'Most Writers Are Full Of Doubt': Paul Kelly On Place, Literary Roots, And Returning To His Sydney Beginnings

Paul Kelly

Much like hearing about Paul McCartney returning to Penny Lane, or Leonard Cohen heading to the Chelsea Hotel, Australian music fans knew they were receiving something special earlier this month when news broke of Paul Kelly's return to Kings Cross.

Famous for its status as the centrepiece of Sydney's nightlife, Kings Cross was not just a formative place in Kelly's own musical history, but it was also immortalised in his famous 1985 song, From St Kilda To Kings Cross.

Taking place on Sunday, August 30th, Kelly will head to The Potts Point Hotel for a special one-off event which – alongside neatly fitting into his own musical mythology – will be accompanied by a deluxe reissue of last year's Seventy record.

By his own admission, he was a staple of the area for many years, performing at the likes of the Kardomah Café and The Manzil Room frequently, describing the latter – which was located in the laneway behind The Potts Point Hotel – as a "wee hours sticky-carpet venue, attracting all the denizens of the night – street workers, bohemians, drug dealers, desperadoes, off work musicians."

Speaking to The Music, Kelly admits that while it's been many years since he last played in Kings Cross, it's a place which holds special importance to him. "It was the first place I lived in when I moved to Sydney in 1984," he remembers

"I was put up by [Cold Chisel's] Don Walker, who I knew vaguely, but he let me stay while I got on my feet. Around the corner was Paul Hewson, the songwriter and piano player from Dragon, who had a flat and he had a spare room that came up. 

"I moved from Don's place to Paul's place, and although I wasn't with either for very long, the fact that these two guys who, to me, were heavy hitters as far as songwriting goes, I felt like I had their backing. 

"I guess it gave me some confidence, and I think every writer needs a little wind of confidence every now and then," he adds. "Most writers are full of doubt, and that's sort of where the writing comes from in lots of ways. But looking back and thinking that those guys were in my corner, that was a big boost for me."

Having initially moved to Melbourne from his native Adelaide, Kelly's relocation to Sydney in 1984 coincided with a breakthrough in his career. After two albums with The Dots, in 1985, he released Post, his first solo album, which was fittingly preceded by the single From St Kilda To Kings Cross.

Over the years, Kelly's music has been deeply associated with the concept of place. Fittingly, his return to Kings Cross will see him performing on Darlinghurst Road. For this writer, the first time they'd ever heard of Darlinghurst was in Kelly's 1986 single, Darling It Hurts.

Given his own focus on writing about locations, is it odd that his own music has taken on such a strong association by others?

"I guess it is bizarre," he says. "As far as songs go, I was always influenced by visual songwriters; songwriters with a real strong sense of place. Like Ray Davies from The Kinks, and a song like Waterloo Sunset, it's something you can see. Chuck Berry was another one, his songs are full of concrete references that you can see.

"They're like little movies. Lou Reed and songs like Street Hassle or Waiting For The Man, they're set in a particular place. They're universal songs, but they sort of have these specific details. I guess that was just my tendency. It wasn't really a deliberate thing, it's just my natural bent, I guess."

By his own admission, Kelly has traditionally found himself influenced by fiction writing and short stories, specifically pointing to the likes of American short story writer Raymond Carver.

"For me, a song like To Her Door, that's a Raymond Carver story," he notes. "My version of a Raymond Carver story. In the mid-'80s when I first read Carver, I sort of read everything I could get my hands on and it obviously seeped into my songs."

Of course, for those wanting the full Paul Kelly and Raymond Carver experience, one only needs to look towards his 1989 album, So Much Water So Close To Home, which was taken from Carver's short story of the same name, with the song Everything's Turning To White based on the story.

That story was later adapted into the 2006 film Jindabyne, for which Kelly contributed to the score.

When it came to the writing of From St Kilda To Kings Cross, Kelly had previously admitted he was influenced by the likes of Australian bands such as The Go-Betweens and The Triffids, with Chuck Berry's songwriting also playing a part in its conception.

