Chords for Paul Kelly Enough Rope Interview - part 1
Tempo:
124.35 bpm
Chords used:
G
C
Em
D
Am
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
For a generation or two of Australians, my next guest is the closest thing we have to a poet laureate.
His songs are like postcards, little snapshots of the countryside with our experiences, dreams, hopes and problems scrawled in the lyrics.
He's captured who we are like no other writer, but when asked once if he was the voice of ordinary Australia,
he had the grace and wisdom to reply, I don't know any ordinary people, do you?
Ladies and gentlemen, the extraordinary, but no more extraordinary than the rest of us, Mr Paul Kelly.
Delightful people to a guitar, is it like Willie Nelson's, does it have a name like Trigger?
No, this one doesn't have a name, but my first guitar had a name called Buddy, Buddy Love after a Jerry Lee Lewis character.
You've actually compared writing songs the way Robert Hughes describes having a fish on the end of a line, what do you mean by that?
[G] I guess what I mean is that you don't know when a fish is going to bite, so you don't know when a song's going to happen.
I mean if I knew how to write songs I'd write a song every day.
So what are the conditions, do you have to sit in a zen-like state in a particular room?
No, it's just really giving yourself time and time and not answering the phone and just time to play and fool around.
It's a lot like doodling I guess, like drawers or painters would just make marks on paper until something happened.
You've just got to play around, I mean you don't really, there's no real rules to making a song.
It's not like making a table where you have the idea and picture in your head before you start,
you know if I follow these steps, follow steps A, B and then C and do that, I'll have a table at the end of it.
You don't really know mechanical or, [N] it's not really a formula to follow.
How infuriating for you, you said that songs come from other songs, can you show us what that means?
I can show you, I can show you.
[Em]
[G] There's a band from the 60s called The Loving Spurnful, which is a songwriter called John Sebastian.
I always thought they were a wonderful band and I used to hear [C#]
these records through my big brother Martin, this is one of their [G] songs.
Rolling down the line, makes you wish that I talked much more to you when we had the time.
[C] Still it's [D] only wishing [G] and it's nothing [Em] more, so [G] I'm never going [C] back,
[G] never going [C] back,
[G] never going [C] back.
Out in Nashville [G] [D] anymore,
[G] from St.
Kilda [Em] to Kings Cross, [C] it's 13 [Am] hours on a bus.
[G] I press my face [Em] against the glass, [C] watch the white [Am] lines rushing past.
[C] All around [D] me felt like oil [Em] inside me, [Am] and my body left [C] me and my soul [D] went running.
[G] Every time I see that greyhound bus, [C] rolling down [G] the line.
[N] Wow.
That's amazing.
So is that
There's a whole lot more, there's a whole lot more too.
Is that a conscious thing that you do or is it just a chord structure that appeals to you so you think you'll build on it?
No, often it's not conscious but often I might write a song and then it reminds you of something.
Sometimes you have to go back and check.
So John Sebastian could probably sue you for everything you've got.
No, no, that's if you know.
You've got to just change a couple of
Is that right?
I think that's pretty good advice for any songwriter.
Is it eight chords?
Eight octaves?
I'm not very musical I'm afraid.
There's not that many notes out there. Obviously not.
Those black things on the page with the dots.
But there's not a lot of notes out there are there to choose from?
No, in our scale there's I guess seven.
Seven?
Well, see I was close, wasn't I?
In fact I just invented an extra one.
So that's a pretty limited palette.
It's inevitable isn't it that you're going to be even subconsciously borrowing from other artists?
Yeah, I think that's the way that I think most people write.
I think probably every songwriter would have those songs that
You learn how to write songs by copying other people and you fall in love with a particular song or a songwriter
and I guess it's a form of worship.
You just soak them up and you work out their songs and then they end up
You take them inside yourself and then maybe 20 years later they pop out and you've got to go and check.
Who did you worship as a kid?
Way back.
I mean the first songs I remember hearing on the radio were My Boomerang Won't Come Back.
Rolf Harris.
Yeah, I don't know if I worshiped Rolf but he made an impression.
Yeah.
Sorry, that's my ass but that wasn't my Rolf Harris impersonation.
I remember songs like Johnny Horton's songs, I have to think the Bismarck, that must have been probably when I was five or six years old.
[Em] The Battle of New Orleans.
