What is Paul Kelly’s all-time favourite Aussie song? Howie & The Chief find out

He’s one of Australia‘s most acclaimed and influential musicians. We all have a favourite Paul Kelly song. But what are Paul Kelly’s favourite Australian tracks?

In a special episode of The Howie Games: The Big 5 – Paul Kelly, Mark ‘Howie’ Howard and Jason ‘The Chief’ Dunstall all reveal their top 5 Aussie songs.

Paul also speaks of his love for playing live, why It’s a Long Way to the Top is on his list, his love for Bon Scott, how he wrote To Her Door and whether he knows he’s written a hit.

For Paul’s best Aussie songs – listen to the ep.

Paul Kelly on how you can’t ‘AI’ live music:

Howie:  “When you are playing in front of an audience and you’ve written a song and you’ve got a memory of the song, and then you’ve got 200, 400, 50, 2000, 5000 people singing your lyrics along with you, is it a feeling of power or joy?”

Kelly: “Feeling of joy. It’s just the beauty of playing live, especially these days, you can’t AI playing live, so you’ve got an audience, they’re all connecting, they’re connecting to the music, to you, or the band with each other, it’s just this experience that’s sort of much greater than the sum of its parts, going a live gig, and people doing what they do.”

Paul Kelly on why AC/DC’s It’s A Long Way To The Top is in his top 5:

Kelly: “ACCA DACCA  was one of those bands touring in the 80s with my band, the three things that we could all sort of agree on to play, the Beach Boys, George Jones, the country singer, and ACDC, and of course. That song, It’s A Long Way To The Top, like every band on the road, that’s the theme  song, so I thought I’ve just come off tour, so I thought it’d be a good one to chuck in.”

Paul Kelly on his love for Bon Scott:

Kelly: “I just love Bon Scott. I mean that that period of ACDC is probably the early period up to 79’ when he died as sort of very, you know, smart lyricist, and always had that sort of sense of it was the serious songs and the gritty songs, but there’s always that little knowingness about him, that sort of little cheek, that little sense of humour.”

Paul Kelly on how he wrote To Her Door and what is the ‘Buttery’ from the lyrics.

Dunstall: “Was it just a made-up story based on a true story?”

Kelly: “It’s a made-up story, but I was reading an author at the time, American short story author called Raymond Carver….and that was an influence on the songs I was writing, where you sort of tell a story, but often his stories would finish just at the point where about something was about to happen, so I wrote this song where the song ends at the point where something’s about to happen, he’s getting, he gets home, he makes his way back home, he’s done his time, he’s cleaned himself up, getting back home to his wife and children, but we don’t know what’s going to happen, or the song ends with him in a taxi on the way to the house.”

Howie: “She went to her brother’s, got a little bar work, he went to the buttery, stayed about a year. What’s the buttery?”

Kelly: “It’s a rehab placer up near Lismore in the northern rivers of drug and alcohol addiction.”

Paul Kelly on whether he knows a song he has written will become a hit or not.

Dunstall: “When you’ve written a song, do you know those ones that are going to be a big hit, or had there been ones where you thought that’s a hit and it hasn’t? And has there been a song where you thought that’s okay, and it’s been one of your biggest?”

Kelly: “No, generally I don’t know. So some of my most popular songs are ones that I wouldn’t have thought would be a hit. How To Make Gravy … I thought, well, that’s okay, you know, we like playing the song. I knew it was a song that we like to play, but didn’t have a chorus, was set in prison, and it didn’t really get much commercial radio play, so but it just sort of built up over the years.”

Find this episode of The Howie Games: The Big Five here.