Internet was kind of around, and
I can imagine that there would have been things that
weren't that nice. How did you take that on? And
(16:04):
were you able to separate yourself from what people were
saying about you?
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Well, that's the kind of ironic thing, is that I
didn't take on any of the nice things. But yeah,
whenever I heard anything negative, it was like I couldn't
sleep for days and it was all that I could
think about. And I still remember the negative things that
were said about me.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
What do people say?
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Well, I remember the early days of Internet. There were forums,
like I guess there's forums now on Reddit and stuff
was when I read it.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Back then, there was.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Like specific websites that were set up as fan forums,
and I had one, and in that website there was
like different categories of Miss Higgins that you could talk
about and dissect, and I had I think it was
maybe my second album ish where I had changed my
(16:54):
live band, I'd swapped some of the musicians out to
be different players. And my hardcore fans that felt this
sense of ownership because they'd been with me since the beginning,
since before the Sound of White, they would not stand
for it. They just thought I'd changed, and they were
picking apart the way that I spoke to the audience
and how I sounded up myself, just the fact that
(17:17):
I had dared to evolve without consulting them first. They
were just livid and they were just tearing me apart.
And I remember I literally didn't leave the house for
two days after that. I just fell into such a
deep depression. And yeah, it wasn't that long after that
where I had a talk with my manager about it,
and he's just like, you just can't read that stuff.
(17:40):
And I don't think I've googled myself since really, yeah,
in over twenty years, I just will not look up myself.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I don't want to read reviews.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
I don't want to read articles unless somebody literally sends
me at going, this is very flattering. You should read
this about yourself. I'm not going to do it because
I'm just too sensitive. I think I just take too
much of it on board.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Do you ever come across stuff accidentally or.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Like comm comments?
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, but I tried. They don't happen very
much on Instagram. I find I don't ever look on
Facebook because the algorithm means that people that aren't following
me can see it, which means that there's always going
to people that don't like what I'm doing. I definitely
don't go on Twitter because that's a fucking binfire.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
I one should go on Twitter, ever.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
And so I've found that because people following me, they're
usually pretty supportive on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
What's the kind of stuff that I find that when
you're kind of doing anything creative, there's certain things people
can say that just doesn't affect you. You're like, okay, cool,
I'm not for you. That's all good, But then there
are certain things that really do cut through. And what
you say about the band was the thing that was
(18:52):
upsetting the fact that people were like assuming your intention
or assuming the fact that you thought you were too
good or what like? What was it about that that
was hurtful?
Speaker 3 (19:03):
I think at that point in my career, I was
starting to get a bit jaded, because I was feeling
very scrutiny and very judged at that point because so
many people were having opinions about me and my image
and my sexuality and just wanting to know way too
much about me. I was already in this state of
(19:25):
defense the entire time, and so I do remember that
show in particular that they commented on I was feeling
a bit like, maybe a bit resentful, and I think
that was probably coming through I wasn't in a great place,
and so then writing that not only validated my kind
of fear of being torn apart publicly, but it also
(19:46):
made me realize that there was probably a truth to it,
because I wasn't being my best and I was a
little bit resentful towards the audience, and I don't know,
I didn't really know what to do about that.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
I was in a kind of a bit of a
loop feedback loop.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
When you are incredibly successful, money often follows did money
change your lif life? From your music and you're touring
around America. I can imagine you had more money than
other people your age who you might have grown up with.
Did it make you happy?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
I do remember getting a big check. I think it
was maybe about a year after the Sound of White
came out, and I was like, I could buy a
house and I'm twenty one. Oh, and it was this real,
like oh my god, what has happened to my life
kind of thing. But I was also on this, you know,
I was still riding the roller coaster of how the
(20:43):
hell am I at this point at such a young
age and successful album and famous and all that kind
of stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
So yeah, I was pretty stoked.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I think the fact that I had managed to make
a career out of music when my dad had always
told me, he was always supportive of it. He always said,
you need to get a UNI degree. At the very least,
go and get an arts degree so you have something
to fall back on, you know, if you're going to
do music, kind of implying that it's almost impossible to
(21:14):
make a career out of music.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
And then when that happened, I was like, I think
I've done it.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
I think that this means that I can probably keep
doing it for the rest of my life, so it
kind of, yeah, it felt extremely gratifying that I could
relax about having to get a back up job or
have a backup plan.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Did you spend it on exciting things like when you're twenty?
