COMPLETELY KELLY

West Australian Newspaper TV guide magazine - 6th July, 1997
by Ara Jansen

Two decades into his career, Paul Kelly hasn't forgotten why he writes songs. Ara Jansen reports.

From St Kilda to Kings Cross is 13 hours on a bus
I pressed my face against the glass
And watched the white line rushing past
And all around me felt like all inside me
And my body left me and my soul went running...
-Paul Kelly

With more than a dozen albums under his belt and total sales running into more than half a million copies, he says writing is still a haphazard process where things are thrown together. He always feels it's a fluke and writing never takes the same form for him.

"If it's any good I'm surprised," he admits. "Every good song has to have something surprising in it. I don't have a lot of stuff finished. if I finish a song I will generally record it.

"But I always feel like a learner because there's still so much to explore."

Already he has, sensitively and in his very Australian way, explored the things many folk are thinking about - delving into the soul of a very special place called Australia.

To Her Door, Forty Miles To Saturday Night, Don't Start Me Talking, God's Hotel, Give In To my Love. Sounds and reflections that weem part of the national consciousness, produced by a national treasure.

St Kilda, the MCG, riding through sugarcane on a bus in the pouring rain towards reconciliation. Kelly is an astute observer who picks up much from what happens about him (while indulging a passion for football and cricket).

It would also seem obvious to produce a collection of his best known songs. It's something Kelly has been avoiding getting down to for a while, a bit like cleaning out the shed, he admits.

"I was never opposed to a Best Of," explains Kelly. "The guy at my local bottleshop started bugging me to do it - every time I went in there. In the end I didn't want to enter the bottleshop again but I didn't want to drink tea at home or get in the car and drive to another one either."

So, in tribute, Mushroom released Songs From The South, a 20-song double CD collection of Kelly's most known works.

The value of creating such a compact treasure chest is obvious. And the value of Kelly's work is well summed up by radio broadcaster and music critic Steve Gordon:

"The thing that outs Paul Kelly in an elite class is his mastery of the songwriters most effective tool...the English language.

They got married early, never had much money...

"Eight words into the song and without spelling it out, he's already told me the kind of suburb they live in - and I have a picture of their house, their clothes and their kids. That, alone, is a rare and precious gift."

Melbourne is Kelly's home and has been for the last 15 years, though he grew up in Adelaide. He lives there with wife actor Kaarin Fairfax (otherwise known as singer Mary Jo Starr) and their two young children. Kelly also has a 16-year-old son to his first wife.

"The reason I write songs is to affect people," says the eserved Kelly. "It's about the power the music has had over me. That's why I got into music, because it had that power over me.

"It would take me away. I have always wanted to write music that has the power, that's the source of it. That's the most exciting part for me. Writing a song is the most imporrtant part of my music. Find the melody and there's all the ther stuff.

"The other parts of my job are enjoyable as well. I like performing and playing live and touring. but all that comes from the first thing which is writing. I'm a performer becasue I am a writer. That's the order of it. I wasn't a natural showoff and certainly wasn't a performer first."

Paul Kelly, now 42, remembers the definite point, at 21, when he decided songwriting was his destiny. Like many songwriters, he started writing poetry, uncensored and confessional poetry "about feelings and things".

"I left school and travelled. I wanted to try to write poems and short stories. I didn't start playing guitar until 18 or 19 and a few years later I thought that maybe I could write songs as well.

"If I could do it once, I could do it again, feeling I had the knack. That was 20 years ago and since then I have had no desire to write stories.

"I have written the occasional poem but songs are still the challenge for me.

"I remember my first song, it had something about trains in it. I used to write a lot about trains, now I write a lot about water and I had my fire period for a while. Lately it's been food!

"I don't have a message, I don't write songs from that point of view. Usually it's just playing and the song is what you come up with. I just started playing, doodling and mucking around and then I get something that feels good."

But Kelly doesn't keep those talents just to himself, having branched into music for film and theatre, as well as writing and producing for other Australian artists like Archie Roach and Vika and Linda Bull. Recently he's been working on singer Renee Geyer's latest album.

Kelly has also started work on a new studio album, which he hopes will be on the shelves before Christmas.

"It will probably be about 12 songs. They are probably different to previous records in that the songs are more collaborative. They are not all songs that I have come along to the studio with as in the past. We are arranging them together...I think we are on to something to make exciting music."

Submitted in by Jeff Scott - jscott@midwest.com.au