We fired our guns and the British kept it coming, there wasn't quite as many as there was a while ago.
They ran so fast the hounds couldn't catch them, down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
Wee-ha!
That's all I remember from it.
I guess songs like that really made a strong impression on me because they were so visual, you could really see those songs.
When did you realise that songwriting was [N] actually what you were going to do?
It happened really quickly when I was 21.
I mean I wanted to be a writer from about the age of 15, 16.
I think like most people I wrote poetry as a teenager.
Then I started to make, [C] I went to university for a little while after school and met a whole new group of people and some of them play guitar.
That's when I started to pick up chords and so on from them.
Then one day, I can still remember [C#] when I was 21 I wrote a song and then I wrote another one.
It just felt like a knack, I can do this.
Then I just got hooked on it and [D] I've been pretty much hooked on it ever since.
Lucky for us that you did.
We have a clip of one of your many, many songs [N] before too long.
His songs are like postcards, little snapshots of the countryside with our experiences, dreams, hopes and problems scrawled in the lyrics.
He's captured who we are like no other writer, but when asked once if he was the voice of ordinary Australia,
he had the grace and wisdom to reply, I don't know any ordinary people, do you?
Ladies and gentlemen, the extraordinary, but no more extraordinary than the rest of us, Mr Paul Kelly.
Delightful people to a guitar, is it like Willie Nelson's, does it have a name like Trigger?
No, this one doesn't have a name, but my first guitar had a name called Buddy, Buddy Love after a Jerry Lee Lewis character.
You've actually compared writing songs the way Robert Hughes describes having a fish on the end of a line, what do you mean by that?
[G] I guess what I mean is that you don't know when a fish is going to bite, so you don't know when a song's going to happen.
I mean if I knew how to write songs I'd write a song every day.
So what are the conditions, do you have to sit in a zen-like state in a particular room?
No, it's just really giving yourself time and time and not answering the phone and just time to play and fool around.
It's a lot like doodling I guess, like drawers or painters would just make marks on paper until something happened.
You've just got to play around, I mean you don't really, there's no real rules to making a song.
It's not like making a table where you have the idea and picture in your head before you start,
you know if I follow these steps, follow steps A, B and then C and do that, I'll have a table at the end of it.
You don't really know mechanical or, [N] it's not really a formula to follow.
How infuriating for you, you said that songs come from other songs, can you show us what that means?
I can show you, I can show you.
[Em]
[G] There's a band from the 60s called The Loving Spurnful, which is a songwriter called John Sebastian.
I always thought they were a wonderful band and I used to hear [C#]
these records through my big brother Martin, this is one of their [G] songs.
Rolling down the line, makes you wish that I talked much more to you when we had the time.
[C] Still it's [D] only wishing [G] and it's nothing [Em] more, so [G] I'm never going [C] back,
[G] never going [C] back,
[G] never going [C] back.
Out in Nashville [G] [D] anymore,
[G] from St.
Kilda [Em] to Kings Cross, [C] it's 13 [Am] hours on a bus.
[G] I press my face [Em] against the glass, [C] watch the white [Am] lines rushing past.
[C] All around [D] me felt like oil [Em] inside me, [Am] and my body left [C] me and my soul [D] went running.
[G] Every time I see that greyhound bus, [C] rolling down [G] the line.
[N] Wow.
That's amazing.
So is that
There's a whole lot more, there's a whole lot more too.
Is that a conscious thing that you do or is it just a chord structure that appeals to you so you think you'll build on it?
No, often it's not conscious but often I might write a song and then it reminds you of something.
Sometimes you have to go back and check.
So John Sebastian could probably sue you for everything you've got.
No, no, that's if you know.
You've got to just change a couple of
Is that right?
I think that's pretty good advice for any songwriter.
Is it eight chords?
Eight octaves?
I'm not very musical I'm afraid.
There's not that many notes out there. Obviously not.
Those black things on the page with the dots.
But there's not a lot of notes out there are there to choose from?
No, in our scale there's I guess seven.
Seven?
Well, see I was close, wasn't I?
In fact I just invented an extra one.
So that's a pretty limited palette.
It's inevitable isn't it that you're going to be even subconsciously borrowing from other artists?
Yeah, I think that's the way that I think most people write.
I think probably every songwriter would have those songs that
You learn how to write songs by copying other people and you fall in love with a particular song or a songwriter
and I guess it's a form of worship.
