Missy Higgins reveals the women who inspired her new record, Total Control

Missy Higgins calls out the music industry’s boys club as she releases her new record inspired by Australia’s women’s movement.

At the end of her joyous return to the festival stage, Missy Higgins’ three-year-old daughter Luna ran onto the stage for a cuddle with mum.

It was an adorable and symbolic moment at the By The C festival in Torquay last month ahead of the release of Higgins’ new mini-album Total Control this week.

The cute toddler, who loves to make up her own tunes, was at the back of her mum’s mind as she wrote the songs for the record.

Missy Higgins celebrates the Australian women’s movement with Total Control album. Picture: Supplied

What began as the soundtrack for Deborah Mailman’s acclaimed drama series Total Control has become a compelling collection of songs also inspired by the bravery of Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame, and the burgeoning movement pushing for gender equality and against sexual and family violence.

“I felt so much potential in harnessing the passion and the anger and the really intense emotions that are going on right now with what started as the #MeToo movement, but has become a bigger women’s movement,” Higgins said.

“As the mum of a young girl, I’m seeing the brave truth telling of women, that they can tell their stories and the person will be held accountable and I was a little less worried about the unfolding world that my daughter will inherit.”

Higgins teased the new record with the powerful anthem Edge of Something last October.

Since then she has taken snippets of music she wrote for the series and turned them into fully-fledged songs including Watch Out, Big Kids and Take It Back, reflecting the experience of Mailman’s character, the stories of Tame and Higgins and the musician’s own struggles against ingrained sexism and harassment in the music industry.

“Very early on in my career, a lot of the old white dudes I met with would just talk to me about my appearance as though it was way more important than my music,” she said.

“They were looking at me as though I was something that they could mould into whatever they wanted … into some kind of pop sex kitten because that’s what was selling at the time. That was just kind of everywhere, you know?”

Missy Higgins backstage with her daughter Luna. Picture: Instagram / Missy Higgins

Higgins is already sharing these new songs with fans as she returns to perform the many festivals postponed again and again over the past two years of border closures and restrictions.

She said the reconnection with “singing strangers feeling the joy of live music again” is something she will never take for granted.

And we’re back. Higgins is on tour making up for lost pandemic time. Picture: Luke Marsden.

“On the weekend in Tassie, there was this teenage boy up the front with his mum and they were sharing this beautiful moment; she had her arm around him as he was singing all the words and crying,” Higgins said.

“And you see the looks on the faces of the little kids who finally get to see the person they’ve been listening to, and it’s probably their first live show ever and something they will remember forever.

“It’s really special.”

The Total Control record is released on March 4.For all performances, click here

Originally published as Missy Higgins reveals the women who inspired her new record, Total Control