Paddy McHugh has been a favourite here at PTW for a number of years. His 2017 album Trials & Cape Tribulations in particular caught my ear and stuck with me.

Paddy always manages to combine the social, the political and the personal, blending them in a passionate and emotive form that educates and entertains beautifully. He’s worthy member of a certain songwriting club in my mind that includes Paul Kelly, Tim Easton, Billy Bragg, The Eastern’s Adam McGrath, James McMurtry, Bernie Griffen, Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch.

In his own words, his latest single ‘27 Weeks‘, produced by Dan Parsons, finds him “telling the the story of a bloke from Wollongong. Like his dad and most of the men In the Gong, he works at the Port Kembla steelworks. Well at least he did. Due to circumstances well beyond his control he loses his job and must figure out how to make ends meet. So, he gets creative. After all he has mouths to feed. It’s dodgy, but it works. He wants to find employment again and he is looking. But it’s been 27 weeks. And he ain’t found nothing yet. But this song isn’t just about this one man and the town of Wollongong. It is song about many men and women from towns all over Australia. It is a story that is being played out again and again. It is the assembly worker from Geelong, the hardware store owner from Gympie, the teller from Moonee Ponds. As greedy companies chase ever higher profits and cut every corner in the process, people find themselves squeezed out, down on their luck and out of options. They do what they must to survive. Can you blame them?”

It’s Paddy’s voice that initially captures the listener’s ear – all rough, raw, emotive and melodically rich – but don’t underestimate the arrangement and his chord selection. Those things and the piano and harmonica all combine to add weight and depth to what would otherwise be a straight strummed folk song. This grabs you by the heart and mind and hits you with a dose of poetic reality.