Australian musician Paul Kelly says that he’s a drinker – “for me it is one of the great pleasures of life…a glass of wine or two with dinner, the first beer after hard physical work or sport, a dark ale and a whisky on a cold night”.
Kelly’s compilation Drinking includes two new recordings, a live rendition of singalong “To Her Door’ from a performance at Sydney’s Vivid LIVE in May 2022, and “One More Tune”, a meditative new track that balances “the creative and destructive sides of drinking” in the voice of a character tilting towards a sorry sunrise in the aftermath of a party.
The remaining 16 tracks are made up of Kelly classics and more obscure deep cuts from his catalogue, from 1985’s Post to 2016’s Death’s Dateless Night. Highlights include the energetic “Nothing On My Mind” (Words and Music, 1998) and the peppy “No You” (So Much Water So Close To Home, 1989). Tracks like “Gonna Be Good” (Spring and Fall, 2012) and “Blue Stranger” (Comedy, 1991) show a warm empathy to the struggling characters; “Seagulls of Seattle” (Nature, 2018) and “Every Fucking City” (Songs from the South, 1997) adeptly draw from Kelly’s worldly experience.
Label: Gawd Aggie
Release Date: 30 SEP 2022
Poetic Justice 