Paul Maurice Kelly was born on 13 January 1955 in Adelaide, South Australia to John Erwin Kelly, a lawyer, and Josephine Kelly ne Filippini,[21] as the sixth of nine children (including one still-born).[22][23] According to legend, he was born outside North Adelaides Calvary Hospital in a taxi,[24] this story is re-enforced by the lyrics of his 1991 song "It's all Downhill from Here" from the album Comedy.[25]
I was born in a crowded taxi Daddy scooped me right up off the floor And he carried me up the path through the big swinging doors[25] Paul Kelly , 1991 Kelly is the great-great-grandson of Jeremiah Kelly who fled Ireland in 1852 and settled in Clare, South Australia.[23] His grandfather, Francis Kelly, established a law firm in 1917 which his father John joined in 1937.[26] John died in 1968 at the age of 52, when Kelly was 13 years old, after being diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease some years earlier.[27]
"I have good memories, he was the kind of father that, well, I missed him when he died very much. The older children were growing into him at the time he died. He was not well enough to play sport with me."[28] Paul Kelly , 25 April 2004 In Kelly's semi-autobiographical song "Adelaide", from his 1985 album Post, he recalls these events.
Dad's hands used to shake but I never knew he was dying I was 13 I never dreamed he could fall And all the great aunts were red in the eyes from crying I rang the bells I never felt nothing at all All the king's horses all the king's men Cannot bring him back again[25] Paul Kelly , 1985 Kelly's maternal grandfather was an Italian opera singer, Count Ercole Filippini, a leading baritone for the La Scala Opera Company in Milan,[21] who was touring Australia with a Spanish Opera Company, when the first world war broke out, he stayed and married one of his singing students, Anne McPharland.[23] As Countessa Anne Fillippini, she was Australia's first female symphony orchestra conductor.[28] Kelly's grandparents started the Italo-Australian Opera Company,[29] which toured the country in the 1920s.
Josephine raised the younger children on her own after John's death but found time to assist others in need.[27] Kelly's oldest sister, Anne, became a nun and went on to write hymns while younger sister Mary-Jo plays piano in Latin bands and teaches music at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School.[20][30] Kelly's older brother, Martin, works for the Christian Brothers' volunteer organisation Edmund Rice International,[31][32] with another brother, Tony, a drug and alcohol counsellor, who ran as an Australian Greens candidate in the 2001 and 2004 federal elections.[33][34] Kelly's mother moved to Brisbane, Queensland, where she died in 2000.
Kelly attended Rostrevor College, a Christian Brothers school, where he played trumpet and studied piano,[17] was a cricket captain, and became dux of his senior year.[35] Kelly studied arts at Flinders University in 1973, but left after a year, disillusioned with academic life.[21] He began writing prose and started a magazine with some friends.[21] Kelly spent several years working odd jobs, travelling around the country and learning guitar before he eventually moved to Melbourne in 1976.[6][23]
