Hello, and welcome to Something to Talk About Burstella Podcast. I'm Sarah Lamarquin, your host, and this year I have had the privilege of sitting down with some of the biggest names in the country. Because when Estrada's celebrities are ready to talk, they come to Something to talk About. We're continuing to publish across the summer break and we'll be back with a brand new episode on January twelfth.
In the meantime, each day for the next two weeks, we'll be revisiting some of your favorite episodes from the past year, and I'm happy to report that there have been a lot of popular episodes, but out of the fifty we released in twenty twenty four, we've narrowed it down to ten conversations to revisit over the summer break, and today we'll be revisiting our episode with Tina Arena.
We had a huge response to this conversation from October, which was full of truth bombs from Tina about getting older, social media women being pitted against one another, and a heartbreaking admission about why her son has been living on the other side of the world from her. And if you're curious as to why Tina thinks she was quote unquote burnt at the stake in a former life.
Then take a listen.
You have been a stellar regular over the years, one of the most beloved performers this country's ever produced. But I'm talking to you today about one of the moments where really that this period of your career, Tina Arena, the performer that we know today, really in some ways began. I would say, let's go back to November nineteen ninety four, an album called Don't Ask is released.
What are your memories of.
That time, Tina? Going back to the release of that album in late nineteen ninety.
Four, clearly I was considerably younger, so I perhaps wasn't as cynical as what I am now. It was a very exciting time because music was really exciting then, and there was a structure around music that I think was much more It was just a little bit.
It was a lot better than what it is today. So it gave artists had.
An opportunity to present their works and also to be able to go on some sort of an adventure with their artistic careers, their performing and their writing and their creating of records and so forth. There was a real sense of excitement because I really think that that also was a time where music was really validated, really really valued, valued, I guess is really the word. It wasn't really so
much a commodity as such. I mean, of course it's a commodity, but it wasn't a commodity in the technical terms of the word. It was something that people looked forward to. They weren't having music rammed down their throats, so it enabled people to have the opportunity to really immerse themselves in an artist's journey.
So it was a beautiful time.
It was a crazy time, but it was exciting certainly creatively that moment.
In Australia, we go back to November nineteen ninety four, Paul Keating was Prime Minister. This thing called the Internet, which I'm imagining, Tina, would have facilitated a lot of the change of culture that you've just spoken about, like the onslought of digital media, social media, everything that's come with the era that we live in now. Culturally, it
was the year where Muriel's Wedding was released. It's also turning thirty this month, and Priscilla, what about the culture at that time would you like to go back and change.
I missed the fact what I really enjoyed about the eighties and the nineties, particularly in Australia, is the fact that Australians were much more invested in their own culture. They were much more invested in their own music. Hence Muriel's wedding was a wonderful example, and so was Priscilla. Queen of the Desert was really really very much a
foray into what Australian culture was at the time. I really feel that that has unfortunately, very sadly drifted so far away now in these last sort of twenty years, because we've had such an infiltration of American music and in English music too, which is really sort of buried. It buried our community and our capacity to be able to bring our art to the fore front. I think
that's what's ultimately disappointing today as a musician. You can't really compete with you know, one hundred thousand songs or so that are streamed or delivered every single day. It's just it's it's impossible. So there, you know, it's there. There is a big pot, and people have.
Just thrown everything into it.
And of course that's that's not going to make a really beautiful minnestrone, you know, throwing absolutely everything in the kitchen sink, and it just doesn't work. It's just it's we live in a world that is ultimately saturated. So therefore those little jewels and those beautiful things really struggle to come to the forefront. So I do I do miss I miss that implication and that real fight for our own culture that we had in that time.
What about when you're in the presence of a live audience.
I think it's the closest that you can that you can come to grace if you want to kind of use that word. For me, that's that's the that's the moment of reckoning.
That's where I that's where I feel that I'm truly doing my job. That's where I that's where it is.
