It’s been six years since Missy Higgins released a full-length album but in a way, The Second Act has been two decades in the making. Written and co-produced at home by Missy, the new album has topped the ARIA charts 20 years to the day after her groundbreaking opus The Sound Of White hit #1. These deeply personal new songs bring the beloved singer/songwriter full circle; back to the intimate, confessional intensity that propelled her trailblazing 2004 debut, The Sound Of White.
“When I was a teenager I wrote and recorded songs in a little shed out the back of my parent’s house. It was like writing in a diary that I never expected anyone else to read”, Missy explains. “That was how I worked through the things lots of people struggle with at that age – “who am I? who do I want to be?”.
Those internal monologues ended up striking a deep and enduring chord with millions who recognized a kindred spirit. The Sound Of White topped the charts and scooped the ARIA Awards.
“It was a strange time. I’d never really considered what it would feel like to have everyone knowing my deepest, darkest feelings, so in the following years I moved away from that confessional songwriting mode. It wasn’t a conscious thing, I just wasn’t comfortable with all that scrutiny so I started writing more about the outside world. But after my husband and I separated a couple of years ago, I found myself sitting alone in a dark room out the back of my house, writing songs as a form of therapy again – like I’d done as a teenager. It was the only way I knew to try and make sense of our world being turned upside down. I realized that all the books I’d read, and the movies I’d watched, had led me to create a big story in my head about how life was supposed to turn out – you get married, you have kids, then you all live happily ever after – so most of these new songs are about trying to figure out what to do when your story turns out differently. How do you start all over again when you’re a 40-year-old mum with two young children? It was basically the midlife version of those same questions I’d been obsessed with as a teenager – “who am I? And who do I want to be?”.”
Twenty years ago, on her signature ballad, “The Special Two”, Missy wrote “when you’re young you have this image of your life, that you’ll be scrupulous and one day even make a wife”. Now on “Story For The Ages” she sings, “It was never meant to be like this … the book went up in flames”. On the new album’s opening track, “You Should Run” the singer who famously asked, “can you leave me with a scar?”, now stares defiantly at the prospect of a new beginning; “Here’s my body. Here’s my scars. Now show me what kind of man you are!”
These sorts of echoes between the two albums led Missy to describe The Second Act as “a kind of sequel” to The Sound Of White. It also inspired her to create The Second Act Tour – a unique concert in which she initially previewed some new songs in a stripped back acoustic set, then returned after intermission to perform The Sound Of White in its entirety with her band, celebrating that album’s anniversary. The tour proved a phenomenon across 2024, with playing to over 110,000 fans including sold out nights at the biggest venues she has headlined since 2005 such as the Myer Music Bowl and the Sydney Opera House Forecourt.
The Second Act Tour won the publicly voted ARIA Award for 2024’s “Best Live Act” on a night when Missy was also inducted into the ARIA Hall Of Fame, taking her career total to 11 ARIAs and capping a year which has been – in every respect – transformative. The tour also drew rave reviews with critics and fans focussing on the raw, open heartedness that threads through Missy’s work. Each night audiences were moved to tears by new songs like “A Complicated Truth” (an attempt to answer a daughter’s heartbreaking questions about her parents’ separation) and “Blue Velvet Dress” (which recounts the night everything came crashing down amid a national television appearance).
Over the course of this unique tour it became clear that, just like Missy, most of the audience was facing their own midlife shakeups. Whether it was losing loved ones, career pivots or relationship struggles these new songs were serving a similar purpose to all those ones she’d written back in the day – giving a healing voice to deep feelings that most of us struggle to articulate.
Many of The Second Act’s most powerful moments revolve around the challenges of parenting. The achingly beautiful “Hush Now”, the melancholic “When Four Became Three” and the searing “A Complicated Truth” each explore this situation from a different perspective. Together they reveal a three dimensional whole.
The album also has plenty of hopeful moments. Missy is quick to point out: “It’s not a breakup album. It’s an album about trying to figure out what the hell you’re supposed to do next.” As such there’s a dark humour propelling the upbeat stomp of “Craters”. Elsewhere, like someone making a promise to their diary, she vows “I’m not gonna fall for the broken ones anymore”. And on “The In Between” she yearns: “I’m not who I used to be, not yet who I’ll become, this is the in between … I guess.”
But it’s the album’s title track that really lets in the light. On that sweet and irresistible ballad Missy looks forward to starting a whole new chapter – just like she did as a teenager – asking those same questions but for different reasons … “who am I? And who do I want to be?”
“I think I’m ready for the story to change”, she sings. “Hey are we ready for the Second Act?”.
