Kelly described his songwriting as "a scavenging art, a desperate act. For me it's a bit from here, a bit from there, fumbling around, never quite knowing what you're doing ... Song writing is like a way of feeling connected to mystery." He has resisted the label of 'storyteller' and insists that his songs are not strictly autobiographical; "they come from imagining someone in a particular situation. Sometimes a sequence of events happens which makes it more a story, but other times it's just that situation". Sometimes the same character is found in different songs, such as in "To Her Door", "Love Never Runs on Time", and "How to Make Gravy".