That's sort of that's where it starts and stops for me, because that is the ultimate truth, and people see it right in front of their very eyes and they're able to participate in something that extraordinary happens when you get beautiful music and performance and people coming together, it's always a celebration where everybody is on the same frequency, and that's an extraordinary that's a real gift, and I'm very grateful that i have the opportunity to still be able
to do that and to focus and to feel like I've still got some learning and growing to doing that, and that I'm excited about doing all of that. I think that if the live aspect wasn't what it is, it can't be manipulated. It's not going to be manipulated by artificial intelligence. That, as far as I'm concerned, is just the technocrats doing what it is for them to be able to survive, have some sort of evocation, and to rape and pillage people and their crafts all at
the same time. It's unbelievably disappointing that they feel that they have the right to be able to do that to people, and the fact that very few people turn around and say to them, who do you think you are by wanting.
To take us what it is that we do.
And to transform it and to not remunerate us for it, you know what I mean, and then to create some.
Sort of a digital.
Replication of that person of that spirit. It doesn't work for me. It just doesn't make any sense. So therefore, getting back to the question, the live thing is the most beautiful thing. You can't mess with it, you can't touch it.
If you were starting your career now, then, Tina, in this landscape, do you think it's something that.
You would persevere with?
Would you put aside your doubt? No, you think you'd just go and do something.
I can tell you really honestly, Sarah, if I feel a big part of the reason why I fight so strongly for musicians and that I've had some stand up arguments with people in the music business and record industry and in radio and so forth. And I don't mean to have those disputes to them. I'm not, They're too attack them on a personal level. What I find frustrating is that if nobody says anything, nothing is ever ever going to change.
And how are.
These kids supposed to make some sort of a living or have some sort of a life when they're not in the least bit respected. So it is particularly sad. I do really fret for the younger generation.
I really do.
I am scared for them, and I fight for them. And I've had some people say to me, well, why would you bother fighting. You're fine, You're privileged, you have a career, you have money to be able to do what it is that you want to do. It's like, well, it's actually not about me. I know, I'm fine. You know, I've already hit almost fifty years in my career, and yes I am privileged, but I've worked very, very hard. So it's a privilege that I deserve because I've implicated
myself in it in a very traditional way. But I will fight for the new generation and I will hold the government up to the fact that they should be respectful of the artistic community and understand that the artistic community make an extraordinary financial contribution to any gross domestic product of any country. So that's nothing to negate. You can't just put that aside and go, yeah, they're just musicians. Leave them, you know, don't worry about it. Throw them a bone.
Fuck off.
No, we don't take that. And it's unbelievably disrespectful. I think that's the thing that I find really disheartening is the real lack of respect, and that's demonstrated in the fact that they are careless and they don't care about our future or our children's future.
You have never been one to hold off sharing your opinion.
You are a passionate advocate for the industry, You started a big conversation with an interview Instellar during COVID where you called out lack of support for the arts community, you know, complete decimation of an industry and really took a big one that ignited a huge national conversation at the time when you were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in twenty fifteen, you use that moment to call out the industry, especially radio, for not playing a
quote unquote old woman, your God forbid woman over forty. Why would we be listening to this on radio? These are moments where some people might think, I'm just going to have a good night, wear my great gown, have a glass of champagne, and bask in the moment, and hopefully you take a moment to do those things as well when I.
Wish I was better at that, But anyway, go continue.
To do though, where does this come from, Tina? And has this been something that has been with you from the beginning? Were you always outspoken?
Do you know, Sarah, when you grow up in the industry from a little girl and you're you're subjected to just seeing things really early on, so you start putting two and two together. There's unfortunately the arts is full of a lot of bullshit that I just don't really I don't have any time for it doesn't interest me.
I don't feel I learn anything from that. I think we learn when we're out of our comfort zone, when we do create a conversation, when we ask a question that people don't necessarily expect to be asked, when we confront and have a discussion about something that is absolutely not discussed. And I guess the smoke and mirror thing for me is always I've had a real problem with that these last few years, and I guess in it subconscious way, I've slowly been deconstructing that a little bit,
and it's like my life. I don't want my life to be smoke and mirrors. I have a privilege of being able to do my job, and the basis of my job is about honesty. So I don't really I can't be anything, but because I don't believe that that is my I don't believe that's my purpose era. I believe that my purpose obviously came out of fighter. I don't know what kind of karma I have. I don't know what kind of past life I have. I may
have been burnt at the stake. There are times where I've felt that very seriously around some people that I feel haven't had the right intentions or perhaps didn't say the right thing.
