Loneliness, Reinvention and the Long Way Back: The Story of Paul Kelly’s Post
- Ben Preece
- Nov 30
- 6 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
A Waxx Lyrical Record of the Month Deep Dive into Paul Kelly’s Post. The story of collapse, courage, and a songwriter rebuilding himself from the ruins.
Listening to Post today, with its bare edges and unvarnished truths, it lands like a quiet confession whispered into the dark. Released in 1985, this was Kelly with everything stripped away: no band, no sheen, no expectation. Where the Dots albums reached outward, Post folds inward — a songwriter facing himself with nothing left to hide.
It’s a record about damage and clarity, heartbreak and hunger, and the strange forward motion that arrives when there’s nothing left to lose. More than a pivot, Post is the moment Kelly recalibrated — and the beginning of the voice we know now.
The Wilderness, the Car, and the Cross
PAUL KELLY POST
In the Australian winter of 1984, Paul Kelly was spent. Two albums with the Dots in the early 80s had gone nowhere, his marriage had fallen apart, he had fallen into the Melbourne drug culture and the industry had quietly washed its hands. With nothing to lose, he loaded up his father-in-law’s old Holden, left Melbourne behind, and drove 13 hours to Sydney with barely a dollar to his name and no real plan — just the quiet conviction he wasn’t done yet.
PAUL KELLY POST
A lifeline came from Don Walker, freshly free of Cold Chisel, who offered Kelly a room in his Kings Cross terrace. In the front sat a white grand piano — a beacon for a man starting again. Somewhere between heartbreak and hunger, ‘From St Kilda to Kings Cross’ spilled out, becoming the anchor to what would become Post.
The Band, The Room, The Recording
The album took shape in the modest home studio of Clive Shakespeare (guitatist for Sherbet), who engineered the sessions and co-produced with Kelly. The process was as bare-bones as the songs: two weeks, a shoestring budget of $3,500, and a tiny circle of players drifting in and out.
Kelly handled vocals, guitar and harmonica, supported by:
Michael Barclay — drums, backing vocals
Steve Connolly (The Zimmerman) — guitar
Additional contributions came from:
Ian Rilen (Rose Tattoo, X) — bass
Peter Bull (Flaming Hands, Grooveyard) — keyboards
Graham Lee — guitar, pedal steel
Released in May 1985 on the independent White Label Records imprint (later licensed to Mushroom), the recording captures musicians playing not for spectacle, but in service of a songwriter quietly rebuilding his world.
The Meaning of "Post"
The title Post carries several layers for Kelly — a word capturing exactly where he stood in 1984. It meant post-Adelaide, after the childhood and youth he’d left behind; post-Melbourne, after stepping away from the city’s fraying music scene; and post-grief, following the death of his friend Paul Hewson of Dragon, to whom the album is dedicated.
But Post also works as a signpost, pointing towards a new direction, and as a verb — Kelly “posting” his account of the world with clear-eyed honesty. He later described the album as a loose concept piece about addiction in its many forms, while insisting the songs were less autobiographical than observational — snapshots of the world around him.
Release, Reception, Resurrection
When Post arrived in 1985, it fizzled commercially. No chart position. One single, ‘From St Kilda to Kings Cross’, which also failed to land.
Retail barely noticed it.
But critics did.
Rolling Stone Australia called it the Best Album of 1985, drawn to its candour, its delicacy, and the odd beauty in its bleakness. Some wrote it off as a set of demos. Others recognised it for what it was: the record where Paul Kelly became Paul Kelly.
Now, forty years later — on the release of his 30th album Seventy — Post glows even brighter. It’s the seed. The blueprint. The true beginning.
Track by Track: Paul Kelly's Post
1. From St Kilda to Kings Cross
A spare, aching travelogue mapping a man between cities and selves — Kelly’s first great “place song,” written with documentary clarity and emotional restraint.
Fun Fact: Kelly credits Chuck Berry for inspiring the naming of real streets, suburbs, and landmarks in song — something rarely done in Australian music at the time.
For Fans Of: Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, The Go-Betweens.
2. Incident on South Dowling
A street-corner vignette from inner Sydney — terse, moody, and quietly devastating. Kelly captures a whole world with almost no movement at all.
Gossip Note: Re-recorded for Gossip with a harder, more rhythmic spine.
