Katie Wighton has today released her much-anticipated and stunning debut LP, The End.
The album is a series of reflections on events that have occured in Katies life. They touch on relationships with the wrong person, heartbreak, reconciliation and reaffirming the need to live your best life.
Katie is one quarter of the much-loved ARIA award-winning All Our Exes Live in Texas, and has been releasing quality singles under her own guise since 2020. She released a self-titled EP under her previous moniker KIT that year which firmly cemented her credentials as a solo artist.
With a sweet voice, a gift for melodies and an honesty that grips and delights, The End is a remarkable record. To celebrate the release of the record, Katie has put together a track-by-track breakdown for the AU. It is written with Katie’s refreshing honesty, so rest be assured it’s a great read. So crank up the album and take a deep-dive into The End from Katie Wighton.
Katie Wighton – The End – Track by Track
The opening track for my record The End is called “Narcissist”, and it is about a few things. One of the topics was that women and men are held to very different standards to each other. I was commentating on that. I was also commentating on this person I was dating who turned out to be a massive narcissist. So, it’s all in the title really.
The next song is called “Like I Don’t Know Better”. It was originally called “National Anthem”, and it was about wanting to sing someone like the national anthem, but it felt – I’m not that aligned to the national anthem, and I’m not that patriotic, so I changed the lyrics to “I want to love you like I don’t know better”. Which is the same sentiment when you’ve been through something with someone and you lose a bit of trust, and you want to love them as though you don’t know that about them.
“Dear John” is a song I wrote a long time ago now, about not wanting my boyfriend at the time to leave. It was a bit of a desperate plea, even though we were very in love, and hilariously he did leave me, so I’m not sure if it was this song that tipped him over the edge. We got back together which is nice.
The next song is “Take You Home” and is the first single off the record. I wrote this with my friend Elizabeth M Drummond, and we were just spit-balling some ideas. I thought she said ‘I saw your brother naked on the stairs’. And we constructed this whole narrative around not wanting to be in a boring relationship and really wanting to be in an exciting relationship with someone who loves you, and not just there because you are scared of being alone.
“Favour” is the meanest song I’ve ever written. The chorus lyric is “One Day you’re going to look back and see that baby you’ve made a mistake leaving me and one day I’m going to look back and see that you did me a favour”. I do stand by it I think, but I’m not sure if it was mistake by him leaving, as we did a lot of growth in the time that we weren’t together and now we’re back together and everything is lovely.
“Best Behaviour” is a song about my somewhat fraught relationship with my Dad and that side of my family. It was a complicated feeling. My Dad passed away last year, and it brought up a bunch of stuff that I wasn’t expecting it to.
I wrote “Does Anyone” the night before my boyfriend broke up with me. I kind of knew he was going to break up with me, and I had this feeling and I also knew the reasons he would give weren’t real reasons. I thought he doesn’t know what he is doing, and I thought I don’t know what I am doing, and I got these tattoos that my Mum hates. Does anyone know what they are doing? It’s about making mistakes and not being perfect.
“Without You” is about the feeling you get when you break up with someone, and you both know it’s for the best and you both start behaving better. You don’t drink so much, you maybe read poetry. You are much healthier, then you why do I even miss you then?
“Quit Drinking” I wrote when I was in America, whilst drinking a margarita, which is ironic, or hypocritical I guess, and eating buffalo wings, which are my favourite snack. This is about someone making a promise to you and that needing a bit more proof before you can believe it.
The final track on the album is “Unbroke My Heart” which I wrote when I was very sad, at about 2 o’clock in the morning, with a whiskey in the back yard of my house, in Brunswick in Melbourne. It was about this feeling of my heart being totally broken before I met my partner, and him helping me feel more put together. Not fixing me, but I felt really healed in that relationship. So when we did break up, it really did break my heart.
So that is my track -by-track. I hope you’ve enjoyed my ramblings, and that it is helpful. Thankyou!
The End launch shows
MELBOURNE, NAARM, JULY 8th @ LONGPLAY, TIX HERE
SYDNEY, GADIGAL LAND, JULY 13th @ THE GREAT CLUB, TIX HERE
BRISBANE, MEANJIN, JULY 23rd. @ BLACK BEAR LODGE, TIX HERE
The End from Katie Wighton is out now on all streaming platforms. Vinyl is available – head HERE for more details
You can keep up to date with Katie on her website, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok
Header image credit: Rick Clifford