It’s been six years since Missy Higgins released a full-length album but in a way that highly anticipated release, The Second Act, has been two decades in the making. Written and co-produced at home by Missy and released exactly on the 20th anniversary of her groundbreaking opus The Sound Of White, these deeply personal new songs bring the beloved singer/songwriter full circle; back to the intimate, confessional intensity that propelled her trailblazing 2004 debut, The Sound Of White.
“When I was a teenager I wrote and recorded songs in a little shed out the back of my parent’s house. It was like writing in a diary that I never expected anyone else to read”, Missy explains. “That was how I worked through the things lots of people struggle with at that age – “who am I? who do I want to be?”.
Those internal monologues ended up striking a deep and enduring chord with millions who recognized a kindred spirit. The Sound Of White topped the charts and scooped the ARIA Awards.
“It was a strange time. I’d never really considered what it would feel like to have everyone knowing my deepest, darkest feelings, so in the following years I moved away from that confessional songwriting mode. It wasn’t a conscious thing, I just wasn’t comfortable with all that scrutiny so I started writing more about the outside world. But after my husband and I separated a couple of years ago, I found myself sitting alone in a dark room out the back of my house, writing songs as a form of therapy again – like I’d done as a teenager. It was the only way I knew to try and make sense of our world being turned upside down. I realized that all the books I’d read, and the movies I’d watched, had led me to create a big story in my head about how life was supposed to turn out – you get married, you have kids, then you all live happily ever after – so most of these new songs are about trying to figure out what to do when your story turns out differently. How do you start all over again when you’re a 40-year-old mum with two young children? It was basically the midlife version of those same questions I’d been obsessed with as a teenager – “who am I? And who do I want to be?”.”
Twenty years ago, on her signature ballad, “The Special Two”, Missy wrote “when you’re young you have this image of your life, that you’ll be scrupulous and one day even make a wife”. Now on “Story For The Ages” she sings, “It was never meant to be like this … the book went up in flames”. On the new album’s opening track, “You Should Run” the singer who famously asked, “can you leave me with a scar?”, now stares defiantly at the prospect of a new beginning; “Here’s my body. Here’s my scars. Now show me what kind of man you are!”
These sorts of echoes between the two albums led Missy to describe The Second Act as “a kind of sequel” to The Sound Of White. It also inspired her to create The Second Act Tour – a unique concert in which she initially previewed some new songs in a stripped back acoustic set, then returned after intermission to perform The Sound Of White in its entirety with her band, celebrating that album’s anniversary. The tour has proved a phenomenon across 2024, with over 80,000 people attending 40 sold out dates, so far. Later this year, due to popular demand, Missy will stage a final handful of encore shows for The Second Act Tour. These concerts will happen in the biggest venues she has headlined since 2005 including the Myer Music Bowl and the Sydney Opera House Forecourt. They will follow her November induction into the ARIA Hall Of Fame and thus cap a year which has been – in every respect – transformative for this enduring Australian artist.
The Second Act Tour has also drawn rave reviews with critics and fans focussing on the raw, open heartedness that threads through Missy’s work. Each night audiences have been moved to tears by new songs like “A Complicated Truth” (an attempt to answer a daughter’s heartbreaking questions about her parents’ separation) and “Blue Velvet Dress” (which recounts the night everything came crashing down amid a national television appearance).
Over the course of this unique tour it became clear that, just like Missy, most of the audience was facing their own midlife shakeups. Whether it was losing loved ones, career pivots or relationship struggles these new songs were serving a similar purpose to all those ones she’d written back in the day – giving a healing voice to deep feelings that most of us struggle to articulate.
Many of The Second Act’s most powerful moments revolve around the challenges of parenting. The achingly beautiful “Hush Now”, the melancholic “When Four Became Three” and the searing “A Complicated Truth” each explore this situation from a different perspective. Together they reveal a three dimensional whole.
The album also has plenty of hopeful moments. Missy is quick to point out: “It’s not a breakup album. It’s an album about trying to figure out what the hell you’re supposed to do next.” As such there’s a dark humour propelling the upbeat stomp of “Craters”. Elsewhere, like someone making a promise to their diary, she vows “I’m not gonna fall for the broken ones anymore”. And on “The In Between” she yearns: “I’m not who I used to be, not yet who I’ll become, this is the in between … I guess.”
But it’s the album’s title track that really lets in the light. On that sweet and irresistible ballad Missy looks forward to starting a whole new chapter – just like she did as a teenager – asking those same questions but for different reasons … “who am I? And who do I want to be?”
“I think I’m ready for the story to change”, she sings. “Hey are we ready for the Second Act?”.