Background and Recording
Higgins started writing tracks for her second album as soon as she had finished recording The Sound of White, which was released in 2004. She said, "I started quite early because I knew there would a lot of pressure for the second album and I didn't want to write songs under anyone's stopwatch." "100 Round the Bends" was written while she was still recording the first album. During 2006, Higgins spent six months living in Broome, Western Australia, away from the distractions of the entertainment industry. Here she was able to relax and focus on creating new material for her next album. The landscape around Broome inspired the lyrics for "Going North". She said, "It was the first place I'd ever felt honestly connected with my country, with the physical land of my country". The lyrics for "Steer" were inspired when Higgins looked up at the night sky on a Broome beach: "It dawned on me how small we are, how short life is ... I felt so liberated to have finally figured that out."
Several of the songs on the album drew their lyrics from real life relationships. "Peachy" documents the permanent breakup of a relationship that had inspired her 2004 single "Ten Days". "Where I Stood", which Higgins calls "a pretty sad love song", describes the end of another relationship. She said it portrays "one of those situations where you just feel that leaving this person is something you have to do to get to know yourself again." "Secret" was about an ex-girlfriend who was uncomfortable about going public with their relationship; "I was so head over heels in love with her I kind of wanted to shout it out to the world, so it was just a song about keeping something under the covers ... keeping it away locked in a little room."
She left Broome to tour the United States, and continued to write material on the road. While much of the her first album revolved around the piano, most of the songs from On a Clear Night were guitar-based. This was because Higgins had easier access to a guitar than keyboards while touring. She said, "I hadn't been playing guitar very long for the first album so I think I'm definitely a better guitar player, and probably a worse piano player because I haven't been able to play it much over the last few years".
In the second half of 2006, Higgins moved to Los Angeles to record On a Clear Night with American musician and producer Mitchell Froom, an experience Higgins described as "really easy and really fun." They spent three months recording in Froom's home studio with session musicians including Matt Chamberlain (drums), Davey Faragher (bass) and Greg Leisz (mandolin). Neil Finn of Crowded House played guitar on "Peachy" and sang backing vocals on "Going North".
Read more about this topic: On A Clear Night
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