Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds

Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds
Studio album by Paul Kelly and James Ledger
Released	30 August 2019 (2019-08-30)
Label	EMI Music Australia
Producer	Paul 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)

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.

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

For all songs, music by Paul Kelly and James Ledger

No.	Title	Poet/Lyricist	Length
1.	"Black Cockatoos"	Judith Wright	2:59
2.	"The Darkling Thrush"	Thomas Hardy	3:35
3.	"Leda and the Swan"	W. B. Yeats	5:01
4.	"Barn Owl"	Gwen Harwood	3:14
5.	"Mudlarking"	(instrumental)	2:43
6.	"A Barred Owl"	Richard Wilbur	4:19
7.	"'Hope' Is the Thing With Feathers"	Emily Dickinson	3:55
8.	"Ode To a Nightingale"	John Keats	8:03
9.	"Proud Songsters"	Thomas Hardy	1:52
10.	"Murmuration"	(instrumental)	3:59
11.	"Thornbills"	Judith Wright	3:03
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. Hope	4:54
15.	"The Windhover"	Gerard Manley Hopkins	4:27
16.	"The Magpies"	Denis Glover	2:56

Extra track on LP version:

No.	Title	Poet/Lyricist	Length
1.	"Eurydice And The Tawny Frogmouth"	Robert Adamson	3:25

Charts

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

Release history

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

References

1. "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.