LETTER FROM PAUL

“….Five of the songs from NATURE are poems written by others – Dylan Thomas, Walt Whitman, Sylvia Plath, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Phillip Larkin. Four others – A Bastard Like Me, Little Wolf, Seagulls of Seattle and The River Song – are poems Kelly wrote and later put to music. The other three came along the usual way as sounds sung to chords that then turned into words, sometimes slowly, sometimes in a rush.

 What links them all is the natural world – trees, birds, animals, plants, dust, desert, water – and human nature’s small place in that world. Most of the pieces were written over the last four years in and around the recording sessions for THE MERRI SOUL SESSIONS, SEVEN SONNETS AND A SONG and LIFE IS FINE. I didn’t realize I had the makings of another album until I put the songs in a folder and saw the titles staring me in the face. Sometimes you don’t know what you’re doing until you look back.

 I think of NATURE as a companion piece to LIFE IS FINE, itself full of moons, rain, rocks, rivers, seas, smells and lovers. NATURE features many women singers. Vika and Linda, of course. Kellys’ daughters, Madeleine and Memphis Kelly, sing and hum on two songs. Alice Keath, who sang on SEVEN SONNETS, returns to bring her unique harmony to The Trees. And Kate Miller-Heidke plays the siren luring a lover to death (or is it to new life?) in Bound To Follow….”

TRACK LIST

1. And Death Shall Have No Dominion
2. With The One I Love 
3. A Bastard Like Me 
4. Little Wolf 
5. With Animals 
6. Bound To Follow (Aisling Song) feat. Kate Miller-Heidke 
7. Seagulls of Seattle 
8. Morning Storm
9. Mushrooms 
10. The River Song 
11. God's Grandeur 
12. The Trees

DVD

1. Life Is Fine 
2. Rising Moon 
3. Finally Something Good 
4. Before Too Long 
5. Our Sunshine 
6. Firewood And Candles 
7. My Man's Got A Cold 
8. Careless 
9. Letter In The Rain 
10. I Smell Trouble 
11. From Little Things 
12. Petrichor 
13. Sonnet 18 
14. Don't Explain 
15. Love Never Runs 
16. To Her Door 
17. Josephina 
18. Deeper Water 
19. God Told Me To 
20. Dumb Things 
21. Sweet Guy 
22. How To Make Gravy Gravy 
23. Hasn't It Rained 
24. Sydney From A 747 
25. Look So Fine Feel So Low 
26. Darling It Hurts 
27. Meet Me In The Middle Of The Air