Singer whose songs have appeared in several films to perform Oct. 23 at Brightside in Dayton

Ellis Paul will be making a stop on his perpetual tour Oct. 23 at the Brightside in Dayton. Dayton songwriter Midwestern Mrs, Bluebird Cafe Golden Pick winner for September 2024 with her song “Stay Afloat,” will open the show.

Paul’s songs have appeared in several films, including “Me, Myself & Irene,” “Shallow Hal” and “Hall Pass.” He’s also been covered by award-winning country artists Sugarland and Jack Ingram. Across 23 albums and decades of near-constant touring, Paul has built a loyal legion of fans.

His 2023 album, “55,” touches on the necessity of gratitude through the COVID-19 pandemic and increasingly fractured political divide. The tone of the record is also a reflection on aging as an artist.

“I’ve lost a few friends along the way,” Paul said. “I’m getting to that age where three or four of my friends that were in their early 60s passed away. I’m grateful for what I have. I’m not on a tour bus. I don’t have an enormous audience, but I’m still playing coast to coast in the US and Canada, and people are showing up wherever I go.”

He writes about characters at crossroads — whether by choice or circumstance. Through keen observations, Paul writes about what they’re going through in those moments, and suggests what the future holds at the same time. He’s fascinated by other people and often chronicles those fascinations in song.

“A lot of that,” he said, “is because I’ve written the hell out of my own life. That’s where I made the leap from being a singer-songwriter to being a folk musician. Instead of writing about the ‘I’ all the time, you’re writing about the ‘we’ and the ‘us.’ That’s the leap that brings you into social commentary and the plight of other people and the state of the world.”

Paul’s currently working on a science-fiction concept project — an album and novel hybrid. Each chapter links to a song via QR code, where the lead character broadcasts on a ham radio in the apocalypse — an allegory, Paul says, for our current AI and political realities.

Speaking of the world moving quickly, one of Ellis Paul’s most popular songs is “The World Ain’t Slowin’ Down” (1998). It showed up on the “Me, Myself & Irene” soundtrack no less than four times.

“I spent my early career hauling songs in the trunk of my car,” he said. “When you’re doing 200 shows a year, you’re the leading person to get the word out about the songs. Occasionally, a song jumps out of the back of the trunk and leads the car forward. Look at us. This is 25 years ago and we’re still talking about that song.”

Despite several records in between, “The World Ain’t Slowin’ Down” is still leading Ellis Paul’s career down the highway. The troubadour’s journey never ends, and he’s grateful for every mile.

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