So I'm a very keen observer. I observe people.
I study people, and their behavior gives me the answers that I need. I also spent many years not listening to myself and listening to others, and as a result of that, I lost my way. I lost who I was, and that's not what it's about. Ex Self expression is about you what you inherently feel, think, desire, and I can't be anything but truthful and if people that's fine. If people don't agree, I'm so comfortable with that because
I'm comfortable in the notion of agreeing to disagree. And that's something Australians don't do very well at all.
But I lived in.
France for a long time and there's a lot of people that agree to disagree, and there's some extraordinary I have had some extraordinary conversations over the last few years that I think have probably been a massive con tribution to the woman that I am today because I was out of my comfort zone and some things I knew
and some things I didn't know. And sometimes I would make points where people were like which I never thought about that, or other times though ire like, no, but you don't see this is sort of and I go, oh, okay, so I'm just open. I'm very open to discussion.
I wish we had more of that in this country.
I agree.
I think agreeing to disagree and listening to one another and maybe God forbid, learning from one another is I think becoming a really endangered trait. And it's certainly to be speak your truth and listen to somebody else can make you a target. And I think especially as as a woman and a high profile woman, and you talked about you know, possibly you know, being burned at the stake. I mean might still think, you know, we still like to burn women at the stake, even in twenty.
Twenty four, you know, we do, Sarah. And it's really sad.
It's really sad because I was really hoping that as women we would be able to somehow evolve a little bit more graciously as opposed to being in this sort of thing of let's fight. No, things are not solved like that. They can be solved much more beautifully and gently than that, and I don't like this sort of male female you know, friction. I believe in the balance of life. I believe in the balance of the female, like I believe in the balance of the male.
So that's truly what I feel.
It's unbelievably important to support other women in a very honorable way, even if you don't agree with them, but to just sit there and go, you know, what they're doing, what they feel is right. So just be gracious to enough to understand that that is very honorable. You know. I'm a woman who's had many other people attack me over the years because I am forthright, because I do speak my mind. And it's like, I'm like, look, if you want to cancel me and knock yourself out, I
really like, is it going to really change my life? Well, probably not spiritually for me anymore, because I'm learning to protect myself around that and I won't buy into the bullshit. I just just don't.
And media plays a big, big, big role in that.
Therefore, it's important what I say. That's why I feel that the truth is everything. The truth is everything.
And coming up, Tina opens up about the heartbreak of her teenage son moving to the other side of the world during the pandemic. You spoke there, Tina about the honorable idea of supporting other women even if we don't necessarily see I too. I I wanted to ask you a little bit about how you think the industry may hopefully have improved. Maybe it hasn't improved in terms of the way that women were once pitted against one another. I feel like sometimes that narrative has been turned down
a little bit. What do you think you were someone who has a lot of high profile women that you support. I mentioned the ARIA Award being inducted into the.
Hall of Fame.
It was Kylie Minogue who inducted you. She flew back into Australia for that.
And I'd asked for Kylie to do the induction because for me, it made sense that she would do it as she's known me for a long time and she understands my trajectory, so for me, it made sense that somebody like Kylie, who's been on a long journey herself, she would completely understand and empathize. That's why it was I made that call and I really wanted.
Her to do it.
It was a really beautiful moment, and you, of course an fellow a young talent, time alumni Danny Minogue. Have been in one another's lives for years since, very formative years when you're on the show together and again somebody, I think the power of those high profile relationships and friendships probably shouldn't be that revolutionary, that we have women
supporting other women in this way. But do you think that that has become something that I imagine there have been points in your career where you've even been told, oh, we can't release that, we've already got a woman signed to the label, or so and so is doing that. There's only a room for one woman in the charts, one woman on the room.
