Archives

2024 – Paul Kelly Is Still Learning On The Job – by Bernard Zuel

IN A PLOT PROMISE to rival any being offered by the streaming services, by the end of this conversation, Paul Kelly and I will be trading quotations from a play where a (fake) lawyer, a moneylender and a shopkeeper trade in debts, honour and attempts to suborn logic or love. Action! Drama! It’s an old-fashioned set of notions, bound by traditions and habits, supposedly fixed in our laws and behaviours. And yet – sometimes subtly, sometimes in a rush –... View Article

2024 – The Guardian – by Joseph Earp

In silence, Paul Kelly finds the beauty in the joy and heartache of our everyday lives Joseph Earp The Australian songwriter always wants to say less. One might imagine that the ultimate Paul Kelly song says nothing at all, and therefore says everything We’ve all been heartbroken; we’ve all experienced love and loss. These things are not new and merely writing them down, or singing about them, does not hold any inherent worth. In 2001, storied Australian musician Paul Kelly... View Article

2024 – Apple News – “Fever Longing Still” track by track by Rod Yates

TRACK BY TRACK ‘Shakespeare Creeps Into a Lot of My Songs’: Paul Kelly Runs Hot on ‘Fever Longing Still’ This release is the singer-songwriter’s 29th album. “I see the record as a showcase for the band as much as anything.” Paul Kelly didn’t know his 29th studio album would be about love until he’d almost finished making it. “We recorded the album over the past three years,” the singer-songwriter told Apple Music. “When I have six or eight songs, I... View Article

2021 – To his door: how Paul Kelly found a whole new audience – By Madison Connaughton for The Sydney Morning Herald

Maddison ConnaughtonNOVEMBER 13, 2021 While many assume Paul Kelly’s halcyon days were the 1980s and ’90s, his three No. 1 albums have all been released in the past four years. That’s thanks to a new generation of collaborators and audiences – including the children of his original fans. Paul Kelly freely admits he’s become “one of those people”. One of those people who finds solace, even joy, plunging into the freezing winter waters of Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay. “It might be... View Article

2004 – Kelly’s Blues – Geoffrey Himes for Baltimore City Paper

2004 – It’s Easy to Write About Love Gone Wrong  –  for Baltimore City Paper

1998 – Borrowed Words, New Music  –  for Sunday Herald

1991 – The Prolific Paul Kelly  –  By Brian Wise for The Age

1989 – The Blindside Attacker  –  By Dominic Roskrow for NZ Herald

by dominic roskrow Perhaps it’s his dark fascination with the strange and unusual. Perhaps it’s his passion for painting the big picture, or his uncanny knack of saying the things most people prefer to remain unsaid. But Paul Kelly seems to be making a career out of attacking pop music on its blindside with devastating results. While lesser singer-songwriters have connected themselves with trying to come to terms with that old evergreen, lurrve, Kelly’s dealt with violence against women, prostitution... View Article

1993 – The Music of Poetry  –  By John Forbes for The Age

writes JOHN FORBES Song writing is one the most difficult verbal arts. It requires simple, direct language that addresses the Big Issues with artless precision. One slip and the words turn into clichéd tokens. But Paul Kelly can do this and make it look easy. His songs are passionate, direct and forceful. The world of Kelly’s songs is the standard one of urban, romantic individualism-against a backdrop of city streets, travel, work, bars, drugs, love triumphant and love gone wrong.... View Article