I can't imagine having access to any kind of I
bought a house.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I put a down payment on a house.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I should say, oh my gosh, not even stupid clothes
or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
No. I was never a closed person, That's the thing.
I was never a things person. But I bought a
little unit and my sister and I moved into it
and it was just the best feeling ever.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
After the break, Missy opens up about how grief and
shame inspired her new album and why her music holds
so much significance to her. I have a theory that
the world lies to us a bit about happiness, and
(22:17):
sometimes it's those moments that are really shiny and exciting
from the outside that actually aren't on the inside. And
kind of the way we live now, especially on social media,
where people are flattened to two dimensional images, it kind
of exacerbates that. Do you have an example of a
time where the world would have thought you were happy
(22:40):
and you weren't well.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
I guess it's tricky with me because most of my
songs are miserable. So I don't know if anyone thinks
that I'm happy but you're it's probably the opposite for me.
People think I'm miserable, but I'm actually most of the
time quite a happy person.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
I mean, like I was talking about before, in the
early days in my early twenties, with those first couple
of albums, when I was touring America, I did so
many shows in the space of a year. I think
that I completely burnt myself out. But I was finally
getting somewhere over there, Like I went gold with my
(23:18):
second album, and that was something that I'd been building
up for. I'd been doing so many shows, I've been
working so hard for it, and everybody at the record
label was applauding it, and it's like, let's use this
as a springboard for the next album. And it got
to that point I was like, Nah, sorry, I can't
do another album. I'm completely burnt out. I've been touring
(23:41):
for so long that I have nothing to write about
apart from touring the road. How many songs can you
write about wheels on the road? Two of us is Yeah,
I hadn't had any relationships and had no breakups to
write about. I felt like I'd been in this yeah,
this weird loop for at least two and a half
(24:01):
years touring that album, and I had to give it
all up.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I tried writing. I tried for two years to write
for my third album. Thing came.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
I remember hiring this tiny little room above a flower
shop in Northcote in Melbourne and going there every day
thinking I was nick Cave with my briefcase and my suit,
treating it like a job, treating it like a nine
to five, and it still didn't work. And after two
years of that, I just I took my manager out
(24:32):
for lunch and I told him that I had just
nothing left.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
I couldn't write. I was miserable.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yes, I'd reached a level of success in Australia and
America that you know, I could have only dreamed of,
but I wasn't happy.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Do you think the success was paralyzing like when you
were trying to write and you couldn't. Was it that
you felt like you had nothing to write about? Or
was it that you were aware that whatever you wrote
would be heard by so many people? And there was
pressure on it in a way.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
That Yeah, I think I felt very scrutinized from every direction,
like in my personal life and with my music. There
was a massive amount of pressure to back that up
with another successful album. But I think it probably came
down to the fact that I just I didn't enjoy
what I did anymore, Like I didn't enjoy playing live
(25:24):
shows anymore because of the fact that I had been
doing it for too long without a break. You know,
if you do anything for too long without a break,
you don't appreciate it. And all I really needed to
do was to find a better balance, I think, but
I'd gone too hard and I hadn't said no to anything,
(25:44):
like whatever the US record label wanted me to do,
I'd said yes too. It was too much. I wasn't
listening to myself at that point. I think I didn't
have any idea how to tune into my mental health
and go, hey, you probably need to just step back
for a bit because you're getting a bit burnt out.
