Ways & Means

Paul Kelly

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 24, 2004)
• Original Release Date: February 24, 2004
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Cooking Vinyl
• ASIN: B0001ENY3A
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #188,881 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Kelly is an Australian singer-songwriter much loved in his homeland, but distressingly underappreciated everywhere else. Because he focuses on working-class life, he's sometimes compared to Bruce Springsteen, but really his best albums are closer to the unassuming art of British film director Mike Leigh. Kelly hit what appeared to be his creative peak in the late '80s and early '90s, most notably on Gossip and Under the Sun. What followed was a string of releases that included great songs but as much (or more) filler.

Thankfully, the two-disc Ways & Means is Kelly's most consistently satisfying disc in at least a decade. Book-ended by two Melbourne surf instrumentals, its 21 songs capture love in its many splendid and splintered forms. Kelly's lyrical gifts are sharp as ever, whether he's detailing a three-sided romance as it morphs over decades ("The Oldest Story in the Book"), praising the carnal delights of "Curly Red," or describing the thrall of romantic rapture ("Forty Eight Angels"). Credit is also due to Kelly's best band in a long time (in particular the twin guitar attack of Dan Luscombe and Dan Kelly), as well as the just-polished-enough production of Tchad Blake. Very smart and very adult, Ways & Means doesn't fit the template for a big 21st century hit, but it deserves a far wider audience that it's likely to find. --Keith Moerer

Product Description
(Bonus Disc contains 10 new songs) Some of us who should know better pronounce "love songs" with a silent "silly" - as if there were a higher kind. Paul Kelly’s new collection, Ways and Means, containing nineteen unruly examples of the species (plus two breezy instrumentals), shows the prejudice for what it is. His new songs roil and seethe with feeling, wondering at their own abandon and delighting in the ride. ‘Beautiful Feeling’ unfolds like a flower, shy stirrings blooming to proud radiance. ‘48 Angels’ begins as awestruck adoration and loses itself in rapture. Elsewhere, loss of self is an explicit aim: in ‘Won’t You Come Around’, the singer anxiously assures his lover: "only you can make this brain shut down". This vision of oblivious bliss isn’t wholly rose-tinted., ‘To Be Good’ may be raucous and cavalier, with barrelhouse piano, but it’s also haunted: by the ghost of Hank Williams and a persistent vision of sin. Having toured for most of 2002, Kelly decided, as he puts it, "to throw the balls up in the air again": to assemble a new set of accompanists. The new combination -- slide guitar, backing falsetto, "dweeby keyboard lines," and a Curtis Mayfield/Stones 70’s vibe -- clicked. The album was recorded without fuss in Melbourne last winter, with producer Tchad Blake cocking an ear for the performance that was ragged but right. They’re fresh and resilient and full of love. Produced by Tchad Blake & Paul Kelly

Paul Kelly - Lead Vocal and Acoustic Guitar Peter Luscombe - Drums & Percussion Bill McDonald – Bass Dan Luscombe - Electric Guitar, Slide and Keyboards Dan Kelly - Electric Guitar, Banjo and Fiddle Graeme Lee – Pedal Steel on Forty Eight Angels, Beautiful Feeling and Little Bit O’ Sugar Bruce Haymes – Piano on To Be Good Takes A Long Time

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars two albums of strong songs, March 8, 2004

By	Nadyne Mielke (Mountain View, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Paul Kelly's previous album, "... nothing but a dream", was a sad album, melancholy and bittersweet. It talks about lost love and dying friends. "Ways and Means" is nearly a polar opposite of that album: bright, uplifting, cheery.

On "Ways and Means", Paul Kelly tackles the ubiquituous love song. He noted that writing a happy love song is much more difficult than writing a sad one. But can Australia's best singer-songwriter inject something new into a track that is already well-worn? The answer is a resounding yes. I haven't been able to take this album out of my CD player in more than a month, and I can't imagine that will change anytime soon.

