Your homework is to look for your second related text which is a song. Remember, do not choose a
song because you like it. It needs to show journey in the text.
This is also part of your homework and will be checked on Tuesday 17/02.
READ AND UNDERSTAND the Instructions:
1. Read the following article about the artist Paul Kelly. This will offer
some context.
2. Analyse the song ‘ Winter Coat’ by using the 10 question scaffold
from your related text task
3. You are to also answer the five questions under the song. Use the
additional worksheets (‘Analysing Music Lyrics’ and ‘Glossary’) to
help you analyse songs.
Paul Kelly
'Lyrics' opens with a quote from Anton Chekhov: 'I don't have
what you would call a philosophy or coherent world view so I
shall have to limit myself to describing how my heroes love,
marry, give birth, die and speak.' It's a viewpoint Kelly has
stressed over the years. 'I'd like to make clear that my records
aren't autobiography,' he once said. 'I'm not trying to tell my life
and my experiences. The first thing I'm trying to do is write
songs, rather than make confessions or bare my soul.'
The sixth of nine children, Paul Kelly was born in Adelaide in
1955 and attended a Christian Brothers School, where he
played trumpet and captained the cricket team. After school he
wandered around Australian for a few years, working odd-jobs
and picking up a guitar along the way. He made his public
debut singing the Australian folk song 'Streets Of Forbes' to a
Hobart audience in 1974, and two years later moved to
Melbourne, where the thriving pub-rock scene was being
transformed by a surge of punk adrenaline. Paul Kelly and The
Dots quickly became a local fixture, a hard-driving guitar band whose two albums, TALK and
MANILA, reflected a talent still in gestation.
The break-up of the Dots in 1982 precipitated a fallow period during which Kelly was without a record
contract. But moving to Sydney in 1984 helped break the spell; with a handful of cohorts such as
guitarist Steve Connolly and bass player Ian Rilen, Kelly spent $3500 recording POST over a two
week period at Clive Shakespeare's recording studio. The album was a loosely structured songcycle which followed a character's transition from dissolution (White Train, Blues For Skip) through
nostalgic longing (Adelaide, Standing On The Street Of Early Sorrows) to a final note of resolution
(Little Decisions). The aching melodies and bittersweet tone of these 11 songs, along with their
unapologetically Australian reference-points, marked a major leap in Kelly's songwriting. Australian
Rolling Stone hailed POST as the best record of 1985.
By then Kelly was back in action with a full-time band consisting of Steve Connolly, drummer Michael
Barclay, bass player Jon Schofield and keyboard player Peter Bull. Paul Kelly and the Coloured
Girls ('a joke name that stuck') went into the studio with producer Alan Thorne in March 1986,
Year 11 AOS: Journeys
Analysing Songs Homework Task 12/02
emerging a month later with the remarkable double album GOSSIP, a collection of 24 songs which
cemented Kelly's reputation as a songwriter with few peers. The range of material was again
extremely broad, from the undulating electric piano groove introducing Last Train To Heaven to the
rock-out raunch of the single Darling It Hurts, in which the son's protagonist sees his girlfriend
turning tricks on a Sydney street. Three tunes from POST were re-recorded with the full band, while
Maralinga (Rainy Land) - a song recounting the effects of British atomic testing on South Australian
Aborigines - was the first of several Kelly songs chronicling the stories of indigenous Australians.
Edited down to a 15 song single album, GOSSIP was also the record which introduced Kelly to
American audiences when it was released by A&M Records in July 1987. Bill Flanagan of Musician
magazine described it as 'striking' and commended the songwriter for his 'fresh ideas and startling
images'. By now Kelly and the band were road-hardened and ready, having played 150 Australian
gigs in on eight-month period. In May 1987 they returned to the studio with Alan Thorne to record
UNDER THE SUN, a collection of 14 new Kelly originals. After changing their name to Paul Kelly
and the Messengers, the band headed out on a maiden venture into the US which saw them traverse
the continent twice in two months by bus. 'Mr Kelly sang one smart, catchy three minute song after
another - dozens of them - and the band played with no frills directness,' wrote New York Times
rock critic Jon Pareles after their performance at the Bottom Line Club in New York.
The 1989 album SO MUCH WATER, SO CLOSE TO HOME complete a transition that had been
evident on UNDER THE SUN, as Kelly's writing on songs such as Sweet Guy and South of
Germany moved towards a narrative style populated by more fully-realised characters. Both the
album's title and the song Everything's Turning To White were based on a short story by the
American author Raymond Carver, a master of pared-down prose. Produced by American Scott Litt,
who had worked with R.E.M., SO MUCH WATER also had a more stripped-back musical sound.