Fun Fact: South Dowling Street runs through Darlinghurst, where Kelly was living during this period of upheaval.
For Fans Of: The Triffids, Mark Knopfler, Leonard Cohen.
3. Look So Fine, Feel So Low
A defeated smile of a song — all surface composure and internal collapse. One of the earliest displays of Kelly’s ability to say everything by saying very little.
Gossip Note: Recut for Gossip with full-band warmth and renewed energy.
Fun Fact: Kelly performed this live for years before recording it; he saw it as a turning point in learning how to write plainly but powerfully.
For Fans Of: Van Morrison, Crowded House, Tom Petty.
4. White Train
A stark blues meditation built around an unrelenting rhythm and a quietly ominous lyric. Kelly leaves acres of space, and the silence carries weight.
Gossip Note: Re-recorded for Gossip, where it took on a sharper, more urgent edge.
Fun Fact: Listeners and critics have long debated whether the “train” represents addiction, temptation, destiny, or escape.
For Fans Of: Tom Waits, Nick Cave (early era), Chuck Berry.
5. Luck
A brief, tossed-off fragment that lands with surprising resonance. It’s conversational, understated, and feels like flicking through a private notebook.
Fun Fact: Its loose, almost demo-like quality is intentional — this is one of the emotional “breathing spaces” on the album.
For Fans Of: Paul Simon, Jackson Browne, early Dylan sketches.
6. Blues for Skip
A weary tribute to creative block, late nights, and the fraying edges of artistic survival. Kelly’s harmonica works like a second narrator.
Fun Fact: Written for “Skip”, a Melbourne musician whose encouragement shaped Kelly’s early approach to songwriting.
For Fans Of: J.J. Cale, Tom Waits, Ry Cooder.
7. Adelaide
A blunt, bittersweet farewell to his hometown — half affection, half frustration. Kelly’s relationship with place becomes character, mood, and conflict all at once.
Gossip Note: Re-recorded for Gossip, where it became one of Kelly’s signature early tracks.
Fun Fact: Kelly’s family famously disliked the song on first hearing it.
For Fans Of: The Go-Betweens, The Triffids, Paul Weller.
8. Satisfy Your Woman
Loose, smoky, and tinged with wry humour, this track leans into character writing more than confession.
Fun Fact: Built largely around Peter Bull’s improvised keyboard textures during the sessions
.For Fans Of: Randy Newman, John Hiatt, Lou Reed.
9. You Can Put Your Shoes Under My Bed
Tender, cheeky, and straight from the heart — the kind of emotional simplicity Kelly would refine again and again over the decades.
Fun Fact: A Nashville publisher once told Kelly the song could be a hit “if he changed one line.” He declined.
For Fans Of: John Prine, Paul McCartney, Wilco.
10. Standing on the Street of Early Sorrows
A delicate, impressionistic return to adolescent longing. Kelly sketches a whole emotional history with restraint rather than drama.
Fun Fact: Inspired by a teenage crush named Julie; one of the rare songs Kelly has openly tied to a specific memory.
For Fans Of: Nick Drake, James Taylor, Iron & Wine.
11. Little Decisions
A hushed and introspective closer — more about acceptance than resolution. The emotional temperature drops, and, fittingly, the album exhales.
Fun Fact: Kelly placed this as the final track because it felt like “the only truthful way out of the room.”For Fans Of: Tim Hardin, Jackson Browne, Damien Rice.
The Second Life of Post
Post didn’t explode on arrival. It seeped.
Quietly. Patiently. Persistently.
Over the years, musicians and critics have pointed to it as Kelly’s true turning point — the moment his voice sharpened, his writing deepened, and the foundations of his myth were set. The album’s minimalism aged beautifully; its themes grew heavier as Kelly’s legend grew larger.
As Australia canonised him — books, awards, festivals, soundtracks, national singalongs — Post remained the small, fiercely beating heart at the centre of it all.
Why It Still Lands Today
Nearly forty years later, Post stands untouched by trend or production date-stamp.
It’s timeless because it was never trying to be timely.
It’s powerful because it whispers rather than shouts.
You hear the beginnings of everything that followed:the kitchen-sink storytelling, the moral bruising, the tenderness, the dry wit, the characters running from themselves, and sometimes towards redemption.
Post is a survival document.The sound of a man who’s broken but intact enough to testify.
It didn’t just mark a comeback. It marked a becoming.