There are few moments in a musician’s life as profound as the one when the world suddenly opens -when sound becomes language, and language becomes possibility. For Jack Nolan, that awakening came as a teenager, sitting alone on his bed in Sydney with an acoustic guitar in hand, realizing that his heroes – Dylan, Bowie, Pink Floyd -were playing the same chords he was. It wasn’t about complexity; it was about connection. That revelation would shape everything that followed. Decades later, on his eighth solo record, The Lonely Petunia, Nolan reaches back toward that flickering moment of discovery and innocence, creating an album that feels both like a homecoming and a meditation on why we make music at all.
Recorded in Nashville and co-produced with long-time collaborator Justin Weaver (known for work with Wynona Judd and The Chicks), The Lonely Petunia is stripped to its essence – an intimate acoustic collection that prizes truth over ornamentation. Weaver’s fingerprints are light, his production letting Nolan’s voice and lyrics take center stage, while subtle piano and string flourishes add color and air. It’s a record that could only be made by a seasoned artist unafraid of silence, one who trusts that the song itself will do the speaking.
This confidence comes from a career that stretches back to the mid-1990s, when Nolan first began performing in Sydney’s folk and rock circuits. Alongside his solo output, he fronted The Kelly Gang, a short-lived but revered Australian supergroup with Rick Grossman (of The Divinyls and Hoodoo Gurus), Rob Hirst and Martin Rotsey (both of Midnight Oil). Their 2004 album Looking for the Sun remains a cult favorite – a spirited burst of poetic rock energy. But where that record burned brightly, The Lonely Petunia glows softly, like an ember being held in the palm of one’s hand.
The album opens with “Always,” a song that feels like the quiet breath before dawn. Nolan’s voice is unhurried, his acoustic guitar pulsing gently beneath it. “Keep searching still… You hold me true, always,” he sings – an invocation rather than a confession. The melody drifts, as if time itself is suspended. There’s a tenderness here that’s neither nostalgic nor sentimental; it’s reflective, a recognition that constancy and connection often exist in the spaces between words. The arrangement is bare, yet rich in emotional weight, allowing the listener to lean in and inhabit the stillness.
From that hush, “Extraordinary” rises like a tide. A solitary piano line introduces the track, sparse yet commanding, as Nolan’s voice traces the contours of heartbreak and remembrance. “I lost her on the harbour,” he murmurs – a line that captures both physical distance and emotional dissolution. Here, the strings swell not as decoration but as breath, a living organism responding to the vocal’s ache. The song unfolds with cinematic grace, its melancholy grounded in lived experience. It’s a reminder of Nolan’s ability to render personal loss universal, crafting spaces where listeners can project their own ghosts and longings.
If “Extraordinary” dwells in twilight, “The Less You Want to Know” dances in the half-light of early morning. Its rhythm is lighter, deceptively simple, yet the lyrics reveal a more complicated truth: the uneasy balance between curiosity and ignorance, between wanting to know and needing to forget. “The more you look, the more you see, the less that you want to know,” Nolan sings, his tone suggesting both amusement and resignation. The song captures a distinctly human paradox – that our pursuit of truth often uncovers discomfort we weren’t prepared to face. Musically, it’s one of the album’s most graceful compositions, a reminder that even simplicity can shimmer with sophistication.
Then comes “Craw,” the album’s earthy anchor. Driven by a blues-inflected groove, it feels like the dusty road between folk and Americana. The song carries grit beneath its gentleness, its rhythm patient but insistent, like a heartbeat that refuses to fade. Nolan’s phrasing is elastic, his delivery intimate yet world-weary. The track’s understated swagger recalls the weathered honesty of artists like Mark Knopfler or Chris Stapleton, yet Nolan’s Australian sensibility – his coastal cadence, his subtle understatement – keeps it grounded in his own landscape. It’s the record’s moment of rootedness, a quiet exhale after the ethereal first act.
“You’ve Changed” follows as one of the record’s most affecting pieces. With a restrained arrangement that lets Nolan’s baritone drift over sparse guitar and ambient piano, the song contemplates transformation – both of self and of others. “No one could hold a candle up to you,” he sings, and the line lands not as flattery but as elegy. This is not a lament for what’s lost, but an acknowledgment that love, like identity, evolves in ways we can’t control. It’s a grown man’s acceptance of impermanence, rendered without bitterness or regret.
At the spiritual heart of the album lies “Will the Lord Have Mercy on Me.” A modern hymn in form and feeling, it trades grandiosity for grace. The acoustic guitar trembles beneath Nolan’s vocal, the piano answering softly, as if echoing his inner doubts. His voice, slightly roughened by time, carries the vulnerability of someone still asking questions he knows may never be answered. The refrain is simple yet devastating, a plea not for absolution but for understanding. It’s one of Nolan’s finest lyrical moments – a song about uncertainty that somehow offers peace.
“Bravado” serves as the album’s quiet centerpiece, a meditation on masculinity, aging, and the masks we wear to navigate both. The title itself is ironic; there’s nothing showy about it. Instead, Nolan strips back pretense to expose the tender core beneath. His delivery is confessional, reflective, as if he’s singing to an old photograph of himself. Strings shimmer faintly, and the melody drifts like smoke. “Bravado” is not a performance – it’s a reckoning, and it might just be the most timeless piece Nolan has ever written.
Closing the record, “Fading Fast” lingers like a final exhale. The acoustic guitar sounds worn, human, every creak and breath preserved in the mix. The song feels suspended between hope and surrender, exploring the inevitability of endings – of relationships, of youth, of life’s fleeting brightness. Yet even in its melancholy, there’s grace. Nolan doesn’t fight the fade; he accepts it, finding beauty in transience. The lyricism here is unflinching and tender, as though he’s singing directly to time itself.
Collectively, these eight tracks form not just an album, but a philosophy. The Lonely Petunia rejects the excess of modern production, instead reminding us that a song’s power lies in its bones -in melody, truth, and the courage to leave space for silence. Each piece feels carved from real experience, shaped by years of living and listening.
Though recorded in Nashville, the album’s soul remains distinctly Australian – imbued with the salt air of Bondi, the hum of Sydney Harbour, and the introspective openness of wide skies. It’s music that belongs both everywhere and nowhere, a bridge between hemispheres and histories.
In a world obsessed with volume, Jack Nolan offers something revolutionary: quiet. His music doesn’t demand attention – it earns it, drawing listeners closer with every understated chord and whispered confession. The Lonely Petunia is a return not only to the spark that first inspired him, but to the fundamental belief that songwriting, at its best, is an act of honesty.
It’s an album that feels like remembering – of youth, of faith, of the small, miraculous moment when you first realize that all great songs begin with the same few chords, and what matters most is what you dare to make of them.
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