Songfacts®:

• In this song, Missy Higgins describes a series of suitors who think they know best, trying to convince her to change her ways. The first one she goes along with, and he leaves her with a metaphorical scar. The second one tries to undo what came before, pulling at her stitches and leaving more damage. Finally, she realizes that she's best off doing it her way, so she puts aside her fears and her negative thoughts and finds the confidence to proceed.
  
  These suitors are, in fact, songwriters she collaborated with, not lovers as sometimes speculated. The sessions didn't work out and left her questioning herself - the scar that won't heal. Serendipitously, the experience provided inspiration for a song during another collaboration that went much better. Higgins teamed up with Kevin Griffin, the frontman for Better Than Ezra who had also co-written the Howie Day hit "Collide." She felt comfortable enough with Griffin to write "Scar" about these disquieting sessions. In our interview with Griffin, he explained: "She wanted to write about these bad experiences she had lately cowriting with other people. One woman was kind of picking at her past and trying to make her into something that she was not. And she was definitely not wanting to be all pop. That's what the song is about, but then taking that experience and that trauma or something you go through and wanting it to leave a mark on you so you don't forget it. Hence, 'Scar.'"
• This song won for Best Pop Release at the 2004 ARIA Awards, which are the Australian equivalent to the Grammy Awards. The song was also nominated for Single of the Year, while Higgins was nominated for Best Female Artist. The following year, The Sound of White album took the prize for Album of the Year and Higgins was awarded Best Female Artist.
• The song started with the line "Doesn't it sound familiar, doesn't it sound too close to home," which Griffin brought into his songwriting session with Higgins. She turned it down, but when they got together for another session six weeks later, Griffin played it for her again, and this time she went for it. They wrote the melody and Higgins composed most of the lyrics.
• This was Higgins' debut single. It went to #1 in Australia.
• The video shows Higgins performing the song at an old piano that falls apart as she plays it. The clip was directed by Sean Gilligan, who also did Gin Wigmore's "Black Sheep" and "Man Like That."
• This was used in the 2005 One Tree Hill episode, "What Could Have Been."
• In a 2024 Songfacts interview, Higgins confirmed that she has a complicated relationship with co-writing.
  
  "I've written so many great songs in co-writing sessions but I've written way more bad songs and they're really painful experiences," she shared. "All the ones that made it onto the albums have been wonderful experiences with wonderful musicians and songwriters, but there were dozens and dozens of horrible pop songs that I made with people that I really didn't gel with. It's very vulnerable. It's like dating or going to speed dating - you have to go through all the bad ones before you finally connect."
  
  As a young, up-and-coming artist, Higgins was pressured by her record company to work with other songwriters to get another album on the shelves as quickly as possible. If she'd had her own way, she would have done it all on her own - which is the way she prefers to work these days, no matter how long it takes.
  
  "I don't mind waiting six years between albums so I can take my time and ultimately, I think that I can write better songs by myself, if I give myself the time," she continued. "I hear from people that do co-writing all the time that you get over the uncomfortableness of it. The more you do it, the better you get at it. I think writing so many songs that were formulaic and really bad pop songs, that I would feel guilty putting them into the rotation of bad pop songs that already exist in the world. I would rather spend three months on a song that I wrote myself."
• Higgins' younger self would probably be surprised that her first hit is a highlight of her live sets 20 years later.
  
  "I went through a few years in my 20s where I resented that song because I didn't want it to define me," Higgins told Songfacts. "I don't think I had enough albums and success under my belt in order to have the confidence to be able to enjoy the success of that song and not feel threatened by it. But now enough time has passed and all I see is the joy on people's faces when I sing that song, and it's so fun. Everybody comes alive in the audience and gets to their feet and sings and claps along. It's one of the best parts of the show."