Tell us a story… So opens the new Paul Kelly album, a request like a child to their parents at the beginning of a trip, or a group around a campfire at the end of the day. And who else would we ask but Australia’s master storyteller, the man who has been doing it for 45 years.
Kelly’s latest album, SEVENTY, will be released on Friday November 7th and is available for pre-order now . Having turned 70 in January, this deeply personal collection finds Kelly taking stock – setting out his stall with all his wares. It’s his most varied album yet, representing all his different kinds of songwriting and showcasing a songwriter and band at the peak of their powers. The album’s cover , featuring a striking portrait by photographer Dean Podmore, pays homage to the iconic 1988 Jon Lewis photograph of Paul – a visual echo that bridges nearly four decades of artistry and reflects the album’s themes of taking stock and celebrating continuity.
The album’s first single, ‘Rita Wrote A Letter’, released today alongside a beautiful video featuring iconic Australian actress Justine Clarke, directed by acclaimed Australian filmmaker Imogen McCluskey and produced by Jessica Carrera of Dollhouse Pictures, is perhaps the most anticipated sequel in Australian music history. Nearly 30 years after we met Dan, Joe and Rita in one of Australia’s now most beloved songs, an unconventional Christmas anthem ‘How To Make Gravy’, Kelly brings them back with a ghost story that’s both tender and darkly comic. Click HERE to read the lyrics.
“I’ve been mulling over the idea of a sequel to How To Make Gravy from Rita’s point of view for quite some time,” Kelly explains. “About five years ago I wrote down the words, ‘Rita wrote a letter,’ and thought, ‘There’s my title.’ I scratched away intermittently and fruitlessly for several years but never got very far until Dan Kelly sent me a recording of something he’d written on piano with a rough melody over the top. The words started rolling after that. As often happens, they took me by surprise. You could say the song took a dark turn but to my mind it’s a black comedy. A ghost story. You hear Rita’s voice loud and clear, but Joe talks even more. I couldn’t shut him up!”
Video director Imogen McCluskey adds: “I was inspired to tap into my own family’s ghost stories when approaching the creative for Paul Kelly’s Rita Wrote a Letter. Often funny and tender, they speak to the thin membrane between this world and the next, and the messages that reach us from beyond the grave. I hope the iconic lore of Rita and Joe continues to touch PK fans new and old.”
SEVENTY traces its inspiration to Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and Boccaccio’s Decameron, where disparate souls came together to swap yarns and keep the darkness away. Songs range from tales of old friends sticking fast as life nears its end, to the thrill of breathing in apples on the morning breeze, and the fears of a knock at the door that signals the end.
“Telling stories is deeply human and has been since we started to become humans,” says Kelly. “A bit like what happens in my family at Christmas time with people doing an item, singing a song, telling a joke, telling a story. The third song on the record is a ghost story! That’s what you do when you’re sitting around the fire.”
The album features the grand splendour of ‘Sailing To Byzantium’, where W.B. Yeats’ beloved poem is set to music with the force and curve of a full band arrangement. There’s also the heart wrenching ‘Happy Birthday, Ada Mae’, written directly to his granddaughter, holding love, worry and care for her and our whole, precious, threatened world in deft balance. Other highlights include songs about two old friends sticking fast as life nears its end, a couple whose unbridled desire keeps finding new paths, and the simple pleasure of breathing in apples on the morning breeze. The album spans from intimate moments to epic storytelling, with Kelly drawing from sources as varied as Lord Of The Rings and the French Resistance to crows pecking at the limbs of Cicero.
Like his previous work, SEVENTY is driven by Kelly’s long-time band in peak form. “Looking back on what we’ve done with these songs, it’s really a band record,” Kelly reflects. “Peter Luscombe has been with me for more than 30 years, Bill McDonald and Dan Kelly for 20. Even the newbies Cameron Bruce and Ash Naylor have been with me since 2007.”
Paul Kelly is poised to embark on his biggest shows in Australia and New Zealand to date, and his only live shows for 2025: ten huge arenas in Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart, Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland in August and September, proudly presented by Frontier Touring, Triple M (AU) and Stuff (NZ). Joining him on this monumental tour will be special guest Lucinda WIlliams for the Australian shows, along with Fanny Lumsden (AU shows) and Reb Fountain (NZ shows). As he prepares for this tour, fans can expect an unforgettable experience, showcasing both new material and timeless favourites from one of Australia’s most revered songwriters.
ABOUT PAUL KELLY
Over forty years and across thirty albums, Paul Kelly has made himself unique among world songwriters by the sheer range and innovation of his work. Few songwriters find ways to keep that creative fever burning for as long and as brightly as Kelly.
From St Kilda to King’s Cross, from the bus ride through the cane in To Her Door to the span-of-life sweep of Deeper Water, Kelly has written the soundtrack to Australian life. He has penned songs about the country’s greatest cricketer in Bradman and its most infamous bushranger in Our Sunshine. Some songs take their time to make their mark – How to Make Gravy, a message from a prisoner who can’t be home for Christmas, wasn’t a hit when released in 1996 but is now recognised as an Australian classic.
His collaborations have been equally remarkable. From Little Things Big Things Grow, co-written with Kev Carmody about the 1966 Wave Hill strike, has taught more Australians about the history of land rights than newspaper headlines ever could. Since the late eighties, Kelly has worked with many Indigenous artists including Archie Roach and Yothu Yindi, standing side by side in their fight for justice.
Kelly’s artistic restlessness has led him down fascinating paths. He’s set Shakespeare sonnets to music (Seven Sonnets & a Song), created albums ranging from bluegrass (Smoke) to experimental dub (Professor Ratbaggy), and collaborated with jazz pianist Paul Grabowsky (Please Leave Your Light On). His 2021 Christmas double album Christmas Train featured songs in Hebrew, Te Reo Maori, and Latin. He even found time to write what’s been called “the finest and most unflinching autobiography ever written by an Australian musician” – How to Make Gravy.
His 2017 album Life is Fine became his first No 1 album and that year Kelly won two ARIA Awards. He has received 17 ARIA awards for recording and five APRA awards for songwriting and was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1997. His Order of Australia in 2017 acknowledged distinguished service to the performing arts and the promotion of the national identity.
At 70, Kelly remains creatively vital. Recent albums like 2024’s Fever Longing Still and now SEVENTY showcase an artist still at the peak of his powers, still finding new ways to move the fingers, the music, the heart, the mind. The first words you hear on SEVENTY are “Tell us a story.” The last words are “Put another big log on the fire.” And we’re back in the kellyverse of love, loss, legend, wit, poetry and tales tall and true.
With Paul Kelly, there’s always a surprise.