Missy Higgins continues her monumental year with the release of her latest, deeply personal single, “A Complicated Truth” from her forthcoming album The Second Act.
The poignant ballad has struck a deep chord with fans, who have experienced its emotional weight as Higgins previewed the single during her sold-out 40-date national tour over recent months.
Today, the beloved singer-songwriter releases it to the rest of the world, and explains the heart wrenching story behind the track.
“I was driving around one day with my five-year-old daughter in the back of the car, not long after her dad and I had split up, and she started asking a heap of questions all of a sudden like ‘why can’t daddy live in our house anymore?’ And ‘how can you just stop being married if you made promises to each other?’” Higgins says.
“As you can imagine it felt like a dagger in my heart. I just didn’t know what to tell her. So later that night I decided to try and answer her questions in a song. Maybe one day when she listens to it she might understand things a bit better.”
Critics repeatedly singled out “A Complicated Truth” in their reviews of the recent live shows, often referring to the “audible sobbing” heard from the audience throughout.
Appropriately, the song is accompanied by a music video filmed during one of Higgins’ five nights at Melbourne’s iconic Palais Theatre during her ‘Second Act Tour’.
“A Complicated Truth” features on Higgins’ first new album in six years, The Second Act, which will be released on September 6th.
Written and co-produced by Higgins and, appropriately for such an intimate piece of work, The Second Act was recorded at her own home. An evocative and highly thematic batch of 12 new songs about trying to build a new life, it has been described as a “kind of sequel” to Higgins’ stunning debut The Sound of White.
Missy Higgins’ “A Complicated Truth” is out now. The Second Act is out September 6th (pre-save/pre-order here).
