Speed Dating Through Musical Collaborations

A couple of years ago, Kelly and Dan Sultan thought they’d try and write some songs together and once a few songs started taking shape, Kelly shares, “That’s when we thought, ‘Oh, well that song sounds like a good song for Vika and that one sounds good for Linda.’ And when we wrote the songs, Dan actually sang them... I wouldn’t have written a song like that unless Dan was there. That’s the good thing about co-writing.”

Browne lends her pipes to two songs on the album, one of which, Where Were You When I Needed You, happens to be this scribe’s favourite. ”I’m a particularly literal singer and I really enjoy cathartic expression,” Browne reveals. “That’s why I really enjoyed Paul’s songs, because they gave that platform to express, that’s the vessel.”   

On recruiting Browne to sing on his record, Kelly points out, “Even when you agree to work together, you don’t know whether it’s gonna work. It’s nice when it clicks. That’s the beauty of writing songs or collaborating with somebody, you’ve gotta be prepared that it’s not gonna work, you just try stuff out.” So how do songwriters deal with a situation where a co-writing session is not working? “If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter, you just walk away,” Kelly offers and Browne, who has been doing a fair bit of co-writing in the States lately, adds: “Exit gracefully.  It’s just like speed dating, really.”

Such was the quality of Kelly’s selected singers, that recording finished a day early. So what did they do with the extra day? “I had some lyrics about Noah and The Flood so I thought I’d just knock it up into a song [Hasn’t It Rained],” Kelly tells. We can’t help but laugh. “He’s a master,” Browne opines. Kelly allows, “I always like it when you get a last-minute song.”