Despite the critical acclaim they had earned and the camaraderie evident in their live performances,
Kelly and the Messengers dissolved their partnership in 1991 after on final album, COMEDY. Again
recorded by Alan Thorne in Sydney, the album was a 14 song collection which included the droll I
Can't Believe We Were Married and a song co-written with Aboriginal songwriter Kev Carmody,
From Little Things Big Things Grow, which recounted the eight-year struggle for land by the
Gurindji people of the Northern Territory.
An Australian tour in 1991 marked the final appearances of Paul Kelly and the Messengers, whose
swan-song was HIDDEN THINGS, a compilation of 18 rarities and B-sides recorded over the
previous six years. The album included several cover versions - Reckless by James Reyne,
Pastrure's Of Plenty by Woody Guthrie, Elly by Kev Carmody - and two new Kelly originals, When
I First Met Your Ma and Rally Round The Drum, which was co-written with Aboriginal songwriter
Archie Roach.
'The Messengers were the first band I'd had that became an entity,' recalls Kelly. 'We forged a style
together. But I felt if we had kept going it would have got formulaic and that's why I broke it up. I
wanted to try and start moving into other areas, start mixing things up.'
Kelly had made the first steps towards 'mixing things up' when he worked with Archie Roach and
the Aboriginal band Yothu Yindi in 1991. An early fan of Roach's, he co-produced the singersongwriter's acclaimed debut album 'Charcoal Lane' with Steve Connolly. The Yothu Yindi
connection came on a trip to the Northern Territory when Kelly collaborated with the group on
'Treaty', the song that became a surprise pop hit when it was remixed as a dance single.
A flurry of diverse projects followed over the next two years. Kelly's songs began to appear more
regularly on albums by other artists, both here and overseas. Having honed his skills as a solo
performer, he recorded two concerts in Perth and Melbourne for the double-CD set of LIVE, MAY
1992, featuring 22 songs performed with the stark accompaniment of just his own guitar and piano.
Year 11 AOS: Journeys
Analysing Songs Homework Task 12/02
In early 1992 he was invited to write songs for 'Funerals and Circuses' a Roger Bennett play about
racial tensions in small-town Australia. The play was acclaimed by critics when it was staged at the
1992 Adelaide Festival, and also marked Kelly's acting debut in the role of a petrol station attendant.
Later that year he signed a contract with publishers Angus and Robertson for a book of his collected
lyrics, contributed songs and vocals to the soundtrack of the television series 'The Seven Deadly
Sins' and sang a duet with Mark Seymour - 'Hey Boys' - for the film 'Garbo'.
In 1993 Kelly moved to Los Angeles for nine months, where he began playing with an assortment
of Australian and American musicians, including Detroit-born guitarist Randy Jacobs. In Los Angeles
he also produced a new album for Australian singer Renee Geyer, 'Difficult Woman'. Returning to
Australia later in the year, he collaborated with singer Christine Anu and Angelique Cooper on 'Last
Train', the dance remix of his 1986 song Last Train To Heaven which was heard all summer long
on Triple J.
The book 'Lyrics', which collected Kelly's song lyrics written from 1984-1993, was published in
September. Reviewing it in the Melbourne Age, poet and critic John Forbes described the songs as
'passionate, direct and forceful'. Kelly subsequently went into the studio with former Black Sorrows
singers Vika and Linda Bull to produce their debut album. He then completed work on his tenth
WANTED MAN, which featured 14 songs recorded in Australia and the U.S. with co-producers
Randy Jacobs and David Bridie. The album had a funkier feel reflected in both its earthy lyrics (Just
Like Animals, She's Rare) and the more overtly black rhythms of songs like We've Started A Fire
and the pop-soul single Song From The Sixteenth Floor.
In 1994, Kelly recorded the mainly instrumental soundtrack for 'Everynight....Everynight', a feature
film directed by Alkinos Tsilimidos which is set in the notorious H Division of Pentridge Jail in the
1970s. The film made its debut in June 1994 at the Melbourne Film Festival. Later that year, Kelly
began playing with a Melbourne-based group of musicians that included Randy Jacobs, guitarist
Shane O'Mara, drummer Peter Luscombe, bassist Stephen Hadley, keyboard player Bruce Haymes
and pedal steel player Graham Lee.
Over a nine month period they also recorded the 12 songs released in early 1996 as DEEPER
WATER, an album which explored the more mature concerns of a songwriter approaching his 40th
birthday and wrestling with issues of fatherhood and mortality. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald,
critic Mark Mordue said the album secured Kelly's reputation as songwriter and evinced an 'unusual
intensity and warmth.' Kelly dedicated the album to his old confrere Steve Connolly, who had died
the year before from unexpected medical complications following an operation.
