30. Midnight Oil--Blue Sky Mining
#30: Midnight Oil--Blue Sky Mining (1990)
Top-Notch Tracks: "One Country" (HJ200 #18), "Blue Sky Mine," "Forgotten Years," "King of the Mountain"
Album Depth: "Shakers and Movers," "Stars of Warburton," "River Runs Red," "Bedlam Bridge," "Mountains of Burma," "Antarctica"
Weak Link: Nope
Stand-out Lyrics: "Who'd like to change the world?"--"One Country"
"Hey, hey-hey, hey, there'll be food on the table tonight. Hey, hey, hey, hey, there'll be pay in your pocket tonight."--"Blue Sky Mine"
"Our sons will never be soldiers. Our daughters will never need guns. These are the years between. These are the years that were hard-fought and won."--"Forgotten Years"
"Tomorrow's child takes concrete first steps and they'll drink champagne or be damned."--"Shakers and Movers"
"Well, you could say you're Peter, say you're Paul. Don't put me up on your bedroom wall."--"King of the Mountain"
"Crazy flags from history, songs for the White House gangsters, guns for hellgate railway sleepers."--"Bedlam Bridge"
"Who wants to please everyone? Who says it all can be done? Still sit up on that fence? No one I've heard of yet."--"One Country"
"The balance sheet is breaking up the sky."--"Blue Sky Mine"
"Our shoreline was never invaded. Our country was never in flames. This is the calm we breathe. This is the feeling too strong to contain."--"Forgotten Years"
"Pack your bags full of guns and ammunition. Bills fall due for the industrial revolution. Scorch the earth 'til the earth surrenders."--"Mountains of Burma"
"Don't wanna talk about Elvis Presley. Don't wanna see his white shoes walking around and around and around and around over here."--"Stars of Warburton"
"Don't call me baby. Don't talk in maybes."--"One Country"
"There must be one place left in the world...."--"Antarctica"
"If the blue sky mining company won't come to my rescue.... If the sugar refining company won't save me, who's gonna save me?"--"Blue Sky Mine"
Album Cover: 9 out of 10. That's a pretty damn cool album cover. It's a great photograph. It's distinctive. It's memorable. And, it fits with the band and their material.
Comments: For me, this album will always remind me of washing dishes. (I wrote about why when I posted about "One Country" for the HondoJoe Top 200 Songs. See: "#18: Don't Call Me Baby.")
In fact, most Midnight Oil albums, including this one, are very good for background music when doing mundane household tasks.
When we saw Midnight Oil in concert, I was surprised that they didn't close the concert with their signature song, "Beds Are Burning." (I guess I was so used to Billy Joel closing with "Piano Man.") So, what song did they close with? "Forgotten Years." For a band known for their political statements, it's actually a "feel good" song. In history classes, we always learn about the wars, but we rarely learn anything about the "Forgotten Years," the years between the wars. "These are the years that were hard-fought and won." (Leave it to Midnight Oil to have a "feel good" song featuring a video from a graveyard.)
Since I'll always associate this album with my time at Idaho State University in my basement apartment on Bonneville, does that make this my college protest album? Maybe so. "Who'd like to change the world"--indeed!
Up next: Back...to the future! (And back.)
When it comes to rock groups signing politically themed songs, I usually take a hard pass on that music. That's because the songs are typically one-off songs where the artist or band decided they have something to say about one particular political topic, and so they put out one song about it, and the song seems so unlike the regular music that you hear coming out of the band that it just feels off. Also, the musical quality of that one song just doesn't seem all that consistent, because they feel obliged to do something new, something different for the song that makes it stand out from the rest of their music. For example, even Billy Joel's songs like "Goodnight Saigon" and "Leningrad" are not songs I enjoy as much compared to his other songs. If you listen to them next to "Uptown Girl" or "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me" or "Just the Way You Are" or just about any other song, those politically themed songs just seem kind of out of place. It's the same with all the other bands I've heard.
ReplyDeleteExcept for Midnight Oil.
They get a pass on all of that because (a) they play consistently great music and (b) it's all politically themed. You don't start listening to a Midnight Oil album with the thought that it's going to be feel-good dance music from beginning to end. You know you're in for a bit of soul-searching because they're going to sing about all kinds of stuff that's wrong in the world, and they're going to challenge your thinking about it. In a lot of ways, their songs are like art rock that's designed to evoke a particular emotional response--which is usually "What the hell?! Why is this happening?! This is wrong! Just WRONG!"
By the way, I experience that exact same emotional response every time I see Peter Garrett dancing.
So that's why I like Midnight Oil's politically-themed music over pretty much any other band's political songs. I simply think they've found the right way to make music about what's wrong.
Nardo
Wow! You have succinctly summed up the appeal of Midnight Oil (including a great joke about Peter Garrett's dancing) AND explained why songs like "Goodnight Saigon" and "Leningrad" aren't my favorites. Well spoken, well said, Nardo!
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