Music

Whoever’s Behind This Paul Kelly Parody Twitter Account Deserves To Be Australian Of The Year

"The secret ingredient is gravy, baby!!!"

by Alex McKinnon  21 August 2015

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[Update, December 21, 2017]: Hello mates, it’s Junkee here, I hope you’re keeping well. It’s the 21st of December, and we have to re-share this piece.

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Before we get cracking, chuck this club hit on. It’ll make sense in a minute.

Alright. As has been explored exhaustively by this publication for a long time, Twitter is both a vile cesspit of people’s most debased impulses and an oddly wonderful source of bizarre, off-beat humour that doesn’t really get aired anywhere else. It’s the only place where someone will take the time to give every single Pokemon new names like “dirt hot-dog” and “literally just a bird,” blend lyrics from Taylor Swift songs with Lovecraftian horror tropes, or take Dad culture to its logical, horrifying conclusion, and we’re all the better for that space to exist.

In that spirit, it gives me immense joy to present the latest of Twitter’s gloriously fucked-up creations. Over the last couple of weeks, a new account parodying iconic Australian singer/songwriter Paul Kelly has been active. For no reason at all — which is the best reason — it takes its entire shtick from ‘How To Make Gravy’, the song your dad puts on at Christmas when he’s had a few and wants to get misty-eyed, and posits that Kelly is immensely proud of the recipe for gravy contained in that song.

Combined with lots of swearing, a complex relationship with Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett and It’s Always Sunny-levels of misanthropy, and you have @itsthegravyman. I don’t know which one of you is responsible for this, but I want to kiss you on your beautiful mouth.

I am so angry that I didn’t think to do this. I am furious with myself.

He also seems to have an overwhelming fondness for the phrase “good shit,” which just makes sense. I don’t know why it makes sense, but it does.

Can we show Paul Kelly what he’s inspired? I know he’s won umpteen awards and written some of Australia’s most beloved songs over the course of decades, but this has to be one of the better consequences of Paul Kelly having existed.