How to Make Gravy
How to Make Gravy is a four-track EP by Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly and was originally released on 4 November 1996 on White Label Records in Australia. The title track was written by Kelly and earned him a 'Song of the Year' nomination at the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) Music Awards of 1998. It tells the story of a newly imprisoned man writing a letter to his brother, in which the prisoner laments that he will be missing the family's Christmas celebrations. The same character appears in Kelly's earlier songs, "To Her Door" (1987) and "Love Never Runs on Time" (1994). The gravy recipe is genuine – Kelly learnt it from his first father-in-law. It was covered by James Reyne on the 2003 tribute album, Stories of Me: A Songwriter's Tribute to Paul Kelly and on Reyne's 2005 acoustic album And the Horse You Rode in On.
| How to Make Gravy | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EP by Paul Kelly | ||||
| Released | 4 November 1996 | |||
| Recorded | 1996 | |||
| Genre | Rock, pop | |||
| Length | 15:02 | |||
| Label | White | |||
| Producer | Paul Kelly, Simon Polinski | |||
| Paul Kelly chronology | ||||
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| Alternate cover | ||||
US (Vanguard Records) release | ||||
From Thunderclap Newmans opening riffs of Something in the Air It has also been covered by David Miles, Luca Brasi, From Nowhere, Semicolon, Ghostwriters, Karl Broadie and Lawrence Agar. In September 2010, Kelly titled his memoirs, How to Make Gravy. On 29 September 2012 Kelly performed "How to Make Gravy" and "Leaps and Bounds" at the 2012 AFL Grand Final. A film version is set for release as a Christmas movie by Warner Bros in December, 2023.
"Gravy Day" (21 December, the day on which the prisoner in the song writes the letter) was created by fans and is celebrated by internet memes each year.