What are your thoughts about all of that. You've made a very interesting point, Sarah, when in the eighties or night just probably started way back before then. Because the industry was predominantly male at the time. The women were pitched up against one another, and I think a lot of those males had some sort of a fantasmical, sort of an expedition within themselves and their own lunch boxes to sort of sit there and fantasize voyeuristically at those women.
And also the relationships to the dynamics between women.
I'll be very honest.
I've been in several situations over the years, and particularly in the nineties and late nineties, where I had met some very very successful women internationally who shall remain nameless. I will not mention their names at all, because it would be disrespectful.
Of me to do that.
But where I've felt really uncomfortable because of that very notion that we were being pitted against one another, We're in complete competition. It's such bullshit. It's absolute bullshit. It is so boring. It is a storyline that makes no sense. Nobody gets anything from it, not the women and not
the women watching or the greater audience at large. I think what I've struggled with a lot is those really boring narratives and cliche things that they do when someone goes, oh, I've got a really great idea, or what do you think, and it's like, it's actually not a great idea at all.
It's you think it's a great idea, so you know, and hence you don't see any beauty coming out of one person or the other because they're just both being pitted against one another in this absolute bullshit narrative that is, I don't know, it's not interesting for anybody. It's really not interesting for anybody.
In terms of challenging narratives. I also, Tina, wanted to ask you about the fact that you changed your name to Tina, your stage name when I believe when you first appeared on Young Talent time back when you were eight. Again, you know, we did not see a lot of diversity on our screens in the late seventies and eighties. I mean sometimes exactly. I mean we've come a long way. That's I'd love to ask you a little bit about that moment.
And you know, changing your name, well, you know, Australia was very, very white in the seventies, and that's okay. I was born and raised here, so I'm not an important sorts. My parents came here when they were quite in their twenties, but I was born here.
I didn't have an issue with it.
Sarah, my name is peenapi Ina and I understood as a kid that I was going to get ribbed and I was going to get called everything under the sun, and I kind of did in a way.
But that's cool.
I really I kind of was water off Duck's back for me. I was such a happy go lucky kid that I kind of just got on with it, and when it was actually John Young who made the suggestion to change one letter because he as a Dutchman who was born in Holland and came to Australia as a young man being ethnic, understood and went, well, if we allow her to be called Pina, she's going to be she's going to be confronted with some serious bullying and ribbing.
And he was right.
So he said to my mum and dad, what do you think if we changed the peed with tea. My parents were like, that's fine with us, and they looked over and I remember the moment. Actually, I was sitting in his office and he had this beautiful office of this gorgeous sort of racing green color on the wall and these really cool sort of Italian leather couches. John was unbelievably stylish, had incredible taste in these old gold records.
So I was just wandering in the office and I was seven or something, just looking at the gold records, and he sort of said, what do you think about changing your name from Peanut to Tina? And I turner and I remember and I went, oh.
That sounds cool.
With me, and then I kept looking at the Gold Records and just.
Studying the room and the space. I was fine with it.
Well, there would be a few of those Gold records in your future, Tina. And then Tina became Tiny Tina. I wanted to ask you about that transition from child star, from premiering on Young Talent Time around seven, being broadcast into people's living rooms for you know, six years, and then coming out as a teenager, and that gap. I suppose if we go from there till say ten years later, when you're you know, twenty five, twenty six, and then recording Don't Ask, I'd love to ask you about that
interim decade. Tina, and you did release an album when you were around eighteen, but as I said at the start of our conversation, it really was Don't Ask. That was the absolute breakthrough and arrival. From the outside, there's always a lot of chat and speculation about these child star transitions. I mean, obviously we've seen in everyone from
Miley cyrus Selena Gomez. It's hard enough growing up. I can only imagine how difficult it is growing up on national television and then finding a way as a young artist and having everyone critiquing that or feeling that. In some cases, obviously people will accelerate their adolescence and you know, do a hold it like go, you know, shave their head or do something hyper sexualized. How was that transition for you?
