Paul Kelly Announces New Album ‘Seventy’ & Releases New Single ‘Rita Wrote A Letter’
Tell us a story… So opens the new Paul Kelly album, a request like a child to their parents at the beginning of a trip, or a group around a campfire at the end of the day. And who else would we ask but Australia’s master storyteller, the man who has been doing it for 45 years.
Kelly’s latest album, SEVENTY, will be released on Friday November 7th and is available for pre-order now. Having turned 70 in January, this deeply personal collection finds Kelly taking stock – setting out his stall with all his wares. It’s his most varied album yet, representing all his different kinds of songwriting and showcasing a songwriter and band at the peak of their powers. The album’s cover, featuring a striking portrait by photographer Dean Podmore, pays homage to the iconic 1988 Jon Lewis photograph of Paul – a visual echo that bridges nearly four decades of artistry and reflects the album’s themes of taking stock and celebrating continuity.
The album’s first single, Rita Wrote A Letter, released today alongside a beautiful video featuring iconic Australian actress Justine Clarke, directed by acclaimed Australian filmmaker Imogen McCluskey and produced by Jessica Carrera of Dollhouse Pictures, is perhaps the most anticipated sequel in Australian music history. Nearly 30 years after we met Dan, Joe and Rita in one of Australia’s now most beloved songs, an unconventional Christmas anthem How To Make Gravy, Kelly brings them back with a ghost story that’s both tender and darkly comic.
“I’ve been mulling over the idea of a sequel to How To Make Gravy from Rita’s point of view for quite some time,” Kelly explains. “About five years ago I wrote down the words, ‘Rita wrote a letter,’ and thought, ‘There’s my title.’ I scratched away intermittently and fruitlessly for several years but never got very far until Dan Kelly sent me a recording of something he’d written on piano with a rough melody over the top. The words started rolling after that. As often happens, they took me by surprise. You could say the song took a dark turn but to my mind it’s a black comedy. A ghost story. You hear Rita’s voice loud and clear, but Joe talks even more. I couldn’t shut him up!”
Video director Imogen McCluskey adds: “I was inspired to tap into my own family’s ghost stories when approaching the creative for Paul Kelly’s Rita Wrote a Letter. Often funny and tender, they speak to the thin membrane between this world and the next, and the messages that reach us from beyond the grave. I hope the iconic lore of Rita and Joe continues to touch PK fans new and old.”
SEVENTY traces its inspiration to Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and Boccaccio’s Decameron, where disparate souls came together to swap yarns and keep the darkness away. Songs range from tales of old friends sticking fast as life nears its end, to the thrill of breathing in apples on the morning breeze, and the fears of a knock at the door that signals the end.
“Telling stories is deeply human and has been since we started to become humans,” says Kelly. “A bit like what happens in my family at Christmas time with people doing an item, singing a song, telling a joke, telling a story. The third song on the record is a ghost story! That’s what you do when you’re sitting around the fire.”
The album features the grand splendour of Sailing To Byzantium, where W.B. Yeats’ beloved poem is set to music with the force and curve of a full band arrangement. There’s also the heart wrenching Happy Birthday, Ada Mae, written directly to his granddaughter, holding love, worry and care for her and our whole, precious, threatened world in deft balance. Other highlights include songs about two old friends sticking fast as life nears its end, a couple whose unbridled desire keeps finding new paths, and the simple pleasure of breathing in apples on the morning breeze. The album spans from intimate moments to epic storytelling, with Kelly drawing from sources as varied as Lord Of The Rings and the French Resistance to crows pecking at the limbs of Cicero.
Like his previous work, SEVENTY is driven by Kelly’s long-time band in peak form. “Looking back on what we’ve done with these songs, it’s really a band record,” Kelly reflects. “Peter Luscombe has been with me for more than 30 years, Bill McDonald and Dan Kelly for 20. Even the newbies Cameron Bruce and Ash Naylor have been with me since 2007.”
Paul Kelly is poised to embark on his biggest shows in Australia and New Zealand to date, and his only live shows for 2025: ten huge arenas in Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart, Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland in August and September, proudly presented by Frontier Touring, Triple M (AU) and Stuff (NZ). Joining him on this monumental tour will be special guest Lucinda WIlliams for the Australian shows, along with Fanny Lumsden (AU shows) and Reb Fountain (NZ shows). As he prepares for this tour, fans can expect an unforgettable experience, showcasing both new material and timeless favourites from one of Australia’s most revered songwriters.
RITA WROTE A LETTER – LYRICS
I really don’t know how I’m talking
Six feet down and under the clay
The laws of nature forbid it
But I was never good with rules anyway
The day I walked out of prison
I knew that I was still in stir
For the crime committed I was still doing time
Behind the walls between me and her
Rita wrote a letter
I keep it with me every day
Rita wrote a letter
And this is what she had to say
She said, ‘Joe I’m really sorry
But me and Dan, our love is here to stay
With the kids it’s getting better
And now a little baby’s on the way’
Well, they took me back on at the restaurant
But the new cook there had stolen my game
They put me on the dishes and the pots and pans
I was happy being busy again
And every night when I came home
With my back and feet all aching sore
I‘d lay there in Mary’s spare room
Tossing ‘til the break of dawn
Oh, Rita wrote a letter
One you don’t want to get from your wife
When Rita writes a letter
The pen is sharper than the knife
She said, ‘Joe, I gave you good chances
But half a year turned into two
You could never hold your temper
And you always made it all about you’
Oh, the phone calls they started to dwindle
Once they moved further up the coast
Those silences that dragged on forever
I couldn’t find the words I needed the most
One day I went to see an old friend
And I brought a little package home
For old times’ sake sweet oblivion
But some things you shouldn’t do alone
Yeah, Rita wrote a letter
I’m still hugging it under the clay
Rita wrote a letter
Deep down I know it’s better this way
And maybe she and Dan feel guilty
And the children sometimes cry at night
But I made my bed, I’m lying in it
And I know they’re gonna be alright
Oh, Rita wrote a letter
I will always love her
Be the ghost above her
Hover all around her
But Dan, I don’t forgive you
Oh, I didn’t mean to say that
It’s just my mind it plays up
Multiplies each matter
PAUL KELLY
NEW ALBUM SEVENTY – RELEASED NOVEMBER 7th
ALBUM TRACKLISTING
- Tell Us A Story (Part A)
- Don’t Give Up On Me (feat. Meg Washington)
- Rita Wrote A Letter
- The Body Keeps The Score
- I Keep On Coming Back For More
- Take It Handy
- Happy Birthday, Ada Mae
- The Magpies
- Made For Me (feat. Rebecca Barnard)
- Sailing To Byzantium
- My Body Felt No Pain
- I’m Not Afraid Of The Dark
- Tell Us A Story (Part B)
PRE-ORDER HERE NOW
PAUL KELLY TOURING AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND IN AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
TICKETS HERE