The first single from the album, "Won't You Come Around?", is a raucous entreaty to a lover to come visit just a little earlier than originally planned. "To Be Good Takes a Long Time" is a rollicking song, reminding us that it's a lot easier to be bad than it is to be good. The saddest song on the album is "You Broke a Beautiful Thing", a not-entirely-surprised missive to someone who ruined a good relationship.

If you're familiar with Paul Kelly, this album gives you everything that you want in one of his albums. If you are new to Paul Kelly, this album is an excellent introduction. This album showcases his lyrical genius and ear for a catchy (but never simple) melody. If you're not in the mood for such happy songs, then his previous album, "... nothing but a dream", is just as strong.

For collectors who try to buy albums in their original country of release: do not buy the original Australian release. That album contains EMI's copy protection scheme that makes the album unplayable on many CD and DVD players. A friend sent me the Australian version. It won't play on three of my CD players, and routinely crashes my Windows 2000 computer.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and Haunting Album for Adults, April 4, 2004

By	Paul Imseih (Sydney) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The samples available for this album are a good taster of the beautiful guitar work and lyrical content by a unique Australian musician.

Anyone who knows life in country towns will instantly recognise the mood set by the opening track "Gunnamatta" - at once laconic and sparse with deep undercurrents of violence waiting to erupt from the boredom. This piece perfectly caputures life in country towns where racial tension, boredom, substance and physical abuse create a potent mix. Here the band nails it perfectly.

What is so magical about this album compared to Kelly's other works is the band he has managed to pull together. The guitar work by Dan Luscombe, Dan Kelly and Graham Lee creates shifting moods, broad cinematic soundscapes and simple workmanlike progressions when required.

Often in pop music one finds that lyrics and music have little connection with each other. I'd go so far as to say that this is a fundamental problem with most pop music.

Here however, Kelly and his band bring together the two components and the result is more than the sum of its parts. In "Little Bit 'O Sugar" for example, the song is built around a warm, broad slide guitar, slightly unhinged in its chord progressions and inconclusive. Here, Kelly uses simple repetition of lyrics around the idea of wanting some "sugar" but the musicians take centre stage to build the piece into a blistering, slow burning torch song. That Kelly gives the band a purely instrumental track as the opening track is testament to the importance they play as the tracks unfold.

On songs where the lyrics take prominence such as "Beautiful Feeling", the guitar work remains simple and sparse, but never derivative. Lyrically, Kelly is exploring many of typical modern contradictions of love and desire. In "My way is to You" he sings:

...
Many times I've stumbled
Many times I've fallen down
But always I had
The dream of your dear ground
My way is, my way is to you.
...

The love in these songs is gravitational, elliptical and earthly foundation. What takes them even further is the aural canvas created by the musicians accompanying Kelly's vocals.

Here then is an album of slow burning love and lust songs for adults. Not just a great Australian album, but a great album, period.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond the shores of OZ........., April 25, 2004

By	Kiwi (The Land of Enchantment) - See all my reviews

Where do I start? Paul is exceptionally talented and deserves a much larger audience for his inspiring tales of love and lust. I'm doing my best to get his aura spread out as far and wide as this Universe will take it.....I can't remove his cds from my player, neither at home or in the car. He sees things through eyes that are intuitive and thoughtful and it is obvious his heart is full even when it is empty. The melodies and the sounds are just breathtaking. The songs attach themselves to you and stay in your head for days on end. Yes, sometimes he is like Springsteen; yes, sometimes he sounds like Dylan, but mostly he is himself which is rhythm and blues on vegimite...... These songs are gifts to bounce off the soul.....These two cds are slower and full of thought and ponder. He still has the knack of calling a spade a spade but with more knowledge and wisdom sprinkled around the corners. I have always been a lover of good storytelling. Harry Chapin had that wonderful fill of taking a moment and inventing a story about it.... Paul does this too with great abandon. There is happy in life; there is sad.. Paying attention to his lyrics and style will bring a spring to your step and have you begging for more..... Paul is seeing life through the eye of an eagle and the mind of a Guru. It is what it is, and it is fabulous. Thank you Paul.... God Speed.....