You just soak them up and you work out their songs and then they end up
You take them inside yourself and then maybe 20 years later they pop out and you've got to go and check.
Who did you worship as a kid?
Way back.
I mean the first songs I remember hearing on the radio were My Boomerang Won't Come Back.
Rolf Harris.
Yeah, I don't know if I worshiped Rolf but he made an impression.
Yeah.
Sorry, that's my ass but that wasn't my Rolf Harris impersonation.
I remember songs like Johnny Horton's songs, I have to think the Bismarck, that must have been probably when I was five or six years old.
[Em] The Battle of New Orleans.
We fired our guns and the British kept it coming, there wasn't quite as many as there was a while ago.
They ran so fast the hounds couldn't catch them, down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
Wee-ha!
That's all I remember from it.
I guess songs like that really made a strong impression on me because they were so visual, you could really see those songs.
When did you realise that songwriting was [N] actually what you were going to do?
It happened really quickly when I was 21.
I mean I wanted to be a writer from about the age of 15, 16.
I think like most people I wrote poetry as a teenager.
Then I started to make, [C] I went to university for a little while after school and met a whole new group of people and some of them play guitar.
That's when I started to pick up chords and so on from them.
Then one day, I can still remember [C#] when I was 21 I wrote a song and then I wrote another one.
It just felt like a knack, I can do this.
Then I just got hooked on it and [D] I've been pretty much hooked on it ever since.
Lucky for us that you did.
We have a clip of one of your many, many songs [N] before too long.
Key:
G
C
Em
D
Am
G
C
Em
_ For a generation or two of Australians, my next guest is the closest thing we have to a poet laureate.
His songs are like postcards, little snapshots of the countryside with our experiences, dreams, hopes and problems scrawled in the lyrics.
He's captured who we are like no other writer, but when asked once if he was the voice of ordinary Australia,
he had the grace and wisdom to reply, I don't know any ordinary people, do you?
Ladies and gentlemen, the extraordinary, but no more extraordinary than the rest of us, Mr Paul Kelly.
_ _ _ _ _ Delightful people to a guitar, is it like Willie Nelson's, does it have a name like Trigger? _
No, this one doesn't have a name, but my first guitar had a name called Buddy, Buddy Love after _ a Jerry Lee Lewis character.
You've actually compared writing songs the way Robert Hughes describes having a fish on the end of a line, what do you mean by that?
[G] _ _ _ _ I guess what I mean is that _ you don't know when a fish is going to bite, so you don't know when a song's going to happen.
I mean if I knew how to write songs I'd write a song every day.
So what are the conditions, do you have to sit in a zen-like state in a particular room?
No, it's just really giving yourself time and time and _ not answering the phone and just time to play and fool around.
It's a lot like _ doodling I guess, _ like _ drawers or painters would just make marks on paper until something happened.
You've just got to play around, I mean you don't really, _ there's no real rules to making a song.
It's not like making a table where you have the idea and picture in your head before you start,
you know if I follow these steps, follow steps A, B and then C and do that, I'll have a table at the end of it.
You don't really know _ mechanical or, _ [N] it's not really a formula to follow.
How infuriating for you, you said that songs come from other songs, can you show us what that means?
_ _ _ _ I can show you, I can show you.
_ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
[G] _ _ There's a band _ _ from the 60s called The Loving Spurnful, which is a songwriter called John Sebastian.
_ _ I always thought they were a wonderful band and I used to hear _ [C#] _
_ these records through my big brother Martin, this is one of their [G] songs. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Rolling down the _ line, _ _ _ _ _ makes you wish that I talked much more to you _ when we had the time. _ _ _ _
_ [C] _ Still it's [D] only wishing _ [G] and _ it's nothing [Em] more, so [G] I'm never going [C] back, _
_ [G] _ never going [C] back, _
_ [G] _ never going [C] back.
Out in Nashville [G] _ [D] anymore, _
_ [G] _ from St.
Kilda [Em] to Kings Cross, [C] it's 13 [Am] hours on a bus.
[G] I press my face [Em] against the glass, [C] _ watch the white [Am] lines rushing past.
[C] _ All around [D] me felt like oil [Em] inside me, [Am] and my body left [C] me and my soul [D] went running. _ _
_ [G] _ Every time I see that greyhound bus, _ [C] rolling down [G] the line.