It was like, no, you're burnt out, but you got
(26:04):
to keep going because this is the business. You're in
the business now, and there's a massive label that is
writing on this album being successful. So I think I
just became part of a huge machine and it just
started to feel very gross and impersonal and it sucked
all of the love out of music for me.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
You've said that you also worried that music was selfish
and you weren't contributing enough to the world. It's funny
you're not the first musician, Like we've had another musician
on this show who said that, And I think it's
interesting that musicians say it because I think there's like
an emotional intelligence slash depth that makes you constantly question
(26:48):
your place in the world. Whereas I think it's funny.
I think a lot of say influences aren't questioning.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Yeah, I'm very influential. I must be effectively the world positively.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
But it's interesting that you do kind of grapple with that,
like have a crisis of meaning and you went and
tried to do other things. It came back to music,
and it was a bit of a weird like the
universe was directing you back to music. With Sarah McLaughlan
and the opportunity you got in terms of music and
(27:23):
whether it's selfish, How do you feel about that now?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
I feel like yes, it's selfish, but that's completely okay,
and ultimately that's kind of what helps people the most.
Meaning if you write music from a completely selfish place,
it has a better chance of really hitting home for
somebody because you're not trying to make anything that sells.
(27:48):
You're not trying to make something that as many people
as possible can relate to. You're just being honest, and
honest is the thing that cuts through, and authenticity is
the thing that people need most. And if ever I'm
going through something really really difficult and I find a
way to put it into words, if someone can hear
(28:08):
that song and feel not so alone in whatever they're
going through, then that's great. So I think it's okay
to be selfish. But I think it's also important to
realize that art is what the world needs most, an honest,
authentic art where people are not putting under pretense of
(28:29):
I've got it all sorted out and I'm really strong
and powerful and wise, and this is how you should
live your life. You know, I don't want to tell
anybody how to live their life. I think that would
be really disingenuous because I have no idea. So I'm
not going to pretend. The more people that do that,
I think the better the more people that stop pretending
and just go.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Oh my god, how hard is life like? This life thing?
Speaker 3 (28:52):
It's really bloody hard, guys that you agree, Yeah, And
with this new album, I just I didn't think about
an audience. I sat down because I was really really
trying to grapple with the fact my marriage had fallen
apart and all I ever wanted was to find someone
to be with forever and stay as a family unit forever.
(29:14):
And I felt like such a failure for that not happening,
and I felt like it was my responsibility to keep
the family together. And somehow along the way I'd made
really bad decisions or I'd not been strong enough, or
something like that, and so I was dealing with so
much shame. And as soon as I sat down at
the piano, the first line I sung, it was never
(29:38):
meant to be like this, It was never meant to
be like this, And I just sang that line over
and over again and cried because it just opened up
something in me, and I realized, oh, that's it for me.
The biggest tragedy here is that my narrative that I
had for myself has burnt to the ground, and now
I have no narrative and I feel completely lost. And
(30:00):
as I kept writing every song, something else in me
opened up, and I realized something else about my shame
or my grief, and I tackled it from a different
ang and it helped me so much. And now that
I've released it and I've played these songs live, I
can feel that they connect with other people that are
(30:22):
going through exactly the same thing. But that wasn't what
I intended when I sat down to write it. I
think if I had sat down and thought, how am
I going to help people that are going through the
same thing as me, I would have probably written a
song full of these fake answers that I didn't have,
and that would have people wouldn't have felt the power
in them. I don't think they wouldn't have felt the
(30:44):
songs deep in their heart because they would have known
that it wasn't authentically in my story.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
It feels that your album The Second Act almost feels
like uncharted territory artistically, which seems so bizarre when we
know that a huge number of women who are in
their thirties, forties fifty sixty marriages have ended. Why do
(31:13):
you think there's such shame? Why do you think you
felt such shame?
