Sydney-based singer-songwriter Charlie Collins is back with her highly anticipated third album, and it’s a special one.

Her new album, Nightwriter, was recorded in three weeks with Crowded House singer Neil Finn and acclaimed producer Steven Schram (San Cisco, The Cat Empire) in Finn’s Roundhead Studios in Auckland. The album was mixed by Tom Iansek (Big Scary, #1 Dads).

Like Collins’ previous albums—2019’s Snowpine and 2022’s Undone—Nightwriter showcases her extraordinary abilities as a songwriter able to balance light and dark and highlight the juxtaposition between bright musical arrangements and her highly personal lyrics.

Upon announcing the album in May, Collins said of her aims behind the project, “I want to encourage women in particular to be bold and talk about the uncomfortable; we can also be real and raw with this and say it how it is.”

Preceded by the singles Transactional Deal, Rock Bottom, and The Last 48 Hours, the latest effort from Collins is raw in her recounting of life-changing, sometimes brutal experiences.

In the album, and this feature, she explores addiction, love, loss, and mental health difficulties. If you or anyone you know is affected by addiction or mental health issues, please get in touch with Beyondblue, Turning Point, or Lifeline.

Below, read her exploration of Nightwriter, track by track.

Charlie Collins - Nightwriter Track By Track

Nightwriter

I wanted to start the record off with this song because it’s an insight into how I write. I came home from a night out and was talking to a friend about how lucky I feel to have music as an outlet and a way of expressing myself and verbalising my feelings into songs. I was so stimulated from the conversation that I couldn’t sleep, so I picked up my guitar at 3 am, and this song just fell out of me. There’s something beautiful about writing late at night in my room while the world’s asleep and I’m only just starting to come alive in my mind and finally have a chance to decompress and sift through my thoughts and feelings. 

The Hardest Part

I wrote this when I got dumped by my ex. He told me he loved me in the morning and then broke up with me that night, and I couldn’t get my head around why someone could shift their emotions so drastically. I woke up and he was gone without any goodbyes or contact. The next day, he called my dad and told him I was addicted to opioids, which I was, but hid that from everyone for years. At the time, I hated him for that, and when my dad asked me, I denied it. I look back on it now, and he was trying to help me, but I couldn’t see it at the time. 

All A Waste Of Time

This is about another relationship I was in, which was slowly becoming toxic. We were constantly fighting, but didn’t even know what we were fighting for. We were just existing under the same roof, but there was a complete disconnect from each other. The second verse is about how I came home, and he was trying to hang himself because he was so codependent that he didn’t know if he could live without me. It’s quite a heavy song. 

Transactional Deal

I wrote this after an awful hinge date. It’s about how people don’t treat people like human beings, rather a piece of meat at times, and the date feels more like a transaction, and you put yourself in compromising situations because you might just want affection, attention, to even be seen, or you punish yourself because you feel shit about yourself.

This date felt like all of the above. It was a decline in my self respect. Every time I would try open up about myself this guy would tap out and mid conversation said let’s go back to yours because I knew he didn’t give a fuck about my feelings, but I also felt like I owed him because he bought dinner and drinks so in return I felt like I owed him sex and played my part in the arrangement. I faked everything and woke up hating everything. 

You Might Be A Man Just Not Man Enough

This is about a guy I briefly dated that was intense from the get-go. Full fucking steam ahead without any pit stops, and crashed hard. I felt a different kind of pain with this one. I just felt like I was never going to find someone that could love me for me, and I was just this fun toy that’s exciting at the start, but quickly you become tired of it. In saying that, I also realised I wasn’t broken and didn’t need fixing, I just needed someone to walk beside me and hold my hand, so there’s a sense of empowerment amongst feeling all this emotional pain. How can someone try to understand how you feel if they don’t even know who you are? 