"I had it first as a blues lyric – 'From St Kilda to Kings Cross is 13 hours on a bus' – and that was sort of from the memory of a Robert Johnson song [From Four Till Late], where he says 'Memphis to Norfolk is a 36-hour ride'," Kelly remembers.

"There was a little trace of Robert Johnson, just the sound of it, and then obviously, then I sort of went from that to 'From St Kilda to Kings Cross is 13 hours on a bus' which had a nice little internal rhyme. 

"I had that for a while, but it wasn't long after I moved into Don Walker's place, where he had a beautiful baby grand piano in his front room," he recalls. "So I kicked out the tune and the chords on that piano and wrote the song there. Don Walker was the very first person I played it to, and I think I got a nod [of approval] from him."

Walker's apparently non-committal nod notwithstanding, Kelly couldn't have foreseen the sort of legacy the track would have. In the decades since, it's been considered one of the greatest Australian songs of all time, had managed to show up on lists of the finest songs about both Melbourne and Sydney (a rare feat in itself), and has been covered numerous times by some of the country's most beloved songwriters.

In 2000, the track's opening line was even appropriated by Melbourne band Klinger for their song Hello Cruel World, where the line is changed to 'From St Kilda to Watsonia North,' reflecting their outer suburban foundation. "Oh I didn't know that one," Kelly admits with a chuckle.

However, it goes without saying that given the track's auspicious beginnings, and the fact that its original recording was made when Kelly had a cold, he could never have expected it to have such a following or impact so many people.

"Most writers or songwriters, they don't know how songs are going to end up, which ones are going to be popular, or which ones become a little bit more hidden," he explains. "I thought it was a pretty melody, so I knew that much about it – it was a catchy melody. 

"But sometimes that's just it, you don't know how they're going to turn out."

If he couldn't have foreseen the sort of reception it would have, it's clear Kelly would never have expected the track to also inspire two murals.

In 2019, artist Scott Marsh unveiled his mural of Kelly in St Kilda. Located on the outer wall of The Esplanade Hotel (affectionately dubbed The Espy), it depicts a young version of the music, armed with his acoustic guitar, and surrounded by the words "From St Kilda…".

Fast forward to 2026, and Marsh has since finished the second part of this mural, with Potts Point Hotel fittingly featuring a depiction of an older Kelly, armed with an electric guitar as the words "...to Kings Cross" surround him.

Admitting it's a little surreal to see himself immortalised in such a manner, the strangeness of Marsh's initial honouring of Kelly's visage is compounded by the musician's own postcode.

"He's a very good artist and did a very good job, but it's funny because I still live in St Kilda, I go to the beach a lot, and I ride my bike when riding back from the beach," Kelly explains. "So I go past it a lot. I can sort of see it out of the corner of my eye as I ride past. 

"I'm used to it by now, but I probably won't be seeing the Kings Cross one as much because I don't really go there a lot. It's quite bizarre, but like everything strange you get used to it over time."

Of course, while Kelly might often be seen riding his bike and occasionally catching a quick glance of his younger mug outside of The Espy in St Kilda, he certainly won't be doing that on August 30th.

Instead, he'll have taken the metaphorical 13-hour bus ride to Kings Cross and The Potts Point Hotel, performing a show whose poster promises songs old and new, borrowed and blue.

So put it bluntly, what can fans expect? How does an artist such as Kelly go about playing a show such as this, honouring his discography while playing in a location so integral to his musical history?

"We're thinking about the setlist, and I've got a pretty good rough map of what we're going to do," he admits. "It's going to be with my nephew, Dan, and we've played a lot as a duo together, so we know a lot of songs.

"We'll probably share five or six songs from Seventy, the latest record, since we're sort of celebrating that record as well. We'll obviously play some songs like From St Kilda To Kings Cross, I think we might play Sydney From A 747, and maybe Randwick Bells, since I lived in the eastern suburbs in Sydney for six years.

"We'll chuck in some songs like that," he continues. "Some old songs and a sprinkling from the last couple of records as well. So we're going to roam around over a fair bit of ground at the show."

Paul Kelly returns to Kings Cross at The Potts Point Hotel on August 30th. Tickets are currently available via a ballot on Kelly's website.

This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body