Speaker 3 (31:17):
I don't know, but I know it has something to
do with being a woman and feeling like it's our
responsibility to make sure everyone is okay and keep everyone together,
keep everyone happy. I definitely felt like I was the
one that should have tried harder to make it work,
and somehow I failed to give my kids the family
(31:41):
that I.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Grew up with.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
And as far as why people haven't written songs about
it before, I don't really know. I think I do
feel like there is that pressure as a songwriter and
as an artist to come up with songs that do
sound more empowered. As a woman, I think there's that
vulnerability and fragility that you don't really want to admit to,
(32:07):
and I think in the back of your head, you're like,
no one wants to hear how miserable I am, and
no one wants to hear about divorce. No one wants
to hear about being a forty year old single mum.
Like it's not sexy. The radios aren't going to play this.
But I guess I'm privileged to be at a point
in my career where one nobody plays me on the
radio anyway, but I don't need that because.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Who listens to the radio anyone?
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Sorry, But I mean, I just think that I feel
really lucky to have a fan base that have followed
me through my whole career and still want to hear
what I have to say and what I put out.
So I don't know, I think I felt like I
didn't have to cater to anybody because I'm comfortable. I
(32:54):
don't need to sell too many units in order to
kind of put food on my kid's table. I can
just write what I want at this point in my life,
and I feel like I probably have enough validation and
enough confidence in myself as an artist. I have enough
fans that have followed me my whole career that I
trust that they'll be there for this one. And I know,
(33:16):
I know that there's going to be so many people
that relate to it, because, as you said, it's it's
non original thing.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
And it is. I said at the beginning of this
that for me, you've been this, you know, soundtrack to
my life, and it's eerie how much what you write
about has always mirrored where I am, and that is
not unique to me, that is why you're so incredibly successful.
But I have friends who say, if you think your
(33:42):
relationship is good, have a child, and it's like putting
it into a blender. That's how she describes it, that
the first year after having a childhood's like putting a
relationship into a blender. How have you gone about thinking
about happiness and making decisions? Like the decision to separate?
(34:04):
Was that about prioritizing your happiness?
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, that's all it was about.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
I mean my happiness and my partner's happiness. We were
both miserable and had been for a while, and we
just looked at each other and went It started off
with I think that we should live in separate houses,
and then that kind of slowly progressed to well, I
mean we're living in separate houses. We're pretty much separated,
and yeah, throwing kids into the mix. I think what's
(34:31):
tricky about having kids with somebody is you have no
idea what the other person's going to be like, has.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
No idea, You have no idea. You think that you do.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
You think you're like, they're a really good person. They're
crying with kids.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Yeah, yeah, And I'm not saying that to say my
partner's a bad dad because he's an excellent dad, But
you have to have the same parenting style as that
person as well, And depending on how you grew up,
how you were parented, you're going to have different ideas
of discipline, what to do when a child's kind of
loud and messy and chaotic, and how to handle that.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
And I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
I think in the end, we just went, is this
going to be easier if we're not in same house together, Like,
if we can do this on our own, separately, And
ultimately that's going to be better for the kids because
it's going to make happier parents and it's going to
make calmer parents. And what they need is as much
stability as we can possibly give them. And we realized
that it's going to make for a much more stable
(35:30):
vibe at home if we can do it separately.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
One of the songs on your album is called Blue
Velvet Dress, and it's about you performing on New Year's
Eve and it's kind of that tension between how things
look on the outside and what was going on behind
the scenes. Can you tell us the story of what
was happening that night when you're performing?
Speaker 3 (35:54):
Yeah, so him and I had broken up that day,
and I was set to perform at the ABC New
Year's Eve broadcast in twenty twenty one. I'd also been
sick and kind of isolating in a hotel room for
the past two days, so it was really intense. You know,
these were COVID days. I remember thinking, I have to
(36:16):
get up in front of millions of people on live
television and sing and put on a brave face.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
And I didn't know how I was going to do it.
