25 Jun 2020

First Song - Tim Minchin's latest release

From Afternoons, 1:20 pm on 25 June 2020

Australian Tim Minchin has released his second single I’ll Take Lonely Tonight from his upcoming album Apart Together.

The full album will be released later this year.

It’s taken 20 years for Minchin to make his first studio album, he tells Jesse Mulligan.

Tim Minchin

Tim Minchin Photo: supplied

“I got known as a comedian, and my satirical songs are definitely what I built my career on, but from my point of view I’ve always just been a songwriter and my satirical stuff has only been a small part of it.

“My mission when I was younger was always to make records, but I got very, very distracted by having this really fun career where I get to do all this other stuff. And it’s taken me 20 years really since I first made a demo and tried to get a record deal to actually do a record deal and make a studio album.”

Fans of his work might see Apart Together as something of a departure, Minchin says.

“This album is not satirical, it’s not made for laughs, at the same time it’s also not trying to be a conventional pop record, because I figured out quite early on that I’m not a pop song writer. It’s not really what my brain is suited to.”

I’ll Take Lonely Tonight deals with the awkward topic of monogamy, he says.

“I’m a rare case in my industry in that I’ve for 15 years been playing gigs all over the world, and some of my gigs have been in 10,000-seat arenas, so it got pretty crazy. But all this time I’ve been with the same person, I’m actually married to my first girlfriend, we got together when we were 17.

“When Sarah and I had our first kid that was exactly the same time that my career really took off. And so monogamy is sort of a thing that you have to keep choosing again, especially if your life changes a lot in the middle of your relationship, you have to find a way to make your new life, and in my case your new status, fit with your loyalty.”

The song is an honest look at temptation, Minchin says.

“This is a love song that is really about temptation. And trying to take a really honest look at the fact you can really love someone but be really, really tempted to cheat on them basically.

“In a way it is brutal in looking that in the eye, but also very beautiful, hopefully, if I’ve done my job right.”

Minchin says he’s interested as an artist to tackle difficult subjects with candour.

“I have always felt a bit perplexed about why we are so avoidant of the tough topics about sex and death and belief and all that.

“And my comedy definitely relied on being almost shockingly up front about all that stuff and so I guess that instinct is still there.”

This is especially true, he says, of love songs.

“If you have been in a relationship like I have for 27 years, the idea that love is a soulmate or that you’re destined to be with someone for ever … you learn pretty early on that that’s all bollocks.

“And so I want to write about love in a way that’s truthful, and the truth is it’s not always wine and roses. Monogamy is something you choose and have to choose again and again and again.”

He hopes that writing with authenticity from a personal point of view might strike a universal chord.

“People smell fraudulence very, very quickly and I’ve always thought that the job of an artist, or the job that I’m interested in doing as an artist, is to make people think when they see my work ‘oh yeah, it is like that, but I’ve never thought of it like that.’

“That’s what you’re trying to do, find new angles on universal truths, and a lot of the music industry is about the absolute opposite it’s a deliberate attempt to not say anything new, because all you want to do is get a million, squillion Spotify streams.”

And Minchin is quite happy with where his work sits in the musical landscape.

“I’m very, very lucky because of Matilda and because of my touring career I don’t have to worry too much about if it gets a bunch of radio play - it’s not really my mission, my mission is to make people who have the time and capacity to listen to story-telling songs I just want them to have a sort of a great experience.”