Paul Kelly to release new album “Fever Longing Still”

The Australian roots legend Paul Kelly has announced the release of his new album, “Fever Longing Still” on 1st November 2024.  It is his first of new original material since 2018’s “Nature”. The album’s title comes from a line in Sonnet 147 by Shakespeare, whose writing has thrilled and inspired Kelly ever since schooldays.  The full line “My love is as a fever, longing still”, sets the theme for the album.

Love has always been at the heart of many of Kelly’s songs including ‘To Her Door’, ‘How to Make Gravy’, ‘Careless’, ‘If I Could Start Today Again’ and ‘The Oldest Story in the Book’. Each with a different angle on that universal subject.

“Fever Longing Still” comprises 12 additions to a catalogue spanning more than 40 years.   With love as the topic, Kelly finds a way to keep replenishing the creative well. Even if it can take some time for a song to surface. “I never know what the themes are until I am in the middle of doing a record,” Kelly says. “I don’t set out with an album in mind. Over the past 20 years I just get the band together and put down a batch of songs. I put them in what I call my odd-socks drawer on the computer and as they accumulate, I see which ones work together.”

“Fever Longing Still” tracklist:

1. Houndstooth Dress
2. Love Has Made A Fool Of Me
3. Taught By Experts
4. Hello Melancholy, Hello Joy
5. Northern Rivers
6. Double Business Bound
7. Let’s Work It Out In Bed
8. All Those Smiling Faces
9. Harpoon To The Heart
10. Back To The Future
11. Eight Hours Sleep
12. Going To The River With Dad

“Fever Longing Still” is available for pre-sale/ pre-order here.

The first single ‘Taught By Experts’ is a new version of a song he has been trying to perfect for 30 years. “I have been circling that song for years,” Kelly says. “We thought we should try it with a chiming electric guitar part, and when we did that, we knew that was it.” That guitar part nods back to ‘Leaps and Bounds’, a love song to Melbourne, from his 1986 album “Gossip”.