Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds

Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds is a studio album by Australian musicians Paul Kelly, and James Ledger featuring Alice Keath and Seraphim Trio . The album was released on 30 August 2019 and peaked at number 43 on the ARIA Charts.

Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds
Studio album by
Released30 August 2019 (2019-08-30)
LabelEMI Music Australia
ProducerPaul Kelly
Paul Kelly studio chronology
Live at the Sydney Opera House
(2019)
Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds
(2019)
Songs from the South: 1985–2019
(2019)

The album brings six musicians together to interpret bird inspired poems, written by John Keats, Thomas Hardy, Emily Dickinson, Judith Wright, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Gwen Harwood, A D Hope and others.[1] The CD contains 16 tracks, but three are instrumentals not based on any poem: "Mudlarking", "Murmuration" and "Black Swan". The vinyl version contains an extra track, "Eurydice And The Tawny Frogmouth", positioned between "The Fly" and "Black Swan".

Though the song cycle is named in allusion to the Wallace Stevens poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird", that particular poem is not one of the works adapted for this album.

At the ARIA Music Awards of 2019, the album won Best Classical Album.[2]

Track listing

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For all songs, music by Paul Kelly and James Ledger

No.TitlePoet/LyricistLength
1."Black Cockatoos"Judith Wright2:59
2."The Darkling Thrush"Thomas Hardy3:35
3."Leda and the Swan"W. B. Yeats5:01
4."Barn Owl"Gwen Harwood3:14
5."Mudlarking"(instrumental)2:43
6."A Barred Owl"Richard Wilbur4:19
7."'Hope' Is the Thing With Feathers"Emily Dickinson3:55
8."Ode To a Nightingale"John Keats8:03
9."Proud Songsters"Thomas Hardy1:52
10."Murmuration"(instrumental)3:59
11."Thornbills"Judith Wright3:03
12."The Fly"Miroslav Holub
translated by George Theiner
3:23
13."Black Swan"(instrumental)2:55
14."The Death of the Bird"A.D. Hope4:54
15."The Windhover"Gerard Manley Hopkins4:27
16."The Magpies"Denis Glover2:56



Extra track on LP version:

No.TitlePoet/LyricistLength
1."Eurydice And The Tawny Frogmouth"Robert Adamson3:25

Charts

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Chart (2019) Peak
position
Australian Albums (ARIA)[3] 43

Release history

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Region Date Format Label Catalogue
Australia 30 August 2019[1] CD, DD, LP Decca Australia GAWD028S

References

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  1. ^ a b "Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds (CD)". JB Hi-Fi. Retrieved 26 April 2019.
  2. ^ "ARIA Awards 2019: Tones and I wins big & Human Nature Hall of Fame". MediaWeek. 27 November 2019. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
  3. ^ "Australiancharts.com – Paul Kelly – Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds". Hung Medien. Retrieved 19 August 2017.