The singer on her “most vulnerable, most raw, most honest” album. “These songs are the most vulnerable, most raw, most honest I’ve ever written, to the point where it’s quite scary releasing them,” Katie Noonan tells Apple Music. The singer’s 30th studio album sits in the devastating aftermath of her split from her partner of 26 years—and Elixir bandmate—Isaac Hurren. But while much of the record explores “the despair” of her marriage breakdown, it also harbors a brighter, more hopeful side courtesy of the lyrical contributions of Boy Swallows Universe author Trent Dalton (“Everything you know,” “When the heart falls apart,” “In your shoes,” “Together in our dream,” “Waiting for God,” and “Let me walk”). “Trent gifted me 153 pages of unpublished text, to do with what I want,” says Noonan. “They easily became song lyrics. He wrote them between 2000 and 2006, which is when he was falling in love with his wife, Fiona. And that’s when I was falling in love with my future husband, Isaac. And Trent’s words brought me succor and reminded me to honor the love, and remember the man that I still love, but then was falling madly in love with.” Recorded in her living room with just a piano and string quartet, here Noonan unpacks Alone but all one, track by track. “Alone but all one” “Everything in that song happened on one day. I was hit by a car. He was 17 on his P plates, and I wished he was mine, because I was missing my boys so desperately. Then I went to a doctor’s appointment and they were like, ‘What’s your Medicare number?’ [I’d just got a] new Medicare number—I was one of four for so long, and now I’m not. Then they asked for my next of kin. I was like, ‘Shit, I don’t know who that is now.’ I thought, ‘Alone but all one is where I’m at.’ But it’s an empowering statement because, yes, I’m alone, but I’m all one. I’m owning my power.” “Everything you know” “So we go from deeply depressing to deeply joyful and overly in love—when you’re so in love with someone that you just want to know absolutely everything about them and you can stay up all night talking. That’s what Trent and Fiona did, and that’s what [Isaac and I] did.” “When the heart falls apart” “It’s about having hope that when your heart is broken, it can have a second start. Healing is an art and healing takes a lot of work. That work is still going on. The healing is not linear. It is circular.” “In your shoes” “This reminded me of when we first came home from hospital with baby Dexter, to our new home that we had lovingly put together in suburban Brisbane. Just that joy of new love and new family and all the love and energy we put into that home. Trent wrote these [words in] 2000. He was a young man finding his way in the world and learning how to be a writer. It’s a beautiful song.” “This isn’t what I signed up for” “This is not a blaming. None of this record is about retribution or blaming or shaming or anything, because we got 26 years, we made two spectacular humans. I just thought we would get through it. So that was me acknowledging the sadness of what was happening.” “A coward’s punch” “This is not about the father of my children. I need to make that very clear. The woman who I thought was my ride or die totally ghosted me and ended an almost 30-year friendship. I just got a few-sentence e-mail and was like, ‘Wow, you didn’t even have the decency to do it face to face. I think I deserved that.’” “Together in our dream” “Isaac did protect me and love me in a way that no one ever had, and that was beautiful. I did feel in the early days I could trust him implicitly. This is about remembering that mateship, that friendship, that incredible implicit trust that you were part of the master key to this new life where I could trust you and we were a team.” “Waiting for God” “When [you’re] in the depths of despair, you look for hope. I turned to meditation deeply to get through the dark days. And I was relying on these messages from my meditation teachers. It was just the idea of placing faith in something bigger than me, that this is the path that I’m meant to be on. I absolutely believe that now.” “Let me walk” “That was me trying to have hope for the future. I was desperately sad and desperately lonely and extremely depressed. Getting out the door some days was a minor miracle. But I thought, ‘Let me walk away and I’m going to ride to a life I’ll make better.’ So, again, it’s giving hope when hope is hard to find.” “Nothing woman” “This is a song for my beautiful boys. Missing my children has been the most harrowing part of this journey. And I was not coping. When I say, ‘Who is this nothing woman, a vulgar beast of harmful contempt’—my inner voice was horrible and hateful to myself. This is just about the fact that my children are all that I am, was, and will be.”