It was a rough transition, Sarah. That was tough because I was really fine and I was pretty outspoken by
that stage. Because I think that when you grow up as a little kid on TV and you're constantly told what to do, it's very easy to lose when you're it's a pro it is a form of programmation, right, so you are going to you just take on board what everybody says, and then it's very difficult to be able to grow and learn about setting boundaries for yourself and so forth, and you do leave yourself open for massive attack, which I did. You know, I was bullied.
I was bullied because I was Italian. I was bullied because I wasn't blonde, you know, gorgeous and didn't fit the mold, you know. I yeah, I did. I struggled a lot, but I fought through it and I knew that it was going to be a phase and I just kept I just kept that vision and that dream and that goal and that focus in my sight, and I was like, the only way I will get to my point is by working really hard. And I'm a worker, you know, by nature. So I just worked, and you know,
I did it pretty hard. But I learned so much too. I started gigging live. You know.
I remember when.
I started gigging live at the Grain Store on Friday nights, and you know, they had a massive following in that day because there was an in house band called the Network Horns, and that had a huge following. And every sort of Friday Saturday night you would get five six hundred punters come to the venue, which was a small
venue and it was already at its limit. And I remember in the early days when the guy who managed part of the Grain Stores, a dear gentleman by the name of Peter Hoyland, who I still know and occasionally bump into. Peter gave me my first break in that live thing. And Peter would stand out the front on Friday nights. They would go, oh, who's playing tonight, and he'd go Tina Arena and the people would be like, you're fucking kidding me.
It was so great.
I got I wish I had that stuff on film. Now you're kidding me, I've got to see this. So those very people that came in and were like, yeah, ready to absolutely tear strips off me kept coming back every Friday night.
It was very interesting. It was an interesting time.
People were pretty rough too, But I just knew that I had to work. I knew it was going to be tough. I had no illusions. I just kept going. I was pretty resilient, Actually pretty resilient.
We're very resilient, hard worker, a woman of conviction, not afraid to speak up, but also extremely extremely talented. I mean, a voice of a generation. Brings me back to Don't Ask and that moment then where there was no one was then thinking about Tiny Tina. No one was outside going yoh'm getting me. It was one of those moments that really blew everyone away and showed what you could do. That's certainly what it seems from me as an outsider.
How did it feel as that was unfolding TEENA? Because the first single was changed, it was a huge hit, but the album just kept going. And we do still see this a little bit today. You know, you do have those albums that will stay in the charts for a year. We've seen it with Adele, with Taylor Swift. Yes, it certainly was the case with Don't Ask. The singles just kept coming. It was on the charts for, you know,
well over a year. How do you call feeling at the time, as it was all unfolding and everything changed.
I was surprised by the reaction, only because I'd been programmed to not really believe that I was capable of making that transition, because everyone was like, oh, she's a young talon timer, She's not going to be able to transcend from child starr into an adult.
I surprised myself in a way. I think, yeah, it was. It was very humbling.
I remember being unbelievably humbled by it and shocked. I think a sort of an equal amount of both things of humility and shock. I was kind of balancing those around for a while. Yeah, I didn't expect it.
I knew the.
Record was a really on perable piece of work, a body of work that was very very much a depiction of where I emotionally was at that point in time. The record deserved it, I think I do believe that.
I think it did too.
I have it in well, I had the CD at the time I had, I had a different CD, a different version of it in my car. Friend of mine was like, how many copies of this CD do you have? I'm like, I need one in my car, one at home, and now of course it lives on my phone in digital media.
Not the same thing. Not the same thing. No, it's not listening to it.
It just reminded me what you said, though, was there are songs that you know, obviously everyone you're writing that material and recording that material in a certain chapter of your life. Different people were listening to it at different chapters of our lives and then coming back on stage
and performing the live tour. For me, I started playing it again on my playlist the last few days, knowing I was speaking to you today, and I remember thinking, Wow, this song is just hitting in a whole different place thirty years on, and I imagine everyone is coming to that. What about for you, Tina, as you prepare to tour
the album again. I imagine there's songs that were written and coming from you from a certain part of your life and experience, and they again must just you know, take on a whole new meaning of the woman I'm speaking to today.
