A few tracks into Paul Kelly’s thirtieth studio album, Seventy, the singer songwriter invokes Dutch psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk’s hugely influential book The Body Keeps the Score – a title Kelly borrowed after listening to the audiobook on an epic road trip.

Like the rest of the album, it’s lush, poetic, and timeless – another Paul Kelly song that bypasses the head and enters the heart. This would be no surprise for the legions of fans well familiar with the prolific singer-songwriter’s deep back catalogue. But as someone who’s dipped in and out of Kelly’s five-decade-career, I’d forgotten how much his music is part of me.

My body didn’t though. I listen in a state of ecstasy.

“Well, that’s great to hear. That’s why we make it. We want it to go deep,” Kelly says over the phone

See Full Page