Paul Kelly – ‘national treasure!’ - and the song that took 30 years

Beloved Australian songwriter Paul Kelly has just turned 70 – “it sounds Biblical, threescore years and ten.” He looks back here at the road he took to get there, from early days in Adelaide to the pub circuit to his catalogue

of stirring and eloquent songs about the big issues of life and love, as Neil Finn says, “with not a trace of pretence or fakery”. You’ll find …

… the moment he felt he’d arrived

… the story of How To Make Gravy – “a Christmas song with no chorus about a man in prison” – and Rita Wrote A Letter, its ghostly sequel

… early records he loved – Tommy Roe, Peter Paul & Mary, Yes, Deep Purple, Frank Zappa, the “chaotic” Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong

… life on the Melbourne pub circuit playing Neil Young, Gram Parsons and Hank Williams

… touring with Leonard Cohen – “a masterclass in performance, like a prayer, a ritual, like a Vaudevillian Rabbi”

.. the storytelling songs of the Stanley Brothers, the Louvin Brothers and Buck Owens

... the great Calypso cricket tradition and the track he wrote about Shane Warne

… “the odd-sock drawer”: the file in his computer where he stores early sketches

… I’m In Love With A Blue Frog, the five chords that underpinned 50 years of songwriting!

… the intricacy of Neil Finn’s impressionistic lyrics

… and the things you hear in your songs when someone else sings them.

Order Paul Kelly’s ‘Seventy’ here: https://paulkelly.lnk.to/seventy

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