Sure, Sure, I think what I learned about myself even thirty years on is that I was a bit ahead of my time. I also think that I had an emotional maturity back then at twenty four that doesn't really exist in many twenty four year olds today, only because they have so many distractions. Therefore it's much more difficult for them to hone in on something. We didn't have those distractions, Sarah. So those songs were created from a really,
really profound emotional place. There were things I was going through, you know, Sorrento Moon a reflection of my childhood, sitting on the beach, on the back beach in Sorrento, watching the Surfy boys, watching the girls interact, remembering how beautiful that time was, the innocence that came with that time. And then you get Heaven help my heart, which was a real prayer to myself, because I knew that my heart was going to get thrown around, and it did,
and not only in a romantic level. I'm not just purely you know, talking about that. I'm talking about the greater picture at large. You know that people were constantly throwing things my way, you know, wasn't it good? Talking about a relationship you know, in my late teens that was a really beautiful relationship and it didn't continue, but it was important for me to be respectful of how wonderful it was when it lasted, and not coming from a place of being a victim, which is, you know,
the place that most people come from today. They choose to play the role of a victim. We don't have any more heroes. A Chains was absolute frustration because I knew that when I entered that project of Don't Ask and the Tree, in the emotional trajectory that I was on at the time and the alchemy that was around me, Chains really is a manifestation of knowing that I was gonna go on one hell of the journey and I did.
I went on a hell of a journey and I was in Chains, So you know, it became almost it became literal, not almost, it was literal.
So all those.
Songs are you know, they're very real emotions that I was experiencing at that time as a twenty three, twenty four year old young woman, just putting my heart down and going, well, it is what it is, and suren you know, surentomone. When the record company first heard that, they sort of went, what the fuck is that?
And I was like, what do you mean? Makes me feel good? But it's sort of it's not right.
It doesn't really fit into anything that when musically doing at the moment.
And I was like, precisely.
Exactly mission mission accomplished, you know, and they were like, oh, you can't do that, and I said, I can do what I want, Thank you.
I also love the fact that Sorrento Moon is still played to this day. You will be walking around a shopping center and all play. I love the fact that an iconic Australian song name checks a place where you grew up. It's you know, so many of the songs that we listened to, you know, international landmarks and aw can this and that and how fabulous and we're not even talking about Sydney on Melbourne or something.
That's all like Postcard. It's Sorrento.
I love that that that's just trickled into part of the Australian cultural landscape because of that song.
Well it is. It is very much.
The Italians like to think that it's about them on the Amalfi Coast and I'm like, well so sure.
A few years you released In Deep, and this really also cemented your success in the French market. You actually moved to France in two thousand came back home.
About twelve years later. I wanted to ask you a.
Little bit about that, Tina, the experience of living overseas, creating a new day to day life in a whole new country, and then coming home from that.
A lot of.
People will move away overseas for a time. How has that fit into the broader story of your life so far?
Well, it was exciting.
I mean I traveled an awful lot to Paris sort of from about ninety six ninety seven because In Deep was released there and started.
To do really well.
Chains had a real underground vibe, and then they released I'm not sure if it is I want to know what Love is that I did a cover of Foreigners version of that with Mick Jones, and I had also at the time recorded the soundtrack to the film The Mask of Zoro with the late Funny, the late James Horner, the late Jim Steinman and now the late Will Jennings who wrote the lyrics. All three gentlemen are all dead, Like it's just mental But anyway, that's another story.
That film was.
So unbelievably successful in the French market because they love the story of Zoro. So when that film came out and it's such a majestic piece of music that it just went bananas. So the French public had heard me in a pop format and then they heard me in a sort of timely classical format.
So that for them was like yay. So there was a real curiosity.
I was really nonchalant to I was really happy to be out of Australia at that time too, because I was starting to go through a lot of really difficult lessons and things in the late nineties. My relationship had fallen apart that became unbelievably ugly.
So I moved.
