My mate Asho, owner of the Footstomp label was so excited about Paul Kelly’s new album Life Is Fine that he wanted its release date to be declared a national holiday. Too right I say! The man is a national living treasure, or as Archie Roach put it so succinctly, he is our bard. But even Paul Kelly’s most ardent fans may have been feeling a little perplexed of late.
Paul Kelly’s most recent releases have been anything but conventional. Conversations with Ghosts was poetry put to music; Spring and Fall was an album dedicated to the idea of a song cycle, The Merri Soul Sessions featured guest vocalists singing Paul’s songs; Seven Sonnets and a Song were Shakespeare’s sonnets set to music; while Death’s Dateless Night (with Charlie Owen) – was an album dedicated to funeral songs. It’s not surprising that his record company kept asking him “when are you going to do a normal record?”
Life is Fine is chock full of 3 minute melodic pop gems, strident little rockers and songs of wistful reflection on love and loss. It’s humorous, hummable, poignant and provocative. It’s vintage Paul Kelly.
Already Life Is Fine has drawn comparisons to his classic albums from the 80’s like Gossip and Under The Sun. Fair enough, but it would be a mistake to assume that this album is some kind of retro throwback to days gone by. The songs on Life Is Fine bear the mark of a man whose youthful spirit and wonder have been supplanted by an older soul looking back on what he has lost in songs like the sublime Petrichor (with stunning slide guitar from Lucky Oceans) and the album opener Rising Moon.
Yet even in the album’s most melancholy moments it always finds an uplifting spirit. From Cameron Bruce’s first piano chords on Rising Moon with its solemn backing chorus building to the full thrust of the band as Kelly shouts out “My poor heart jumped right out of my chest!” the lyric is both a celebration of his love and the loss after she’s gone.
Regret and yearning have always been the stock tools of Paul Kelly’s trade, but even as he enters his seventh decade he still finds so much optimism and zest for life. In Firewood and Candles he’s cooking up a storm in the kitchen, but that’s just an entrée for the main course as he questions: “is that the gods come to Earth, or a mule kicking in our stall?”
Even when he’s amusedly exploring the delicate affliction that is man flu with Vika Bull superbly channeling Bessie Smith, Paul Kelly still can’t leave sex out of the picture: “He’s off his wine and bread, he even said no to head!”
And Bessie’s not the only great Kelly is content to resurrect. Leah: The Sequel picks up where Roy Orbison’s story left off. The Big O’s dive for a pearl for his South Pacific girl ended questionably – was it a tragedy or just a bad dream? Kelly’s cheeky response is that it is both – the man is rescued by his dream girl, but she’s hidden his snorkel and says he’s never going diving again. Now he sweeps the floor of her old man’s cannery living out her ten year plan. All the while Vika and Linda Bull enchant us with their haunting siren call.
Letter in the Rain is pure Paul Kelly. An evocative tale embracing nature and religious imagery with a gentle reflection on the fragility of lost love over the sweetest melody. While I Smell Trouble is all atmospheric menace. There’s no allusion to what the trouble is, the protagonist is caught in trouble’s path like a rabbit in the headlights, an all too familiar frame of mind. In many ways it feels more like Paul’s earlier work than anything else on the record.
The title track is based on a poem written by Langston Hughes but as always Paul manages to make those words sound like his own. A man rejected by a lover who contemplates ending it all, but ultimately takes on the resolve:
Though you may see me holler
And you may see me cry
I’ll be dogged sweet baby
If you’re gonna see me die.
Life is fine! Life as wine! Life is fine!
As Paul Kelly hits the upper registers of his range in delivering those last lines his heart is singing. Through all of life’s ups and downs we go on. Just be thankful Paul Kelly is on that journey with us.
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