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Monday, July 02, 2007

Paul Kelly's NewAlbum Is Yet Another Triumph

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For someone who is celebrated as one of our finest ever songwriters, Paul Kelly has a perennial reticence to talk about himself. He seems comfortable in his own skin<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
as a writer and a performer but not so much at ease in the role of celebrity and<o:p></o:p>
all that entails.<o:p></o:p>
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At the media preview of Kelly’s new album Stolen Apples, I am reminded of Bob Dylan. Kelly is being interviewed by Jeff Jenkins at the relatively new venue The Toff In Town, after which he plays a few acoustic versions of songs from the new album.<o:p></o:p>
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The songwriter sits uncomfortably on the small stage, glass of red wine at hand and ducks and weaves like his hero Don Bradman in the Bodyline series as Jenkins<o:p></o:p>
opens with a vicious bouncer.<o:p></o:p>
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“Tell us about the song ‘Right Outta My Head’,” asks Jenkins, then adds, “The pening lines are interesting: ‘I’m gonna  fuck her right outta my head/I’m gonna jump from bed to bed’.”<o:p></o:p>
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It is close to a no ball but at least it does break the ice. There is nervous laughter from the audience as Kelly explains that the song has universal application and that a lot of people might have felt similarly after a relationship breakup. Interestingly, the new Nick Lowe and Richard Thompson albums contain songs with similar themes. But Kelly’s song is far more forthright.<o:p></o:p>
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As Kelly nervously continues to field questions, I recall New Orleans-based author Tom Piazza telling me about meeting Bob Dylan. Piazza had written the essay to honour the songwriter at the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Kennedy</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Center</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> awards (given for distinguished lifetime achievement in the arts) and Dylan invited him to come back stage at a show. He recalls Bob talking<o:p></o:p>
animatedly about music history, about songs he liked, about almost everything<o:p></o:p>
but Bob Dylan.<o:p></o:p>
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“Can you imagine what it would be like to be him,” asks Piazza, “when almost everyone you might meet would want to know the meaning of one of your songs? It would drive you crazy. You certainly wouldn’t want to do any interviews.” <o:p></o:p>
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Jenkins, who does a marvellous job of keeping the musician engaged, asks if, in an ideal world, Kelly would actually want to do any interviews at all, and Kelly plays a straight bat and replies that he doesn’t believe in an ideal world.<o:p></o:p>
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Unlike Dylan, Kelly has never felt the need to erect a façade to shield himself from the public or the media. What you see is what you get. He is as accessible to his fans on the night as he is to the media.<o:p></o:p>
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You can see that he writes from the perspective of someone who is grounded in reality. That is what makes many of his songs so memorable. Over the past couple of decades, Kelly’s songs have etched themselves into the national consciousness, they have become the emotional weather vanes by which we have measured the changes in our lives: ‘From St Kilda To King’s Cross,’ ‘Randwick Bells,’ ‘Leaps And Bounds,’ ‘Before<o:p></o:p>
Too Long,’ ‘To Her Door,’ ‘Bradman,’ ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow,’<o:p></o:p>
‘When I First Met Your Ma,’ ‘Deeper Water,’ ‘Don’t Start Me Talking,’ ‘<st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sydney</st1:place></st1:City> From A 727.’ There would hardly be a time when one of Kelly’s songs has not spoken to us about what we are going through.<o:p></o:p>
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Can you think of any other Australian songwriter who has been able to touch us so consistently? Go back over the list of songs and there is an amazing productivity and quality. Amongst them all I think of ‘Billy Baxter’ and ‘Low Down’ from way back in the early 1980s, which evoke powerful memories for me of a nascent local music scene, and 1994’s ‘Song From The Sixteenth Floor’ is one of those Kelly songs that I could never get tired of hearing.<o:p></o:p>
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The Dylan comparison is actually not too far-fetched. After all, whenever there is any discussion about <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s best songwriters, Kelly is almost invariably at the top of the pile. His recording career of almost thirty years has produced a formidable catalogue of songs and, like Dylan or even Springsteen, he is a storyteller par excellence.<o:p></o:p>
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The fact that Kelly’s book Don’t Start Me Talking: Lyrics 1984-2004’ has been<o:p></o:p>
included in the official reading list for Victorian Certificate of Education students studying English is high praise indeed for his craft as a wordsmith. Kelly will soon perform a series of shows at The Forum Theatre in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Melbourne</st1:place></st1:City> specifically for these VCE students, but he seems much more comfortable talking about the process of songwriting rather than the songs themselves. (I bet he doesn’t perform ‘Right Outta My Head’.)<o:p></o:p>
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The first thing I notice about Stolen Apples, apart from the Biblical reference of the title, is not the lyrics at all but the music. The album’s opening song ‘Feelings Of Grief ’ is preceded by 53 seconds of music from a Turkish instrument called the mey, a version of the Armenian duduk, that sounds a little like a clarinet. (You can hear it featured on the soundtrack of The Last Temptation of Christ).<o:p></o:p>
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This piece of music will also open Kelly’s forthcoming shows, allowing him and the band to walk on stage, pick up their instruments and launch into the album which will be performed, like Neil Young’s Greendale (as Kelly points out), in its entirety.<o:p></o:p>
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This short grab of music is a powerful statement in itself. The Middle Eastern reference is inescapable and, in these days when there is almost paranoia in the media about anything associated with the Islamic world, the fact that the music is there seems to be a blow against this fear.<o:p></o:p>
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As I point out to Kelly, the impact would be completely different if he had used an Irish jig! “Its pretty mournful,” he agrees. “I guess I’m just a melancholy guy.” <o:p></o:p>
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We have caught up to talk about the album in more detail and it strikes me that Kelly has managed to say much with this short piece of music without having to write a song dealing with a political subject.<o:p></o:p>
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“You can read it in a wider context,” he agrees. “It’s before a song which is pretty much very intensely personal, but the next song, ‘God Told Me To’ is much more of a political statement.”<o:p></o:p>
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You can read the full Paul Kelly feature in August Rhythms. Available on newsstands now or subscribe online. <o:p></o:p>

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