I'd been crying all day.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
And I put on my blue velvet dress and I
got up there and I did it, and I smiled
and I did my best acting job ever.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
And I don't know. It was bizarre, because in a way,
it was actually.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
A really good excuse to forget about what had been happening,
because I had no choice. I was like, you're in
performance mode now, don't think about it. So I didn't
for those ten minutes that I was on stage.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
And then when I.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Got off, the fireworks started over the Sydney huber Ridge
and the girls in my band and I just all
held each other and looked up at the fireworks and cried,
or I cried, and they held me, and it was
kind of an amazing feeling because I was so miserable.
But I was also watching these fireworks, going it's a
(37:18):
new year, it's a new year, and it's a new chapter,
and my life will never be the same again. And
it was terrifying and a little bit exhilarating at the
same time and just really really intense. But I wanted
to write a song about that night because I just thought,
what a crazy way to separate from somebody on news,
(37:41):
even live television. So I write a song called Blue
Velvet Dress, and the dress ended up being kind of
a metaphor for my old self.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I think that is such a powerful example of how
you never know what someone's going through, Like you would
have anybody in the audience, anybody watching, would have seen
you performing and thought that someone who has it all together,
because you're brilliant every time you perform, and the dress
is beautiful, and they would have just thought that everything
(38:11):
was completely fine and not had any idea of that
private pain. Now that it's been a few years, do
you feel like the separation has opened up a new
path for you? Obviously the album there's a lot of
sadness and there's a lot of complex emotions that need
to be processed. But can you see the way forward
(38:31):
and how it's opened the door for happiness.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Yeah, I think I don't know if it's opened the
door for happiness. I think my happiness and sense of
mental well being is always going to be a process,
and I'm always going to be someone that's hyper sensitive
to the world and everything going on around me. But
that's something I've come to accept and I've come to
(38:58):
realize that it's probably why I'm good at writing songs,
because I just I take everything in and I feel
things very very strongly. But I feel like I'm in
a really good place right now. I think that the
it's been enough distance from the separation, and I've processed
a lot of things through this album, through writing these
songs and to be honest, performing them live like I
(39:20):
did forty shows, singing at least five songs from the
new album every night and telling pretty honest anecdotes in between,
and that was so therapeutic, Like I've really felt a
sense of solidarity between me and the audience, and I
(39:41):
really felt them with me every step of the way,
and getting off stage and having told my story and
having laughed about the fact that I'm kind of miserable,
I was like, guys, I'm in it. I'm singing to
you live broadcasting from the mess that I'm in. I
don't have any answers, and I am struggling, but I'm
(40:03):
really glad to be here with you today and singing
these songs, and my love's going out to anyone else
going through it.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Do you think it is happiness or do you think
it's something else? Like do you think that maybe it's
not happiness you're pursuing, it's like clarity or meaning, or
like something bigger than happiness.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
I think, more than anything, if I'm really honest with myself,
I think that I want to be known. I want
to be really known and understood because I think that
everybody is such a complex person and you only show
people little tidbits here and there, and to be really
(40:41):
known and to be loved for exactly who you are,
I think that that's what I want more than anything,
and I have that with my friends and my family.
So I think intimacy and connection is what I cherish
the most.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
So if I have that.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
As well as a sense of meaning and purpose, as
long as I'm doing what I feel like I was
meant to do and what I'm good at, and it's
helping people in any sort of way. I feel like
that's a really, really satisfying feeling to know that I'm
doing I'm doing the thing that I was meant to do.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
I don't know about happiness. I do like being happy.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
It happens ocasion, but I think, yeah, a sense of
purpose and meaning and connection is probably more.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Important to me.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
More of my conversation with Missy Higgins after this short break.
Speaking of meaning and connection, you have a song called
Song for Sammy that my sister and I have shared
with each other, and we say that it makes us
vomit with emotion. It is the best representation of how
(41:56):
it feels to be a parent. It's just it's so
beautiful and also sad, and also the idea of the nightmare.
