“You might have a great reputation so carefully made/ And a set of high ideals, polished up and so well displayed/ You might have a burning love inside, so refined, such a special grade/ But you can't take it with you”. “You Can’t Take It With You” (Paul Kelly and the Messengers) Paul Kelly has been regarded as ‘the guy who wrote basically everything’ and indeed he remains today a perennial feature in Australian music culture (Mitchell 3). With an immense and diverse repertoire, the songs of Paul Kelly have been informed by Australian society and in turn, have given voice to the life of the nation’ (Mitchell 2). Kelly has written for and from the perspective of women, on behalf of and with Aboriginals, he has referenced and depicted iconic Australian locations and even written odes to ‘Australia’s surrogate religion, sport’ (Mitchell 7). This essay will explore how Paul Kelly’s life and works provide insight into the production and consumption of Australian popular music and culture. Music culture has been considered a dynamic phenomenon, defined by ‘evolving influences’ with the power to connect ‘disparate spaces and places across time and among groups of people’ (Klopper 50). For the vast nation that is Australia, music has played a profound and unifying role in constructing social and spatial identities and relationships (Carroll and Connell 141). However it has been noted that, ‘the very ordinariness of popular culture’ can mask the importance of music as ‘the well springs of popular consciousness’ (Kong 185). Popular music often presents a ‘hidden perception of our world and social values’ and in this way, Kelly’s enduring appeal and popularity provides insight into the evolving values of Australians (Carroll and Connell 141). Mitchell writes that Paul Kelly’s music has ‘often taken the nation’s pulse’ and through his songwriting he has been able to ‘show Australians who they are’, promulgating our national identity (3). PRODUCTION – Kelly’s Influences and Motivations The production of music is a creative and inspired process and certain facets of Paul Kelly’s life and development as an artist make his resulting work uniquely Australian. Born in 1955, Kelly was the sixth of eight children to an Italian Australian mother and Irish Australian father (Paul Kelly's Secret Past). Representative of Australia’s multicultural foundations, Kelly’s heritage made him relatable from the outset. Dux of his school, Kelly was a determined student and a voracious reader, traits that have pervaded consistently through his music (Cunningham 73). Perhaps a distinguishing feature of Kelly’s work is it’s utter embrace of international literary and musical history, which he utilises and reproduces, with a down to earth Australian flavour (Cunningham 62). A poet and a writer before he was a musician, Cunningham notes that Kelly’s ‘slippage between what he’s read, thought, heard and dreamt is profound’ (65). By his reference to prolific writing such as that of Shakespeare, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Balzac, Emile Zola, Rumi and even the Bible, Kelly’s lyrics are considered as both a retrieval and celebration of history (Cunningham 68). Importantly, Cunningham also observes that Kelly ‘avoids drowning in their work by thinking of them as collaborators not masters’[he] sees his music as very much a communal exercise’ (71). Bowles wrote that Australia is an ‘import-dependent media culture’ and with Kelly’s music this certainly rings true (46). However as discussed in relation to perceptions of Australian popular culture generally, an enunciation of Australian identity can be found in the difference between colliding and appropriated styles and cultures, resulting in positive unoriginality (Foss; Morris; Tillers; Taylor). For all his intelligence and achievements as artist, at his core Kelly is ‘a no-nonsense Australian who sneers at celebrity pretensions and silly self indulgences’ (B. Flanagan 60). In producing his music, Kelly professes it was never his intention to write issue based or topical songs and Mitchell suggests that perhaps this modesty is part of his appeal (4). ‘Not afraid to express the sentiments everyone was fascinated with but that most Rock’ n ’Roll songwriters were nervous about articulating’, Kelly’s most powerful and impacting work brought Aboriginal identity and rights to the fore (B. Flanagan 58). Kutcha Edwards asserts that ‘Aborig