RADAR
This was our first band co write. Started off by Stu's enormous chunky bass riff, the song evolved very quickly in a little rehearsal room in Marrickville. I wrote the lyrics of this song mainly about the heartache about being away from family on the road. It is the hardest element of my job. I remember talking to my boys one morning in the rain in Kings Cross and I just felt so isolated and off the map without them near me. That's where the radar metaphor started and it grew from there.
That particular day I was writing with Andy and Adam. I wrote all the lyrics and verse melody then, and later in rehearsals with the band it evolved into our song and it felt right. This was the first track we tracked on the album also (October 3 2009) so it is very much the opening track of our album and the best way to start the journey of the record.

HALF IN WATER
I wrote this song with Stu at his home studio in Chippendale in early 2008. He had the gorgeous big rolling keys riff and the drums/effects as a gorgeous demo track already and it immediately got my imagination painting with melodies. I was really getting into Tom Shapcott's writing again at the time (I wrote the 2nd Elixir album around his writing) and I decided to use some of his wonderful words again. He is a great Australian writer and has very graciously allowed me to take some artistic license with editing to make his words work in the structure of a song.
The song came together fairly quickly in my head and I tracked the demo vocal that day. Stu and I also had some great fun with some weirdo backing vocals to make the track a little more atmospheric. I was thinking of the art of noise at the time also so that was a nice audio reference for me. The bulk and essence of the song was done in that day - with Stu's soundscape.
Once we were at pre production at Bundanon (Sir Arthur Boyd's artist's retreat near Nowra in NSW), we set Cameron's leash free and he came up with that angular guitar that kind of goes for the jugular - I love it! And Declan laid down his awesome drums and it felt like a Captains song.

PAGE ONE
I had the incredible opportunity of writing with Don Walker and thought that perhaps Cameron may like to come for the day. It was the day before Stu and Ashlie's wedding and I had come down mainly for that big event but also to do some writing. Cam and I set up in Don's little room and we worked on one song for quite a while and then near the end of the session Cam started playing this riff and the song Page One kind of started writing itself. Don was such an awesome sounding board for ideas and really helped write the chorus of the song and to bring it home.
All the guests at Stu and Ashlie's wedding were given an A4 piece of paper to do anything with and I decided to write them a poem - which became the lyrics of Page One. Later we demoed it at Bundanon and then again at Ritchie B's studios in Camperdown and the song started to reach it's potential. Finally, Nick's incredible engineering took it the level I was hoping for! I wanted to create an enormous, lush and exciting sound and he certainly did that!

EMPEROR'S BOX
I wrote this song on Stradbroke Island a few years ago - when I was starting to dream my 2nd solo album. I remember sending a very dodgy garage band demo of it to Cameron at the time! The lyrics to this song feel like they span years, but essentially it is about the passing of time, seeing my parents grow older, the evolution of parent and child relationships over time and how these relationships are like emperor's boxes - they keep opening up and revealing new layers. The song title seemed like a good title for the album also - in that I hoped it was a meaningful journey that kept on growing with time and revealing more layers.

SWEET ONE
I wrote this song with the divine Sia and Lester Mendez in LA in late 2005. I was on an exhausting and long writing trip for my first solo album (with my husband and new born baby Dexter) and I touched base with Sia via email. Sshe suggested that I come and stay with her and write with her on our way home to Australia after New York City.
She welcomed us into her home with open, generous Aussie arms and we had a great time and felt right at home.
I really was in the depths of postnatal exhaustion at the time, and I needed feminine friendship and so too did she I guess, and that's essentially what the song is about - being there for a friend in a time of need.
So, we headed into the studio. Sia had written a verse melody and a chorus melody but she only played me the track (no vocals) and showed me her lyrics. I started scribbling lyrics furiously and a melody just arrived in my head fairly quickly, so I headed into the vocal booth and started singing. Whilst doing this - I could see Sia jumping around the control room with a big grin - as she knew that in a strange act of schronicity - we had written different but complimentary melodies/words and we stuck it all together and it fit perfectly! It felt very special.
Her vocal kills me - she is such a `from the heart' singer - and whilst tracking this song I went back to the place I was at when I wrote it and for the first time, burst into tears after I did my vocal. It felt very cathartic.

TIME
I wrote this song in the same session as Emperor's Box - at my reconnecting spot, "Straddie". Over the years I have written a lot of songs there, from both george albums, both Elixir albums and my solo albums.
Some dear friends of mine had just gone through the worst tragedy - the loss of their child. Their beautiful little daughter lived for only 14 weeks. My husband Zac and I were also expecting at the same time, so their loss was felt profoundly. I found it too hard to talk to them and I also knew that words were going to bring little comfort. So the only thing I could do was write them a song, as a kind of gift to them - to their dignity and strength - and as a prayer that time would heal them a little with each day that passed. The strings on this song are particularly incredible - as it was my string/horn player Steve and his wife that I wrote this song for. So for me it was so beautiful that he could also write his part of this song for his family also.

I HAD A DRINK TODAY
This song is based on the words of Don Walker. Don had given me a bunch of unfinished songs that he graciously said I was welcome to play with - and this was one of them. Cameron came up and stayed at my house in the mountains to write. My husband and father in law had just finished building our office/studio and we went out and this was the first song that got written in here. I remember sitting on the unpainted, unfinished concrete whilst writing it and thinking it would be a beautiful spot on the album.
This was another one that we demoed at Bundanon and Declan and Stu bought their wonderful unique flavours to it. The lyrics are about addiction - and although I don't have the particular addiction that the lyrics are about - I certainly understand and relate to the feelings in the song and the isolation in the words and the hope that tomorrow/the next day will bring strength and change.