Because I just needed to have clarity. So it was lovely to go there and try and find a new life and just be me, like really really be me, not have to put on any airs and graces because people don't know who I am, they don't know my past. But what ended up happening, Sarah is just with not a lot of time that went past then people I was walking down the street in France and people were stopping me everywhere. That was something that was pretty hard.
It wasn't easy, you know, and then you throw a baby into the mix and it's like, oh, Gord, what do I do here? You know?
Yeah, it was tough because I'm very private. I'm very private. I like to have fun.
I love to work, but I remove myself from it. I can't lead that sort of a lifestyle. I need grounding. I need grounding, I need normality. I like I run home. I'm happy in my home. I cooked my meals, make sure the washing's done, the place is as tidy as it can be.
So I do.
I'm quite juxtaposed. So I can't live in that other world full time.
It would drive me insane.
Let me ask you, then, Tina. One of my final questions coming home to Australia. You're here, you have family in Australia, Your your son now is well, he'll be twenty next year. I believe, what's your relationship with Australia now with some of those issues, and then being closer to your own family and with your son here at nineteen at this point in your life.
Well, my son isn't with me, Sarah. My son lives in Paris, so he's been there for the last three years my son, his father, and I had decided well, Gabriel ultimately had desired to leave Victoria during the lockdown because like many young children, he didn't being locked up at home. Actually none of us did, and we were
supposed to put up and shut up. And I still struggle with that, and that's why I was also very vocal, because I don't think many people understood that it wasn't so much you know, the artistic world and so forth, that had literally we didn't know what was going to happen to our world other than I intuitively knew that we're in a massive reset.
I intuitively knew.
It was a heartbreaking time for the family because the family fell apart. His Gabriel's father and I split up about four years ago, maybe more than nearly five years ago. And that's fine. We're all fine now, thank god. But it was a really brutal, brutal journey. So when your only child decides to leave because he needs to be able to walk the streets and have a sense of freedom and be a young boy and learn, it made me really angry with the state with Australia and then
being so compliant. I do think that there's a tremendous amount of work to do in this country.
It's probably got a lot to do with the.
Fact that I am very local and that I hate the totalitarian display of behavior that we are currently seeing, and the fact that nobody talks about it.
I think it's unbelievably selfish.
I think it's unbelievably ignorant that it's not spoken about. I'm quite traumatized by it. I ended up going to therapy, and I'm very comfortable in saying that I have therapy on a regular basis because I was very unhappy. I got very sick last year and ended up in hospital, had to cancel the tour. I really do believe that that's a manifestation of the trauma that happened in twenty twenty twenty, In twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two, it was three years.
That it went on for it was very unfair.
Nobody's been held accountable, absolutely no one, And in that time my son decided to go overseas, so it was a massive hamburger with the lot for me to try and ingest at that time. So I've had to slowly work my way through it with the help of and lot of love of my friends and my family who've really helped me, you know, through that journey. It's not over every day, you know. There are some days that are really great and there are some days that you know,
are tough. But I'm doing much better because I'm learning a lot more about that and I'm understanding that not everybody understands these things, not everybody sees the big picture, because so many people allow themselves to be completely inundated and ruled by what it is that they see. People are not inherently the types to try and strip through a few layers to see how how did we get to this? Why did we get to this? And to
ask all these questions which I've asked. Perhaps I've done my head in a lot more than I should have, but I think I've grown a lot and I'm much more peaceful with it now. And I'm happy to say that my relationship with my son is getting better by the day, you know, And that's good because we really did struggle as mother and son for a couple of years. He was very angry, very angry with being shut off here and as a parent, you know, and as you know as well, we don't have a guidebook.
Telling us what to do.
So the way I navigated through that through unadulterating honesty with my boy. I'm very very honest with Gabriel, and I have expressed strengths to him. I've expressed perspectives to him, and i have expressed to him my failures, and I've been very open about that and very very happy because I think it's I think my son has sort of understood and he has gone well, you know, at least mum doesn't sit there and pretend that you know, she's
got the answer to everything. She's only human and she does great things, and sometimes.
She's an dickhead. Oh it's funny.
