“I was writing lyrics that were about the loss of my marriage; a lot of the content I was writing was definitely wounded,” Darren Hayes tells Apple Music of Savage Garden’s second album, Affirmation. “It was the other side of love and understanding about the fragility of relationships.” That fragility extended to the vocalist’s songwriting partnership with co-founder Daniel Jones, a tension exacerbated by the pressure of following up the band’s monumentally successful 1997 self-titled debut album. “It was under so much stress,” says Hayes. “My reaction to the success of that first record was, ‘Yes, more, greater, bigger’; Daniel’s was to increasingly retreat.” With Hayes relocating to New York and Jones firmly rooted in Australia, songwriting took place remotely, the duo swapping ideas by sending digital audio tapes back and forth via FedEx. Hayes’ hopes of making their follow-up “more edgy and electronic” were tempered by Jones’ increasing interest in playing guitar. “It completely threw me, because I hoped we were going to make Music by Madonna,” says Hayes. Regardless, Affirmation remains a sophisticated and timeless pop album, one steeped in intensely emotional lyrics that covered everything from Hayes’ divorce to his coming out as gay; from his tumultuous upbringing to his fears around Savage Garden breaking up. Given that Jones decided he was leaving the band one week before Affirmation’s release, it also stands as testament to a short-lived but intensely creative songwriting relationship. “They’re very special songs and it’s a very special record,” says Hayes. Here, the singer walks Apple Music through Affirmation, track by track. “Affirmation” “I remember thinking I want this to be a series of statements or idealisms—they don’t necessarily have to be true, but these are aspirations. And I wanted to say something about my sexuality. I wanted to be able to say that I was gay, and that it was OK to be gay, so that line ‘I believe you can’t control or choose your sexuality’ was in there. It was terrifying in 1999 to put that in a song, and for the whole world to think that I was straight and for me to sing that. I still have people say to me, ‘That was the moment I knew you were gay, but I also knew it was OK for me to be queer.’” “Hold Me” “I had come out in my private life and boy, did I not want to be gay. I loved my wife so much, but I knew that there was no way that was going to work. Three or four songs on the album are about the breakdown of my marriage, and ‘Hold Me’ was the first one written, and me saying I’m finding it hard to be your man.” “I Knew I Loved You” “This song is a fuck you to the record company. We finished the record and were so proud of it. We sent it to the president of Sony and sat back and waited for the compliments. Our manager received a fax—the gist of it was, they’re unhappy. There’s no hit. I was furious. I think Daniel was crestfallen. My attitude in that moment was, if he wants a fucking hit, we’ll write him a fucking hit. At first we were going to write a very cynical song to send to them as an insult, a very cheesy song. But Daniel started playing the chords and that lyric ‘Maybe it’s intuition, but some things you just don’t question’ came out immediately. At the end of it, I was crying tears of joy. I think we recorded it the next day and sent it to them with a fax that said, ‘Here’s your fucking number one hit.’” “The Best Thing” “At the time, I was dating my first ever boyfriend, and it was such a turbulent relationship. My attachment style to him was so anxious. It’s a song about being riddled with insecurities about love. Like, what if you’re the best thing about me? I’m crippled by how tethered I am to you.” “Crash and Burn” “I was just so lonely in New York. I had been transplanted into a new culture; I didn’t have any of my family around me. So I wrote those lyrics as though I was singing to someone else, but really it was what I wished someone could say to me. I just wanted someone to scoop me up and tell me that they were going to take care of me and that it was OK if I fell apart. And they couldn’t, because I was the person who had taken a grenade and set it off at the centre of my life. You can’t ask for sympathy when you’re the person who does that.” “Chained to You” “It is a literal verbatim of how I met my first boyfriend in New York. I went out to this nightclub and they were playing ‘Ray of Light’ by Madonna and I said, ‘Do you want to dance?’ and he said, ‘Sure’, and I had my first kiss with a boy on the dance floor. ‘Chained to You’ is that song. It’s so lovely. It’s such an innocent memory.” “The Animal Song” “We were asked to write a song for two huge films. One was called The Other Sister starring Giovanni Ribisi and Juliette Lewis, and it was very sweet. Then I saw a screening of Runaway Bride, starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. We could have written a song for either movie, and I said, I much prefer The Other Sister. Of course, one of them went on to be a box-office smash. The other one was The Other Sister.” “The Lover After Me” “It’s me putting myself in the shoes of my wife and imagining what I had done. It came from an experience where she had collected up all my belongings, and I remember opening the suitcase and the smell of my old fragrance was overwhelming. In that moment, I realised how painful it must have been for her to have packed up our life and me into these suitcases. I didn’t smell like that person anymore, I didn’t wear those clothes, they were just frozen in time. I had left her to essentially clean up the body. That remorse and that guilt is in that song.” “Two Beds and a Coffee Machine” “Something in Daniel’s chords gave me permission to tell the story of my childhood. I’d never told anyone other than my wife and a previous girlfriend. So I wrote this song, which was about my memories of how my alcoholic, violent, wife-beating father treated my mother and the strength that she had, and the sadness and memories that I had of constantly being on the run as a child. I’m so grateful for that song because it’s opened up so many conversations about domestic violence and violence against women.” “You Can Still Be Free” “Daniel and his family always believed there was a bird in their backyard that seemed to be connected to the passing of someone. They had this theory that this bird that kept returning was perhaps a human soul. I took that and ran with it. It’s not based on any one person, but it’s based on the idea that we endure.” “Gunning Down Romance” “I was talking about my cynicism with romantic love. I was taking the mickey out of Hallmark cards saying, I really do want to believe that Hallmark cards are true, but I’m gunning down romance. It never did a thing for me but heartache and misery. I just didn’t believe in love.” “I Don’t Know You Anymore” “It’s pretty much a transcript of a phone call to [my wife]. I was going through a divorce, I was also afraid that my band might one day break up, so there are subliminal references to Daniel. I called my wife three months into our silence, and I begged her to take me back. I thought that I could take this whole gay thing and put it back inside the closet. I was just so lonely. I stupidly thought that I could take something so fundamental as my sexuality and just deny it, just to be with her. I’m so grateful to her for being so strong and just saying that you will get through this.”