AFTER THE RAIN
This is a song I wrote during a fairly fervent writing period early 2009 when I was really starting to see the album's overall shape take place. I co-wrote with a couple of lovely British lads, Blair MacKichan and Stuart Crichton. Blair had this really lovely 6/8 feel song going on and the song came fairly easily throughout the day. I remember that night having the amazing opportunity of being front and centre for the incredible Leonard Cohen and being blown away, so I kind of associate that event with this song!
This is a song about wanting to have a love affair that is rich, turbulent, exciting and strong through the test of time, whilst trying not to give in to boredom of safety and apathy. It is also a reflection on my love affair with my husband, knowing that we will go through many ups and down but that we will be there for each other through hard times and good. Watching my parents deal with their ill health has kind of brought that home for me I guess. My heart wants to always be open and joyful with him but also free for him to be himself and for ourselves to have plenty of space - so I guess this song encapsulates my hope for that with our relationship.

NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK
This is the 2nd song I wrote with the incredible Tim Finn. We wrote this song at the old 505 warehouse gig space on Elizabeth St Surry Hills (where the very first Katie Noonan and The Captains gig took place coincidentally). This was an exciting session for me and a great lesson in the craft of songwriting - Tim is such a considered and exacting writer - a wonderful thing to watch. The first song we worked on was Gladness, which took some time, and then Tim played me the chorus motif and verse melody for Never Know Your Luck. It felt so beautiful and flowing - the song pretty much wrote itself. He left me to continue writing as he had to go and I started thinking about a dear friend of mine Melissa and decided to write the song for her. She had recently come home to a cowardly "Dear John" letter after a 9 year relationship and was left with a mountain of heavy stuff to overcome. Rather than fall in a heap and feel sorry for herself, she picked herself up, dusted off and moved to Sydney and started a new, exciting life. My family and I moving to Sydney temporarily in 2007 happened to coincide with her move so I saw her slowly coming out of her shell of hurt and thought she was very brave and strong. So basically this is a song I wrote as a gift for her and for anyone pulling themselves out of a hard place.
The sounds you can hear at the beginning and end of the song are my original garage band piano notes, slowed down and mixed with Elizabeth St peak hour traffic!
And just recently, my friend Mel decided to get a gorgeous tattoo of the title of the song and a picture of the girl holding a star (3rd verse reference) which was an amazing gift from her back to me! She also quit her job ("bitter room of complaint" lyric) which is even better!

GOLDEN
Another love song - albeit a more naâ?¹ve one I guess! I wrote this song deep in the flush of new love with Zac, so this is a really old song of mine (around 2001 or so). I remember going on one of our first grown up couples holidays (!) and just lying there late at night, watching him sleep and feeling really content. Knowing that he did good things for me, I did good things for him, we were a good match and it felt meant to be. The lyric of the pre chorus came in the form of a text from him: "I missed your beauty when I woke along this morning" - a beautiful lyric I decided to steal!

ARRIVAL
This is a song I wrote for my sister in law Kendall, who not long before giving birth to her firstborn became single. She handled this incredibly challenging situation with great strength and grace, and my respect for her grew enormously. She also found herself again - which was wonderful to watch.
I co-wrote this song with Andrew Guirguis, who had this beautiful rolling, kind of Nick Drake-ish acoustic guitar riff which set the song up. I was jamming on his Rhodes piano and above that was a picture of his new born nephew, so the theme of the song grew from there also. We did a lovely duet demo, then the band and I fleshed it out Captains styles at our 2nd bundanon writing retreat.
Of course bringing a new life into the world takes me back to my own wonderful birth experiences and the wonder of getting to know this new little being. This song is about that, and also a gift to Kendall and her little baby Cassidy and a homage to the power of a mother's love.

COTTON WOOL
I co-wrote this song with the lovely Josh Pyke and it was a great co-write experience as I think the end result pleasantly surprised us both. We both have a strong sense of our own musical identity and it was a good match between us!
I was in the middle of a long tour supporting an international artist, I was not having a great time at all and I almost pulled out of this writing session. I am so glad I didn't as the song healed me and made me love music more again. Bad tours can kind of kill that for a while!
I had just finished breast feeding my second born child, Jonah, and so this tour was one of the first where I was flying alone in a really long time (as my babies were born so close together). I was really having a hard time leaving them and knowing that perhaps it would be the last time I would ever have that special connection with my baby boy. There is a sadness that comes when you finish feeding! It is a song about the incredible love they bring to your heart but also how hard it can be to let them go and be their wonderful little selves.

LITTLE BOYS
This is the second song Cameron and I wrote up in my little mountain shack. Cameron had this beautiful dreamy meandering guitar motif that I think he imagined would be like a song intro/album segue, but I could hear this chromatic water like melody that turned it into this song. The lyrics were a gift from Tom Shapcott to me - he wrote them after hearing me sing live in Sydney - and he wrote them for my little boys - a great honour!
This song is simple and I didn't want to cloud it with unnecessary sounds, so we kept the recording very simple also - Cameron and I in the room doing it live and just waiting for the magic take.

GLADNESS
This is the first song I wrote with Tim Finn. He had such a strong melody already in his head, so I worked on lyrics and the form and the song came together. We had a few different version of this song - one a full band, groove based version and then one where it was really stripped back and came back to the melody and lyric. I decided to go with the less is more version and then take more of a shambolic, free improvised approach in the middle. The lyrics of this song are again based around observing my friends bravery through tragedy (TIME) and the dichotomy of that mixed with the joy of life that we do have - the joy of your child running towards you arms open to cuddle and hold you.