_ _ [N] Wow. _
_ _ _ That's amazing. _ _
So is _ that_
There's a whole lot more, there's a whole lot more too.
Is that a conscious thing that you do or is it just a chord structure that appeals to you so you think you'll build on it?
No, often it's not conscious but often _ _ _ _ I might write a song and then it reminds you of something.
Sometimes you have to go back and check.
So John Sebastian could probably sue you for everything you've got.
No, no, that's if you know.
_ You've got to just change a couple _ _ _ _ _ _ _ of_
Is that right?
_ I think that's pretty good advice for any songwriter.
Is it eight chords?
Eight octaves?
I'm not very musical I'm afraid.
There's not that many notes out there. Obviously not.
_ _ _ _ _ _ Those black things on the page with the dots.
_ But there's not a lot of notes out there are there to choose from?
No, in our scale there's I guess seven.
_ Seven?
Well, see I was close, wasn't I?
In fact I just invented an extra one.
_ So that's a pretty limited palette.
It's inevitable isn't it that you're going to be even subconsciously borrowing from other artists?
Yeah, I think that's _ _ the way that I think most people write.
I think probably every songwriter would have those songs that_
You learn how to write songs by copying other people and you fall in love with a particular song or a songwriter
_ _ _ and I guess it's a form of worship.
You just soak them up and you work out their songs and then they end up_
You take them inside yourself and then _ _ maybe 20 years later they pop out and you've got to go and check.
Who did you worship as a kid?
Way back.
I mean the first songs I remember hearing on the radio were _ _ _ My Boomerang Won't Come Back.
Rolf Harris.
Yeah, I don't know if I worshiped Rolf but he made an impression.
Yeah. _ _ _ _
_ _ Sorry, that's my ass but that wasn't my Rolf Harris impersonation.
_ _ _ I remember songs like _ _ Johnny Horton's songs, I have to think the Bismarck, that must have been probably when I was five or six years old.
_ _ [Em] The Battle of New Orleans. _
We fired our guns and the British kept it coming, there wasn't quite as many as there was a while ago.
They ran so fast the hounds couldn't catch them, down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
Wee-ha! _
That's all I remember from it.
I guess songs like that really _ _ _ _ made a strong impression on me because they were so _ _ visual, you could really see those songs.
When did you realise that songwriting was [N] actually _ what you were going to do?
It happened really quickly when I was 21.
I mean I wanted to be a writer from _ about the age of 15, 16. _
I think like most people I wrote poetry as a teenager.
_ _ Then I started to make, [C] I went to university for a little while _ _ after school and met a whole new group of people and some of them play guitar. _
_ _ _ _ That's when I started to pick up chords and so on from them.
Then one day, I can still remember _ [C#] when I was _ 21 _ I wrote a song and then I wrote another one.
It just felt like a knack, I can do this.
_ _ Then I just got hooked on it and [D] I've been pretty much hooked on it ever since.
Lucky for us that you did.
We have a clip of one of your many, many songs [N] before too long.
His songs are like postcards, little snapshots of the countryside with our experiences, dreams, hopes and problems scrawled in the lyrics.
He's captured who we are like no other writer, but when asked once if he was the voice of ordinary Australia,
he had the grace and wisdom to reply, I don't know any ordinary people, do you?
Ladies and gentlemen, the extraordinary, but no more extraordinary than the rest of us, Mr Paul Kelly.
_ _ _ _ _ Delightful people to a guitar, is it like Willie Nelson's, does it have a name like Trigger? _
No, this one doesn't have a name, but my first guitar had a name called Buddy, Buddy Love after _ a Jerry Lee Lewis character.
You've actually compared writing songs the way Robert Hughes describes having a fish on the end of a line, what do you mean by that?
[G] _ _ _ _ I guess what I mean is that _ you don't know when a fish is going to bite, so you don't know when a song's going to happen.
I mean if I knew how to write songs I'd write a song every day.
So what are the conditions, do you have to sit in a zen-like state in a particular room?
No, it's just really giving yourself time and time and _ not answering the phone and just time to play and fool around.
It's a lot like _ doodling I guess, _ like _ drawers or painters would just make marks on paper until something happened.
You've just got to play around, I mean you don't really, _ there's no real rules to making a song.
It's not like making a table where you have the idea and picture in your head before you start,
you know if I follow these steps, follow steps A, B and then C and do that, I'll have a table at the end of it.
