Paul Kelly has today released his new themed compilation ‘Rivers and Rain’, the latest in a series of albums highlighting the threads running through his vast catalogue of songs.
‘Northern Rivers’ is the album’s new track offering. Brimming with musical and lyrical hooks, it sounds like an instant classic. Written last year and recorded soon after with his band, the timing of its release couldn’t be more apt. As residents of the Northern Rivers cleaned up – twice – after the floods earlier this year, Kelly’s songs could be heard coming out of shops, houses, halls, boats, utes, vans, cars and trucks, lifting spirits. Meanwhile, the long, hard work of picking up the pieces and rebuilding lives goes on.
‘Northern Rivers’ once again shows Kelly’s deep engagement with the natural world. Says Kelly with trademark succinctness, “It is a love song set in contrasting landscapes. I took it to the band and it came out really easily like they’d been playing it forever.”
It’s more than a love song, it’s a hymn of praise to the region and to our harsh and beautiful country, replete with vivid imagery, close observation and irony. Yet at its heart is the mysterious ‘girl from the Northern Rivers’ whom the coloured birds sing out of bed each day.
As Kelly’s philosophical narrator from the song says, “The more I know her the less I do”.
Discussing the ‘Rivers and Rain’ compilation, Paul Kelly shares some thoughts, “Water appears very often in my songs. I live on Port Philip Bay and when I’m home I go down to the sea several times a week if I can. When I’m traveling and visiting new cities, I always look for the water, be it a river, a lake, a canal, the sea or a swimming pool. If I were to make a compilation of all my ‘water’ songs the track list would be overflowing! So, for the second instalment in this series, I’ve decided to narrow the channel to Rivers and Rain. Songs to do with oceans and shores I’ll save for another time.”
“Rivers run through cities, run through wildernesses, and run through history. You can dream by a river. Court and picnic by a river. Swim or fish in a river. Sail or row or float down a river. Drown in a river.”
“In Australia, some rivers are dry or low for long periods then roar to life, sometimes dangerously, after certain storms. Rivers need rain. We all do. One of the great pleasures in life is lying in bed listening to the rain. Or reading a book in a nook inside as rain falls outside. I even like playing footy in the rain!”
“The first three songs of this compilation feature both rivers and rain, including new track Northern Rivers, recorded last year and previously unreleased. Letter In The Rain follows a lone wanderer and wonderer, haunted by memory. The River Song was written in a hotel room by The Seine in Paris at the time of the 2016 floods, the biggest in a hundred years. The twenty-one song set ends with the radioactive rain from the fallout of the Maralinga atomic bomb tests in South Australia during the fifties.”
“Along the way we have storms, floods, carved canyons, petrichor, reveries, hard scrabble, crossed lovers, blessed lovers, joy, hope and danger. Jump in!”