What do your kids bring to you?
Speaker 3 (42:10):
My kids definitely bring to me a sense of purpose
and meaning, probably more than anything else. But I don't
want to rely on them as my soul as the
sole giver of meaning in my life or the things
that are going to make me feel.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Appreciated or loved. They definitely make me feel loved.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
But I think it can be tough being a parent,
and particularly a single parent, because you know, there's a
lot of demands and bad moods that you have to
cop the brunt of, and a lot of my self
narrative is going, don't take it personally, Missy. They're dispending,
they're dispanding, they don't really hate you, and you're not
(42:51):
really ruining their life. So it's like you really do
need to get gratification outside of your parenting.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
I think that that's very healthy.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
But I know that I am I'm their rock, and
that gives me a sense of purpose. The fact that
I'm consisting distantly there for them. I'm consistently loving and
supporting of them, or at least I try to be.
I think that that gives me a sense of meaning,
probably more than anything else. I don't know, maybe probably
(43:24):
equal to music, though, to be honest, at this point
in my life, I really get so much gratification out
of what I do.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
I think because I've been through.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
That whole existential crisis in my twenties about whether what
I do has any meaning or makes any difference.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
I've been through that.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
I feel like I'm back to music now with a
renewed sense of gratitude, and I know that what I
do makes.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
An impact, even if it's small, it does make an impact.
And that's enough.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
That's enough for me, and that's more than you can
really ask for in life. So yeah, music and parenting,
I think are the things that give me the most
sense of fulfillment.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Has been a mum changed the way you look at
the world.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Oh yeah, I mean, how could it not.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
It changes your entire being, although I think that it
really changes when they get older. I think I was
very consumed with being a parent for the first I
don't know, maybe six years or so, maybe longer, and
just now I'm getting to the point where I'm like,
(44:32):
I can see myself again when I look in the mirror,
Like I don't just see a mother of my kids,
I see myself. Maybe it's because i'm single again too.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
I'm like, I'm on the mine.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
But I'm also really remembering who I was before I
was a parent, And that's kind of a relief, because
I mean, I think that this is probably what needs
to happen. You do need to be so consumed by
your kids in the early years because they need you
so badly. But once they start getting a little bit
more independent, you start having to loosen your grip on
(45:06):
them again, which is healthy and I imagine keeps happening.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Until leave home more and more.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
But I feel like it's loosened up a little bit
enough now that I'm like, Okay, so what do I
like to do again, and what do I want to
do with my free time?
Speaker 1 (45:22):
And who am I?
Speaker 3 (45:23):
And you know, starting to look at myself again as
an individual person rather than constantly tethered to my two
little offspring.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
When you think about being an old woman, I'm looking
back at your life, what do you think it will
be that will have made you happy?
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Like?
Speaker 2 (45:48):
What gives you the perspective when you're kind of really
in the grind of day to day life and you
take second to zoom out, what do you think it
will be that gave you a happy life?
Speaker 3 (46:02):
I mean, it's a cliche, but family and friends. It's
always those moments of connection and communion with people that
I love that really know me. I guess because over
my life there's been a lot of people that have
come and gone, but my friends who know me for
who I am behind the scenes, not as Missy Higgins.
(46:25):
But just you know, Missy, they're really dear to me,
and they're really important to me, And you know, I
think I'll remember specific occasions where we've all gone away
together or all stayed up late talking. I love the
girls in my band, the girls that we tour with.
I have a really really special connection with them because
(46:47):
we go through this crazy thing together that not many
people can relate to. But when I look back on
my life, I think they're the moments that I'll cherish.
