Paul Swears By His Controversial Lyrics

TV Week, 27/01/96
by Jeff Jenkins

Paul Kelly defends the use of explicit language on a song on his new album. "There's always one song on each of my records that my mother doesn't like and this one's it," Paul says of I'll Forgive But I Won't Forget.

In the song, the singer's best friend sleeps with his girlfriend: "I can't believe she f----- you here and then fed me full of lies. Why don't I go and get her now and you can f--- her again right before my eyes." Paul doesn't believe there is any need for a sticker on the cover of the CD warning about the language. "A lot of my songs have people talking in them and that's how people talk. What was I gonna say? 'I can't believe you made love to her last night'? It wouldn't fit."

The song is on Deeper Water, Paul's album dedicated to Steve Connolly, the guitarist in his band, The Messengers, who died last year, at 36, from heart problems. The album contains several references to death. On the title track, Paul sings: "Death doesn't care just who it destroys". But the songs were written before Steve died.

"I've always thought about death. I mean, sex and death, they're the things to write about. What else is there? It's sex and death and cricket."

Paul has written a new cricket song, Behind The Bowler's Arm, the B-side of his latest single, which was inspired by Shane Warne and homesickness. "I wrote it in L.A. at the end of 1994 when I realised I wouldn't be home for the Boxing Day test." Paul - now on an Australian tour - turned 40 last year, which he says was a milestone. "It doesn't make you feel old, but it makes you feel substantial.

"If you're 40, you've been around a while, you can't fool yourself into thinking, 'My life hasn't really started yet'.

"When you're 40, you realise: 'My life is happening, this is it'. For me, it felt good."