Paul Kelly Announces New Album 'Seventy', Unveils 'How To Make Gravy' Sequel Song

45 years into his career and 70 years old, Paul Kelly isn’t one to rest on his laurels.

Today, he’s announced that his forthcoming album, Seventy, drops this November, and finally unveiled the highly anticipated sequel to How To Make Gravy, the quietly devastating yet darkly comic Rita Wrote A Letter.

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The new single arrives nearly three decades after the public met Paul Kelly’s characters Dan, Joe, and Rita in his unconventional Christmas classic, How To Make Gravy.

“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 explained. “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!”

You can watch the music video and read the lyrics below.

Seventy will be released on Friday, 7 November. It’s a pure, storytelling record made alongside those closest to him.

As Kelly puts it, “Telling stories is deeply human and has been since we started to become humans. 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.”

He added, “Looking back on what we’ve done with these songs, it’s really a band record. 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.”

You can pre-order the album here.

The album follows Kelly’s massive tour of Australia and New Zealand, starting this month and flowing into September. The tour marks his largest-ever tour in both countries to date, with ten arena dates booked. For the tour, Kelly will be accompanied by Lucinda Williams and Fanny Lumsden in Australia, while Reb Fountain will open in NZ.

His upcoming tour promises to include new material and timeless favourites, so maybe there’s a chance of How To Make Gravy into Rita Wrote A Letter?

PAUL KELLY - 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