You don't really know _ mechanical or, _ [N] it's not really a formula to follow.
How infuriating for you, you said that songs come from other songs, can you show us what that means?
_ _ _ _ I can show you, I can show you.
_ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
[G] _ _ There's a band _ _ from the 60s called The Loving Spurnful, which is a songwriter called John Sebastian.
_ _ I always thought they were a wonderful band and I used to hear _ [C#] _
_ these records through my big brother Martin, this is one of their [G] songs. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Rolling down the _ line, _ _ _ _ _ makes you wish that I talked much more to you _ when we had the time. _ _ _ _
_ [C] _ Still it's [D] only wishing _ [G] and _ it's nothing [Em] more, so [G] I'm never going [C] back, _
_ [G] _ never going [C] back, _
_ [G] _ never going [C] back.
Out in Nashville [G] _ [D] anymore, _
_ [G] _ from St.
Kilda [Em] to Kings Cross, [C] it's 13 [Am] hours on a bus.
[G] I press my face [Em] against the glass, [C] _ watch the white [Am] lines rushing past.
[C] _ All around [D] me felt like oil [Em] inside me, [Am] and my body left [C] me and my soul [D] went running. _ _
_ [G] _ Every time I see that greyhound bus, _ [C] rolling down [G] the line.
_ _ [N] Wow. _
_ _ _ That's amazing. _ _
So is _ that_
There's a whole lot more, there's a whole lot more too.
Is that a conscious thing that you do or is it just a chord structure that appeals to you so you think you'll build on it?
No, often it's not conscious but often _ _ _ _ I might write a song and then it reminds you of something.
Sometimes you have to go back and check.
So John Sebastian could probably sue you for everything you've got.
No, no, that's if you know.
_ You've got to just change a couple _ _ _ _ _ _ _ of_
Is that right?
_ I think that's pretty good advice for any songwriter.
Is it eight chords?
Eight octaves?
I'm not very musical I'm afraid.
There's not that many notes out there. Obviously not.
_ _ _ _ _ _ Those black things on the page with the dots.
_ But there's not a lot of notes out there are there to choose from?
No, in our scale there's I guess seven.
_ Seven?
Well, see I was close, wasn't I?
In fact I just invented an extra one.
_ So that's a pretty limited palette.
It's inevitable isn't it that you're going to be even subconsciously borrowing from other artists?
Yeah, I think that's _ _ the way that I think most people write.
I think probably every songwriter would have those songs that_
You learn how to write songs by copying other people and you fall in love with a particular song or a songwriter
_ _ _ and I guess it's a form of worship.
You just soak them up and you work out their songs and then they end up_
You take them inside yourself and then _ _ maybe 20 years later they pop out and you've got to go and check.
Who did you worship as a kid?
Way back.
I mean the first songs I remember hearing on the radio were _ _ _ My Boomerang Won't Come Back.
Rolf Harris.
Yeah, I don't know if I worshiped Rolf but he made an impression.
Yeah. _ _ _ _
_ _ Sorry, that's my ass but that wasn't my Rolf Harris impersonation.
_ _ _ I remember songs like _ _ Johnny Horton's songs, I have to think the Bismarck, that must have been probably when I was five or six years old.
_ _ [Em] The Battle of New Orleans. _
We fired our guns and the British kept it coming, there wasn't quite as many as there was a while ago.
They ran so fast the hounds couldn't catch them, down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
Wee-ha! _
That's all I remember from it.
I guess songs like that really _ _ _ _ made a strong impression on me because they were so _ _ visual, you could really see those songs.
When did you realise that songwriting was [N] actually _ what you were going to do?
It happened really quickly when I was 21.
I mean I wanted to be a writer from _ about the age of 15, 16. _
I think like most people I wrote poetry as a teenager.
_ _ Then I started to make, [C] I went to university for a little while _ _ after school and met a whole new group of people and some of them play guitar. _
_ _ _ _ That's when I started to pick up chords and so on from them.
Then one day, I can still remember _ [C#] when I was _ 21 _ I wrote a song and then I wrote another one.
It just felt like a knack, I can do this.
_ _ Then I just got hooked on it and [D] I've been pretty much hooked on it ever since.
Lucky for us that you did.
We have a clip of one of your many, many songs [N] before too long.