Paul Kelly Announces New Album ‘Seventy’

Tell us a story… So opens the new Paul Kelly album, a request like a child to their parents at the beginning of a trip, or a group around a campfire at the end of the day. And who else would we ask but Australia’s master storyteller, the man who has been doing it for 45 years, who has received 17 ARIA awards for recording and five APRA awards for songwriting, who received the 2025 AACTA Award for Outstanding Contribution, and who has influenced, and championed, generations of musicians including Courtney Barnett, Amyl & The Sniffers and The Beths.

At 70, Kelly remains creatively vital. Recent albums like 2024’s Fever Longing Still and now SEVENTY showcase an artist still at the peak of his powers, still finding new ways to move the fingers, the music, the heart, the mind. The first words you hear on SEVENTY are “Tell us a story.” The last words are “Put another big log on the fire.” And we’re back in the kellyverse of love, loss, legend, wit, poetry and tales tall and true.

Kelly‘s latest album, SEVENTY, will be released on Friday 7th November 2025 and is available for pre-order now. Having turned 70 in January, this deeply personal collection finds Kelly taking stock – setting out his stall with all his wares. It’s his most varied album yet, representing all his different kinds of songwriting and showcasing a songwriter and band at the peak of their powers. The album’s cover, featuring a striking portrait by photographer Dean Podmore, pays homage to the iconic 1988 Jon Lewis photograph of Paul – a visual echo that bridges nearly four decades of artistry and reflects the album’s themes of taking stock and celebrating continuity.

The album’s first single, ‘Rita Wrote A Letter’, released today alongside a beautiful video featuring iconic Australian actress Justine Clarke, directed by acclaimed Australian filmmaker Imogen McCluskey and produced by Jessica Carrera of Dollhouse Pictures, is perhaps the most anticipated sequel in Australian music history. Nearly 30 years after we met Dan, Joe and Rita in one of Australia’s now most beloved songs, an unconventional Christmas anthem ‘How To Make Gravy’, Kelly brings them back with a ghost story that’s both tender and darkly comic. Click HERE to read the lyrics.

“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 explains. “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!”

Video director Imogen McCluskey adds: “I was inspired to tap into my own family’s ghost stories when approaching the creative for Paul Kelly‘s Rita Wrote a Letter. Often funny and tender, they speak to the thin membrane between this world and the next, and the messages that reach us from beyond the grave. I hope the iconic lore of Rita and Joe continues to touch PK fans new and old.”

SEVENTY traces its inspiration to Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and Boccaccio’s Decameron, where disparate souls came together to swap yarns and keep the darkness away. Songs range from tales of old friends sticking fast as life nears its end, to the thrill of breathing in apples on the morning breeze, and the fears of a knock at the door that signals the end.

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

The album features the grand splendour of ‘Sailing To Byzantium’, where W.B. Yeats’ beloved poem is set to music with the force and curve of a full band arrangement. There’s also the heart wrenching ‘Happy Birthday, Ada Mae’, written directly to his granddaughter, holding love, worry and care for her and our whole, precious, threatened world in deft balance. Other highlights include songs about two old friends sticking fast as life nears its end, a couple whose unbridled desire keeps finding new paths, and the simple pleasure of breathing in apples on the morning breeze. The album spans from intimate moments to epic storytelling, with Kelly drawing from sources as varied as Lord Of The Rings and the French Resistance to crows pecking at the limbs of Cicero.

Like his previous work, SEVENTY is driven by Kelly‘s long-time band in peak form. “Looking back on what we’ve done with these songs, it’s really a band record,” Kelly reflects. “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.”

Album Tracklisting

1. Tell Us A Story (Part A)

2. Don’t Give Up On Me (feat. Meg Washington)

3. Rita Wrote A Letter

4. The Body Keeps The Score

5. I Keep On Coming Back For More

6. Take It Handy

7. Happy Birthday, Ada Mae

8. The Magpies

9. Made For Me (feat. Rebecca Barnard)

10. Sailing To Byzantium

11. My Body Felt No Pain

12. I’m Not Afraid Of The Dark

13. Tell Us A Story (Part B)

Feature Image Photo Credit: Dean Podmore

Paul Kelly‘s latest album, SEVENTY, will be released on Friday 7th November 2025 and is available for pre-order now.