Say Something, Say Anything

This is a textbook ghost bombing song. I was in a “situation-ship” with this guy for months, and he would love bomb the fuck out of me and then completely ghost me for days, weeks, even. He didn’t want me, but didn’t want anyone else to have me. He would watch me write these songs about him on Instagram and could see I was hurting, but kept me on read and love heart all these posts that were directed at him. It’s almost as if he loved that I was hurting over him because it fuelled his ego. I knew what was happening with him was wrong, but I couldn’t bring myself to break away in case he came back. Which eventually he would, but then disappear, and we played that dance for way too long until it destroyed me and my idea of love. 

Rock Bottom

This one hit hard in every way. I wrote this about a bender I went on, which turned into a major drug overdose. This goes into detail about the order of events. I remember waking up in hospital with a doctor telling me I should be dead, and that was the moment I realised I needed to deal with everything that was killing me deep down, and finally admitted I had an opioid addiction.

I got locked up in a psych ward and then had to detox there, which was hell on earth, but I pushed through because at this point, the only option for me was to come clean or die. I always felt like I had to be this fun, fucked up party girl or people wouldn’t like me or see through the cracks and not like what was under, so I pretended for so long to be someone I wasn’t just to please others. I was numbing myself with whatever I could get my hands on because the pain was too far gone, and I felt like I couldn’t deal with any of it, but then I hit rock bottom and knew I had to finally work on myself. 

I’ll Do What It Takes To Get Me Right

This is probably my favourite song on the record because of how it makes me feel. I wrote this about admitting that I was faking so much of who I was and how I blew up my life, but also it was what made me realise I needed to then fix it. And that’s what I did. I started living, not surviving, and faced all the demons that ruled my life for so long. This song embodies perseverance, vulnerability and honesty. 

I’m Alright

This was the first song I wrote when I got out of the hospital. I had this thing in my head that I didn’t know if I could write if I wasn’t fucked up because I romanticised the whole tortured artist thing for so long, but really, I was the only one torturing myself.

I picked up my guitar, and this song poured out instantly. It’s about trying to get through hard times on your own, knowing full well you need help, but also realising that. It’s about getting better, but also not punishing yourself for bad decisions because that’s also how you learn and grow and become stronger. I used the iPhone demo because there was something special in the emotion of it. You can also hear me struggling to breathe at times from the breathing tubes I had down my throat from the hospital. 

The Last 48 Hours

Ultimately, this song is about coming to terms with being an addict because of my addictive personality. When I became sober, I noticed I was still trying to find things to give me a high, whether it be nicotine, caffeine, masturbating, sex, relationships and pretty much anything that wasn’t drugs or alcohol. I think I laughed most of the time writing this because it was a realisation of parts of my personality traits. 

Sincerely Not Yours

This started out as a fuck you diary entry to the situationship that I mentioned in Say Something, Say Anything. I felt he really destroyed my idea of love, and I noticed I was pushing people away because I was so afraid of getting hurt like how he hurt me.

Somehow, he would always make things feel like it was my fault, or I was too broken, and I was looking back on all the ways he treated me, and it really fired me up. I don’t think I’ve ever written a fuck you song like this before, but it was liberating because it was this moment where I realised, I’m over him and the bullshit. I felt like I finally broke free from the power he held over me, and I couldn’t finally let go without wanting to ever go back. 

Kinder Brighter Shade Of Blue

I wrote this after Sincerely Not Yours, and it’s about how I had been guarded for a while and was slowly learning how to let people in again. I think once I let go of the toxicity of things, I had a different perspective and outlook. Things that used to affect or hurt me didn’t anymore because I had this whole new self-confidence, strength, but also was being kind to myself.

I’m In The Right Place

I wrote this song in rehab after a group therapy session. I realised that I had always been the fixer for everyone, which led me to neglect myself. I buried the pain to help others deal with theirs, but eventually the weight was too heavy to hold. It’s about having boundaries and knowing your limits, so you don’t burn out. I felt so comfortable talking about my life to a group of strangers because I felt like they understood and saw the real me under the mask I used to wear.

I knew that rehab was exactly where I needed to be to slowly peel off all the layers and become the person I knew I always wanted to be. Which is me. Just needed to go through everything that happened on this record to find her. 

Nightwriter is out now via Island Records Australia. You can listen to/purchase the album here.