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HOPEFUL songs. Angry songs. Songs of love: lost, found, lusted after, hoped for. Songs of regret. Bluegrass songs. A song based on lines from the Old Testament. Howling rock songs. One about Ned Kelly that might have been written 100 years ago. An instrumental surf song. One about the greatest Australian bowler of them all, to go with the one about the greatest cricketer of them all. Songs to play by the campfire, to dance to at parties. Songs to play at births, weddings, funerals, and all the times between.

It's all there in the songs of Paul Kelly.

Imagine a new visitor to Australia looking to get a flavour of the country and its people. The perfect place to start is with the music of one of the world's great songwriters, the man who has chronicled our country's beauty and scars and desires as well as the personal insights which know no borders in an extraordinary songwriting career that now spans more than 30 years.

In 1997, Kelly released the Songs from the South, a dazzling collection assembling songs that had already lodged deep in the Australian soundtrack, from Before Too Long and From St Kilda to King Cross to When I First Met Your Ma, To Her Door and How to Make Gravy.

Now comes Songs from the South Vol 2, a new 20-track collection which dips into the past 10 years of Kelly's life. Remarkably for a songwriter going from his early 40s to his early 50s, this period has been just as creative and even more adventurous than the first.

At an age when many songwriters struggle to keep the juices flowing, the songs keep pouring from Kelly as he continues to explore fresh musical terrain, from classic albums recorded with his band, The Boon Companions, to acoustic bluegrass (with Uncle Bill on Smoke and the Storm Water Boys on Foggy Highway), the feelgood collaboration bands Professor Ratbaggy and The Stardust Five and the massive Paul Kelly A-Z concert project, subsequently released online at Kelly's website.

The songs on Vol 2 range from the 1998 album Words and Music to last year's Stolen Apples, and confirms that Kelly is still writing songs as powerful as anything he did in his 20s.

Nothing On My Mind, from Words and Music, is taut and terse as Kelly claims: ....Fighting a bull's one thing, fighting bullshit's another.'' That sits beside the sweet pop-rock of I'll Be Your Lover and the sunny flavours of Professor Ratbaggy's Love Letter.

Kelly's skills as a solo troubadour are highlighted on Vol 2 with the version of Every Fucking City, recorded live at The Continental in Melbourne circa 1999. It’s one of Kelly's best-loved story songs about a relationship on the rocks while travelling in Europe, featuring the classic observation on La Vida Loca, ....I can't believe I'm dancing to this crap but I'm a chance here.''

Kelly's attraction to old-time music comes to the fore on the classic Our Sunshine, about another famous Kelly in Australian popular culture, outlaw Ned.

And his willingness to explore different types of music is underlined by the classic '60s surf sound of the instrumental Gunnamatta from Ways and Means.

Few songwriters get inside the shades of heartbreak as well as Kelly, aching with regret on If I Could Start Today Again (....Please give me back the day/And I won't say the things I said or do that thing I did''), and recalling a poignant childhood scene from the back seat of the car on They Thought I Was Asleep.

Some of these songs are as serious as can be, like the story from the terrorist's point of view on God Told Me To, and others are jaunty and light-hearted, like Shane Warne, the companion piece to his earlier sporting ballad Bradman, with its succinct description of cricket's ball of the century: ....Mike Gatting looked up struck as dumb as a post/He walked from the crease like he'd just seen a ghost/Shane Warne's first Ashes delivery.''

Songs like these are evidence that writers of Kelly's talent don't let the fire burn out. In fact, they learn new tricks on how to keep the flame burning. And it's as bright as ever across the past 10 years of music on Songs From the South Vol 2.

It’s the first release in a series of CD reissues of every Kelly album under the EMI banner.

Songs from the South and Songs from the South Vol 2, available now.