You always hope to begin an article with “So-and-so really isn’t what you’d expect.” It suggests that not only is there a greater mystique to the artist that the rest of the world is ignorant of, but through being the savvy journalist that you are, you’re the one to finally reveal the truth about them to the world. In this instance, however, Missy Higgins turns out to be as lovely and approachable as you always suspected.
Her latest release, Oz, is surprising for two reasons. Chiefly, it is an album of covers – a kind of Great Australian Songbook for tunes that many folk will be unfamiliar with. Secondly, it features what essentially amounts to an autobiography without, well, the autobiography.
“I think my main objective with the book was to just have a bit of fun dabbling in writing,” Higgins explains. We’re chatting over a coffee table strewn with music journals, appropriately enough, though adding an element of surrealism to the conversation are the old tour posters plastered over the walls, featuring none other than Higgins herself. “I’ve always wanted to get into journalism or creative writing before I thought that I could ever make a living out of music,” she says. “That’s the direction I would have gone in a Sliding Doors scenario. I liked the idea of writing an actual memoir, but I didn’t feel that I’d quite come to that point of my life yet. I’m not sure anyone would take a memoir by me seriously.”
She laughs, while a large friendly dog pads past the door. It’s the kind of casual, relaxed detail that hallmarks this interview; chatting with Higgins is a lot like catching up with a distant cousin. The atmosphere is relaxed, free of pretension.
“I’m just not old enough yet,” she continues. “I still feel like I’m in the middle of my career, it still feels like I’ve got plenty of albums to go. Also, you’d have to be able to take a big step back from your life, I think, and get a certain amount of objectivity to be able to project any sort of wisdom on your past. I’m just not sure if I’m there yet. But I don’t know what else I’d write about if I didn’t write about my life. I’ve always been quite a navel-gazer, I guess. I’ve done a lot of thinking about what I’ve been through, where I’m going, why I’m here, that kind of thing. It just made sense to create an extension of that.”
For both committed fans and the casual radio listener, at the heart of Higgins’ output is an accessibility that characterises Australian songwriting. She sings of universal truths without the need to dress up sentiment or inflate meaning. The result is a sort of everyperson story; lyrics that are direct and deep, that speak to us all.
“I think along the way I figured out that what is the most potent kind of storytelling is the personal stuff. There’s a certain vulnerability that people appreciate in songwriters, and I think a song becomes universal when you’re being completely honest about how you felt. I think my songs are more about the feeling at the core of what’s going on, rather than what is actually going on. There’s not many things that are specific to time and place, it’s more what was I emotionally or spiritually going through. When you really get to the heart of the matter that way, I think something becomes universal.”
There is an added bonus in avoiding specific details here. While Higgins is hardly anonymous these days – it’s no stretch to suggest she’s a household name now – there is still the capacity to maintain a level of privacy and control. Despite the often bittersweet frankness of her lyrics, we are still only being invited into a small portion of her life; the figure that many of her fans know and love remains something of a construct.
“It’s interesting. In a way I’m very open and vulnerable in my songs, but on the other hand I’m only giving away a tiny bit of who I am. I can pick and choose exactly what I do give away because I’m not talking about specific experiences. I still keep my private life private, I’m not Instagramming pictures of my partner and I kissing every day, you know? I like to keep that kind of thing sacred. But as far as human emotions are concerned, well, I’ll talk about that until the cows come home. There’s a lot that you can give away in a song without actually revealing much of who you are. I still feel like there are very few people who know who I am.”
Ultimately, you suspect this is for the best. All fans fictionalise their heroes to some extent, and maintaining a personal connection to a song often comes at the expense of genuinely knowing the artist. This does not compromise the feeling of empathy and familiarity in Higgins’ body of work, however, and when she finds herself before an audience, the connection she feels is genuine.
“The more vulnerable I am in my songs, the greater the high when I play them live. You suddenly feel this connection between you all, this mutual understanding. Whether that’s real or not, you definitely feel as though there’s something, a revelry that’s almost church-like. You feel like you’re all somehow in it together, and I think that’s what keeps me wanting to write songs. Even if sometimes it’s hard at the time. I’d love to be able to just sit down and write a song about a guy I saw on the bus, because it wouldn’t be such a harrowing experience to get it out. But in the end, I think that’s the stuff that feels the best.”
Oz out now through Eleven. Catch Missy Higgins alongsideDustin Tebbutt and Jherek Bischoff atEnmore Theatre onSaturday October 4 and Sunday October 5, tickets through Ticketek.Also appearing at the Civic Theatre, Newcastle on Friday October 3; The Concourse, Chatswood on Monday October 6; and Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, Penrith on Tuesday October 7.
