Song You Need to Know: Charlie Collins New Single

In her latest single, Charlie Collins explores an all too familiar human experience: wanting to be seen, understood, and accepted as you are.

Featuring on the recently released album Nightwriter, on the surface “You Might Be a Man, Just Not Man Enough” is about a brief intense love affair, but looking deeper, it’s about the search for true connection.

While previous album Undone (2022) reckoned with the dissolution of her long-term relationship to renowned producer Chris Collins (the pair previously performed together in the indie-pop band Tigertown), Nightwriter is more inwardly reflective.

It earned a glowing 3.5/5 review from us.

“The Sydney singer-songwriter’s typically husky vocals are as captivating as always, from carrying the more uptempo ‘Rock Bottom’ to sinking into the tender ballad ‘I’m Alright’. After going solo in 2018, Collins has earned ARIA nominations for both of her first two albums (Undone and her 2019 debut Snowpine), and she’ll be hoping to make it a hat-trick this year,” we praised.

In it, Collins recalls her painful year of recovery, from falling into toxic relationships and pulling herself out ,to the reality of being close to death from an opioid overdose, being locked up in psychiatric ward and an even longer spell getting clean, while remaining unfazed through it all.

Love Music?

Get your daily dose of everything happening in Australian/New Zealand music and globally.

“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,” she said of the new single.

“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.”

The album, which also features the singles “The Hardest Part”, “The Last 48 Hours”, “Rock Bottom”, and debut single “Transactional Deal”, was recorded in three weeks with Neil Finn and Steven Schram in Auckland, and was mixed by Tom Iansek.

“Neil, Schram and I built each track from the ground up. I went over there with nothing but my phone demos. I think that’s really special and comes back to turning them into bodies of work where you create the body, bone by bone. Sometimes as an artist you have to go a bit left field to figure out who you want to be,” she said.

“A lot of the time you end up coming back. For me, this record is my coming home.”

Collins will be touring next month, supporting American indie four-piece Saint Motel, before playing her own headline shows in November. She’s also preparing for her slot at Dashville Skyline Festival in the Hunter Valley in October, and Good Day Sunshine on the Margaret River in November.

Nightwriter and featured single “You Might Be a Man, Just Not Man Enough” are out now.