Thank you so much for sharing that. I'm really sorry that you've you know, had a really challenging few years. But I know that it's going to make a lot of people feel a lot less alone and seen and heard to hear your story. And I think, as you say, we don't get a handbook as parents don't, but I would, well,
people much smarter than me. But probably you know, experts in the field do say that it's a real gift for us as parents to admit to our children we are figuring this out too, and that we're not perfect and we're all in this together. And you know, what a gift that you have given your son with that honesty and vulnerability, and I think, what a gift you've given to us. So thank you so much for opening up about that.
I really you're very well. It's not easy.
It's not easy too, But I also think it's it's important that people understand that it doesn't matter what you do as a job, living what kind of a life you've had. You know, people can only assume that they think you've led a particular life. They don't know, and then it's up to us as to whether we choose
to share things or not. I don't want to share everything because I don't think it's any every it's not anybody's business, you know, Like I don't care to really know everything about other people.
What I do know is that they're.
Human, and you know, humans, you know, are constantly juggling things.
That's what that's what they're doing.
But I do believe in being truthful and saying there, you know, there were really really difficult times, but it's part of life. And if I can transcend that and turn it around, that's when I'm really winning, and I think I'm winning now because I am turning it around, and I'm very grateful for that.
Really, what a time to be revisiting this album Don't Ask and taking to the stage, Tina. Imagine like it's been obviously every time that you're connecting with an audience you're performing. Obviously you're digging so deep into yourself to share that. But I would imagine that particularly profound. These three decades of your life and so much growth and so much change and so many wonderful things and so
many challenges. What a moment to have that moment of retrospection yourself and for everyone that is coming to see you perform.
Do you know what's really beautiful? Sarah?
It recently dawned on me only because I'm not very good at celebrating what it is.
That I do.
I tend to do what I do, and then I'm move away and I do other things, so I don't spend that time reflecting what I'm really proud of with Don't Ask. And why I think it was the substantial it had the substantial success.
That it did.
Is it dealt in universal themes? It dealt in love, it dealt in loss, which we all deal with.
And I think that those themes.
Thirty years down the track haven't shifted at all.
They're still there.
There's still things that we deal with, only now I deal with them differently. The hindsight of having lived a life, having done beautiful things, having made some really stupid mistakes, not having listened to myself, but now listening to myself and those songs, that's why they've stood the test.
Of time, you know.
And I'm very excited and a little scared to get back on stage and sing those songs again because I've not done the record from top to bottom.
So it's gonna be fun. It will be fun.
Well, final question, is there a song that you're most looking forward to singing and will it be the same song that fans ask you for all the time or is it going to be a little bit unexpected?
Oh look, I don't know fan the fans are. You know. I have a very loyal audience around the world.
I've been so incredibly blessed and it's an audience I've nurtured from time. I do have a profound, like a request constantly to do show Me Heaven, which was not on Don't ask was actually on in deep. I've always like, yeah, no, I don't connect with that song.
For some reason.
See, that was a record company back then that said, oh, do this, you know, do a version of Maria McKee's Show Me Heaven. I'm like, what for? She sings it so fucking great? Why do you want me to sing it for anyway?
Again?
You know, I was just doing what I was told back then, and hence you know the reason why I'm not there doing that anymore because it just doesn't.
It doesn't. I don't relate.
There is a song that I'm looking forward to doing. I'm looking forward to doing Greatest Gift because I think that that's really beautiful. And the other one that I'm looking forward to doing is Message M.
Yeah, it's a beautiful song. Yeah, and I just I'm looking I'm looking forward to it.
It's going to be very interesting to see when we get into rehearsals what kind of shape they're going to take, do you know?
So it's yeah, I'm curious.
I don't know yet, None of us know till we get into that room and start banging away.
Well, all the best with rehearsals and look forward to it and thank you again, Tina for your time today.
It's been really lovely to speak to you.
I hope you enjoyed that episode of the summer series or something to talk about. Make sure you're following us if you're not already, because we'll be revisiting some of your favorite episodes of the past year until we're back with a brand new episode on January twelfth.