Covid Island Discs

Day 207: Everything’s turning to white, Paul Kelly

Given yesterday’s post, I thought it was time for another song by the great Australian wordsmith Paul Kelly. This is a spooky song which captures a rather bizarre story which was also the subject of an Australian film called Jindabyne.

The story is about a group of men who go out on a fishing trip and when they arrive at their camping spot they discover the body of a woman who had been murdered. However, rather than spoil their fishing trip they instead wedge the body against a rock in the river to stop it from being washed away and then after their fishing trip they report the murder to the police. In this song, Paul Kelly imagines being the wife of one of the fisherman and how his callous actions means that she is now left cold “with nothing working inside” every time he touches her.