a day ago
Rita Wrote A Letter is Paul Kelly's 'black comedy' sequel to How To Make Gravy
It isn't every day we get a sequel to an iconic Australian song. But nearly 30 years after he first cemented Joe, Dan and Rita in the national songbook with How To Make Gravy, Paul Kelly has written a follow-up to his immortal Christmas anthem.
Recently voted the ninth-best Australian song of all time, the 1996 track has achieved true cult status, inspiring a star-studded movie, a music festival, countless cover versions, and has enshrined December 21 as "Gravy Day" in the national cultural conscience.
Not bad for a song that Kelly once opined "doesn't have a chorus and [is] set in prison".
The song's lyrics are the letter from the newly incarcerated Joe, addressed to his brother Dan while their family prepares to celebrate Christmas without him. Now, How To Make Gravy is getting a sequel called Rita Wrote A Letter, which continues the story as a "black comedy", as Kelly describes it.
Kelly had been mulling over a Gravy follow-up for some time. "At least five or six years," he told Double J's Karen Leng. "I had the title and wanted to write [about] Rita because she doesn't get much of a go.
In the sequel, we learn what Joe feared most — Dan making a move on his wife — came to pass.
"Rita wrote a letter and this is what she had to say," Kelly sings. "Joe I'm really sorry, but me and Dan, our love is here to stay. With the kids it's getting better. And now a little baby's on the way."
Musically, however, the backing rides a jaunty vintage piano line, originally written by nephew Dan Kelly.
"[He] had a piece of music that he'd written on piano, sort of New Orleans-style piano, and he said, 'Put some words to that,'" Kelly told Double J's Henry Wagons exclusively back in May.
This week, a funeral notice appeared in a Melbourne newspaper announcing Joe's death "by sudden misadventure", noting his love of reggae, cooking, and quoting Kelly's signature lyric: "Who's gonna make the gravy?"
That question lingers over Rita Wrote A Letter, which confirms Joe's untimely passing. And yet, through the power of music, he returns — a surprise to Joe himself, as the wry opening lines portray.
Rather than play into its dark subject matter, Rita Wrote A Letter plays Joe's demise with impish humour, complemented by the upbeat music.
"I like songs where the music and the lyrics are a little bit at odds or cut against each other," Kelly explains. "Sad or dark lyrics but the music gives you another feeling … it gives you that balance."
Besides, it leans into how Kelly originally envisioned How To Make Gravy.
When it comes to characters, Kelly says: "I never really have that clear a picture." He's more interested in the storytelling dynamics and emotion than clear-cut portraits of Rita, Roger, Mary and the rest.
"When Nick Waterman and Mega Washington did the movie … Angus, Frank and Dolly were all children — that was news to me," he says.
In the music video for Rita Wrote A Letter, an older Rita is played by Australian actor Justine Clarke, while Kelly embodies Joe, haunting her vintage St Kilda home and expressing her decision to leave:
"Joe, I gave you good chances / But half a year turned into two / You could never hold your temper / And you always made it all about you."
In true Kelly fashion, he spikes the sweet with the sour, the song concluding with Joe wishing Rita well but all but pledging to haunt his treacherous brother. "But Dan, I don't forgive you," goes the final line before lyrical call-backs to How To Make Gravy.
"I didn't mean to say that / It's just my mind, it plays up/multiplies each matter …" the Gravy Man sings as the music fades.
Joe, who loosely features in beloved Kelly tunes To Her Door and Love Never Runs On Time, might be dead and buried, but fans have long wondered what exactly he did to wind up in prison.
"There is room for a prequel," Kelly suggests. "I hadn't thought about that but now you mention it … These things can't be planned, they just happen."
Rita Wrote A Letter heralds the arrival of a new album, Seventy, which will be released on November 7, and follows Kelly's 70th birthday back in January.
The cover is a portrait of the celebrated musician while a similar image of Kelly from 1988 features on the rear of the album, both shot by photographer Dean Podmore.
Billed as his "most varied album yet", the album is bookended with "one long song that we cut in half called Tell Us A Story," Kelly explains.
A press release notes he drew from varied literary influences, including The Lord of the Rings, the death of Cicero, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and Giovanni Boccaccio's collection of one hundred stories, The Decameron.
There's a moving track written for Kelly's granddaughter, Happy Birthday, Ada Mae, as well as Sailing To Byzantium, which sets the William Butler Yeats poem of the same name to music.
In a similar fashion to its 2024 predecessor, Fever Longing Still, Seventy is also a showcase of Kelly's long-time bandmates.
"[Drummer] Peter Luscombe has been with me for more than 30 years, [bassist] Bill McDonald and Dan Kelly for 20," Kelly says. "Even the newbies [keyboardist] Cameron Bruce and [guitarist] Ash Naylor have been with me since 2007."
Kelly and his seasoned group are gearing up for some of their biggest Australian and New Zealand shows of their career.
Kicking off in Perth later this month, Kelly and co will occupy arenas in Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart, Adelaide, and Melbourne through August and September before jetting over the ditch to play Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland.
Supporting Kelly at all seven Australian dates of the trek will be Americana icon Lucinda Williams and homegrown ARIA-winning country-folk artists Fanny Lumsden.
It'll be the first chance for audiences to hear Kelly's new material, as well as all the classics from an enviable songbook spanning four decades.
All together now … "Give my love to Angus!"
Tuesday August 26 — RAC Arena: Whadjuk Noongar Land, Perth, WA
Friday August 29 — Brisbane Entertainment Centre: Turrbal Jagera Land, Brisbane, QLD
Saturday August 30 — Qudos Bank Arena: Gadigal Land, Sydney, NSW
Tuesday September 2 — MyState Bank Arena: muwinina, Hobart, TAS
Thursday September 4 — Adelaide Entertainment Centre: Kaurna Land, Adelaide, SA
Saturday September 6 — Rod Laver Arena: Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Land, Melbourne, VIC
Sunday September 7 — Rod Laver Arena: Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Land, Melbourne, VIC
Tuesday September 9 — Christchurch Town Hall, Christchurch, NZ
Wednesday September 10 — Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, NZ
Friday September 12 — Auckland Town Hall, Auckland, NZ
