PAUL KELLY Debuts New Video “Maybe This Christmas”

ACCLAIMED SINGER-SONGWRITER
PAUL KELLY
SHARES HOLIDAY HOPE AND JOY IN VIDEO
FOR HIS NEW SINGLE “MAYBE THIS IS CHRISTMAS”

Special Bonus Track “Maybe This is Christmas” 
Added to the Digital Edition of
Paul Kelly’s Christmas Train

Out Now Via Cooking Vinyl / Gawd Aggie Records

DECEMBER 2, 2022 (Los Angeles, CA) – A cozy living room decorated with holiday trinkets and a friendly game of Scrabble feels like the perfect setting for the celebrated Australian musician Paul Kelly to present his warm-hearted rendition of the Ron Sexsmith-penned tune, “MAYBE THIS CHRISTMAS.” “The song has long been a favorite of mine,” Kelly shares about his festive cover. “I love the lines about forgiveness in the second verse.” 

Both the song and the video are available worldwide today, December 2, 2022 via Cooking Vinyl/Gawd Aggie Records.

Joining Kelly in the video and the song is the Melbourne musician Alice Keath (one-half of well-known Australian duo Sweet Jean) “I thought it would be good to do as a duet, so I asked Alice to join the band and me to record the song with me in Soundpark Studios,” Kelly says with a smile. “She always finds interesting harmonies.” Keath’s gorgeous accompaniment serve to augment Kelly’s interpretation which beautifully retains the festiveness of Sexsmith’s original. In the video, they play off each other well with Keath literally getting the “last word” as she places the final letters on the Scrabble board that contains several thoughtful and hopeful words for the year ahead. 

“Maybe This Christmas” is the new bonus track to the digital version of the recently released PAUL KELLY’S CHRISTMAS TRAIN (Cooking Vinyl/Gawd Aggie). The collection, which also is available on vinyl and CD, pairs ten seasonal standards with an additional dozen tracks, creating an extraordinary 22-song double album that travels across the centuries, from a Latin hymn to well-known carols, from a traditional Irish folk ballad to songs with an unmistakable local flavor, and a sparkling new version of one of Australia’s all-time great Christmas songs, Kelly’s own “How to Make Gravy.”

“I’ve always been interested in Christmas songs and the variety of them,” Kelly says. “There is a double-edged sword to Christmas music because every year, it is everywhere, pumped to you in supermarkets and malls. There is a lot of schlock attached but, on the other hand, there are so many great Christmas songs and so much to explore. I’ve chosen songs I love which led me often to wander off the well-worn path, then chosen singers I thought best suited to them.”  

The sacred and the secular, the ancient and modern, are all carefully woven into a collection destined to become a part of Christmases around the globe for many years to come. It is delivered by Kelly and his band with a big cast of Christmas helpers including vocalists Vika and Linda Bull, Marlon Williams, Kasey Chambers and Emma Donovan, along with contributions from the Kelly clan: nephew and bandmate Dan, siblings Mary-Jo and Tony, and Paul’s daughters Maddy and Memphis.

Part of the joy in Paul Kelly’s Christmas Train comes from discovering fresh ways to treat the best-known songs. “Silent Night” features Hawaiian guitar and ukuleles as well as Keath singing a verse in the original German. Marlon Williams gives an astonishing performance of “Tapu Te Pō”(O Holy Night) in the Māori language. The story of Jesus and Mary has strong associations with Judaism and Islam (the Qu’ran has a chapter devoted to the story). On Christmas Train, the Israeli-born Australian singer-songwriter Lior joins Paul, Alice, and Emily Lubitz for an a cappella reading of the Hebrew prayer of peace, “Shalom Aleichem,” and Waleed Aly recites the vivid poetry of Surah Maryam. Kelly and his band bring a ’60s-fired energy to “Christmas,” an Australian song of longing for home by brothers Chris and Wes Harrington, and Linda Bull tears up the place on “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home),” a song made famous by Darlene Love on Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift for You.

Kelly admits that he hadn’t even thought about putting his universally beloved holiday tune, “How To Make Gravy” on the record. “But when I talked to friends, they all said, ‘Really? You’re not? Just do another version.’ Our live version has evolved from the original recording (initially released in 1994), so we said, ‘Let’s lay it down and see what we think. It has been 25 years since the song first came out so that’s another reason to have it here.”  

The song is so revered that Gravy Day is celebrated on December 21st. The hashatags “Gravy Day,” “the 21st of December,” and “Paul Kelly” have become trending terms on Twitter around the holidays, with many posts playing off How to Make Gravy’s narrative. The song’s popularity has inspired media outlets to investigate the protagonist’s possible backstory and the key question in the song: “Who’s gonna make the gravy?”  Several years ago, Kelly began acknowledging the trend by hosting Gravy Day concerts.  

PAUL KELLY’S CHRISTMAS TRAIN
Tracklisting

1. Maybe This Chrismas
2. Nativity
3. Silent Night
4. Swing Around the Sun
5. Christmas
6. Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home) 
7. Little Drummer Boy
8. Arthur McBride
9. The Virgin Mary Had One Son
10. Tapu Te Pō (O Holy Night)
11. Shalom Aleichem
12. The Oxen
13. The Friendly Beasts
14. Three Drovers
15. Christmas Must Be Tonight
16. Surah Maryam
17. Coventry Carol
18. In the Hot Sun of a Christmas Day
19. How to Make Gravy
20. Christmas Train
21. Come Thou Font of Every Blessing
22. Intonent Hodie
23. What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?

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