And seeing my kids emerge, you know, into the human
beings that they were always going to become, My family
and my friends, those kind of moments I reckon. I
(47:08):
don't think I'll remember any of arias that I won,
or you know, any of the famous people that I
met along the way. I don't think they're going to
be the things that I look back on and go, yeah,
that's what made me happy. I think it's going to
be those moments of real connection and understanding.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
What would you say is your biggest challenge to happiness
at the moment.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
I mean, I am my own worst enemy when it
comes to self criticism.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
I think I overthink everything.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
What do you tend to beat yourself up about? Like,
surely not music.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
I know I'm very very proud of myself at the
moment for this new album. I think it's the best
thing I've ever done. But I guess in general, I
tend to just talk back to myself and go, you
need to do more, you need to be better, you
need to be this or that I have. I'm possibly
(48:09):
high standards for myself, so I'm always self critical. I
think that that's part of the reason why I've got
where I am, because I do hold myself to a
very high standard. But it can also make for a
not very nice little narrative that goes on in my
head when I'm laying in bed at night. I'm a
real introvert, so I find that it's easy for me
(48:31):
to push people away because I just need time by myself.
Like there's a friend of mine at the moment who
can't quite understand that when I'm going through a hard time,
that I won't let her be there for.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Me, And I'm like, I really really love the.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
Fact that you want to be there for me, but
I process things in a different way to you, Like
I honestly don't want to talk it out, and I
don't think it would be good for me because it
drains me and I really just need to spend time
by myself, be with my kids. I'll process this in
my own time. I'm not just saying that I want
to be alone. I really actually I do want to
(49:10):
be alone and I need to be so I think
that that can be a little bit hard and sometimes
can alienate me a little bit from my friends. So
it's like finding a balance between keeping my friends in
my life and making sure that they know that I'm
important to them, but trying to make them understand that
I operate in a bit of a different way and
that I need to be a bit of a hermit sometimes.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Right now, you've got this album. You've been through really
challenging a few years, where you've talked about the fact
that you didn't think this was the direction that your
life was going to go in. But right now, are
you happy?
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (49:54):
I'm very happy at the moment. Yeah, I can honestly
say that. I mean I wasn't at the beginning of
this tour. During rehearsals, I was bulling my eyes out
while playing these songs, going I don't know how I'm
going to get through this, but I think the cathartism
of playing these songs every night and talking to the
(50:14):
audience about what I've been going through and probably just time,
you know, like heartbreak takes time. I feel like I'm
in a really good place right now where I don't
feel like I need anybody else to fulfill me. And
that's taken quite a long time to get to this
point because I guess it's so much part of our
cultural narrative that in order to have a successful life
(50:37):
you need to team up with somebody else and make
a vow and be in it together. And people are
always looking at you like, oh you lonely. But I
feel really fulfilled. I feel really fulfilled with my music,
and I feel fulfilled with being able to just really
concentrate on my kids and spend some very very quality
(50:57):
time with them and being surrounded by my friends and
family unless I'm feeling introverted to in which case they've.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
Got a better off go away. Thank you so much
for your time today. I really appreciate it, no worries.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
Something that has always struck me about Missy Higgins is
that there's an integrity and a depth there where she
seems to be able to see through superficial distractions. She
knows what's important and what isn't and I really want
that for myself. For more from Missy, go and listen
to her brand new album, The Second Act, and you
(51:33):
can find dates for her final encore shows on her website.
I want to thank Missy Higgins for her vulnerability, and
if there's anyone you know who you think might get
something out of this conversation, please share it with them.
If you want to recommend anyone for the show, you
can message me on Instagram, and if you like the show,
leave us a review. We always love your feedback. On
(51:56):
next week's episode, I chat to an athlete who was
recently at the paras Olympics and who caught my attention
because he lost, and he was incredibly candid about what
that experience was like, and I wanted to talk to
him about failure and how it feels to work towards
(52:16):
a goal for your entire adult life and then not
achieve it and know that you can't really go back
and redo it. It's a really, really moving conversation and
I hope you'll join us. The executive producer of But
Are You Happy is Nama Brown, and the producer is
Charlie Blackman. Audio editing by Scott Stronik. And I'm your
(52:40):
host Claire Stevens.
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