Throughout this period Kelly continued to tour as a live performer throughout Europe, Canada, the
US and Australia, playing solo or with musicians such as guitarists Spencer Jones and Shane
O'Mara. By early 1996 a permanent band had coalesced around O'Mara, Haymes, Luscombe and
Hadley (the latter two formerly with the Black Sorrows), with Spencer Jones a semi-permanent
fixture. After a national tour to promote DEEPER WATER, the band recorded several songs which
were released as the four-track EP How To Make Gravy in late 1996. In early 1997 they recorded
a new single, Tease Me/It Started With A Kiss, and began rehearsals for Paul Kelly's twelfth album
of new material, to be released later that year. A long-awaited retrospective compilation, the 20song SONGS FROM THE SOUTH: PAUL KELLY'S GREATEST HITS, was released in June 1997.
Reflecting on more than two decades of songwriting and performing, Kelly told an interviewer
recently that songwriting remained a painstaking process, and he often felt like sinking to his knees
in thanks when a song came to him. 'Songwriting to me is mysterious,' he said. 'I still feel like a total
beginner. I don't feel like I have got it nailed yet.'
June 1997
Year 11 AOS: Journeys
Analysing Songs Homework Task 12/02
Analysing Music Lyrics
1. Dramatic situation
 Who is the speaker?
 To whom is he or she speaking? What is the situation?
2. Summary
 Write a one to three sentence summary of the song, include both
explicit and implicit meanings. (This exercise should help you focus in on
the central idea of the song.)
3. Figurative language
 Point out any examples of personification, simile, metaphor, metonymy,
or allusion. Explain (briefly) how these examples contribute to (or fail to
contribute to) the effectiveness of the song.
4. Literary techniques
 Point out and explain any symbols.
5. Aural Techniques
 What are the aural techniques you can identify?
6. Overview
 What is the subject of the song? (What is its central focus?)
 What is the theme of the song? (What does the song tell you about the
subject?) Explain why the theme is universal or specific.
 What personal insights, feelings, or comments do you have about the
poem?
Year 11 AOS: Journeys
Analysing Songs Homework Task 12/02
Glossary
The following terms maybe helpful to you when discuss lyrics.
Alliteration – The repetition of consonants at the beginning of words which occur
close to one another in text.
Allusion – A reference to a historical, literary or mythological event, person or
place.
Assonance – The repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds in words which are
close to one another in text.
Irony – The use of a statement whose form or tone indicates a meaning contrary to
its apparent or stated meaning.
Metaphor – A figure of speech which suggests a comparison or resemblance
between two things by identifying one with another.
Mood – The feeling or atmosphere of a literary work.
Motif – A recurring object, concept or structure which helps emphasise what the
author is trying to express.
Paradox – A statement which appears to contradict itself but which contains a truth.
Personification – A figure of speech in the form of a metaphor in which things or
abstract ideas are treated as if they are human.
Pun – A play on words in which two meanings for a single word are emphasized for
comic effect.
Repetition – The act of repeating words, phrases or lines.
Rhyme – The use of words with the same sounds, particularly at the end of lines of
poetry, in order to create an echoing or patterned effect.
Simile – A type of metaphor which directly and explicitly compares one thing to
another, always using the words ‘like’ or ‘as’.
Symbol – A type of figurative language or metaphor in which one thing stands for or
represents another.
Tone – The feeling or atmosphere of a text conveyed by words; the expression by a
voice of mood.
Year 11 AOS: Journeys
Analysing Songs Homework Task 12/02
Wintercoat
We were lovers once long ago
Walking through cold city streets like lovers do
Stopped inside a market
Kissed behind a stall
Someone said you'd better move on
If you're not buying at all
Then I saw the winter coat hanging on the rack
I thought about that winter coat
Hanging on my back
So you helped me try it on
It was just my size
Then you bought that coat for me
After haggling over the price
Now when it's chilly Up in these cold cold hills
I just put on my winter coat
My winter coat
Keeps me warm
Years have come along
Years have gone
Some friends have risen
Some have moved on
And my old winter coat still
Hangs by my front door
Holding all the stories
I don't remember anymore
And when it gets freezing
Up in these cold cold hills
I just put on my winter coat
My winter coat
Keeps me warm
My winter coat
My winter coat
My winter coat
My winter coat
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What kind of journey does this song discuss?
What prompted the beginning of this journey?
What helped or hindered the progression of this journey?
What did the author learn from this journey?
Choose a quotation that encapsulates the message of ‘the journey’ in this song.
Year 11 AOS: Journeys
Analysing Songs Homework Task 12/02