Midnight Oil burned blue over ecology and equality, prayed for sense and reason, and sang it like it should be with this desperate and divided lyrical landslide. The band gone from success in their native Australia with '10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1' and 'Red Sails in the Sunset' to international acclaim with 'Diesel and Dust' , leading to a massive world tour. Upon returning to Sydney, they began work on 'Blue Sky Mining' with producer Warne Livesey at Rhino Studios with Peter Garrett on lead vocals; Robert Hirst on drums and vocals; Jim Moginie on guitars, keyboards, and vocals; Martin Rotsey on guitars and vocals; and new bass player Bones Hillman adding vocals as well. Warne Livesey provided additional keyboards; with Jeremy Smith on French horn; Phillip Hartl as String Leader; and Glad and Carl doing the Horn Swells.
It was while they were on tour promoting the new album that they hired a flatbed truck and played outside the Exxon offices in New York with a banner that read "Midnight Oil Makes You Dance, Exxon Oil Makes Us Sick", drawing more attention to the Exxon Valdez disaster. Garrett would express at the time: "The music speaks for itself. The issues need to be spoken about...Within the next five to 10 years, children in some of the major cities may be going to school wearing masks. That is obscene...We just can't go on treating the place like every square millimeter of it can be developed and used...[Midnight Oil is] something real, not prefabricated, market-driven or fame-obsessed...Here [in the United States], you probably have more issues because the corporations have the upper hand in influencing the government. ... America is very much a denial culture in terms of problems and those in power don't want people to become active and start to care again."
'Blue Sky Mining' flew to number twenty-eight in the UK, twenty in the Netherlands and the US, thirteen in Austria, three in Sweden, two in Norway and Switzerland, and number one in Australia and New Zealand.
http://www.midnightoil.com/
"Blue Sky Mine" was a top ten hit around the world, going to number one on the US modern rock and mainstream rock charts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofrqm6-LCqs
Hey, hey-hey hey
There'll be food on the table tonight
Hey, hey, hey hey
There'll be pay in your pocket tonight
My gut is wrenched out it is crunched up and broken
A life that is led is no more than a token
Who'll strike the flint upon the stone and tell me why
If I yell out at night there's a reply of bruised silence
The screen is no comfort I can't speak my sentence
They blew the lights at heaven's gate and I don't know why
But if I work all day at the blue sky mine
(There'll be food on the table tonight)
Still I walk up and down on the blue sky mine
(There'll be pay in your pocket tonight)
The candy store paupers lie to the share holders
They're crossing their fingers they pay the truth makers
The balance sheet is breaking up the sky
So I'm caught at the junction still waiting for medicine
The sweat of my brow keeps on feeding the engine
Hope the crumbs in my pocket can keep me for another night
And 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?
But if I work all day...
And some have sailed from a distant shore
And the company takes what the company wants
And nothing's as precious, as a hole in the ground
Who's gonna save me?
I pray that sense and reason brings us in
Who's gonna save me?
We've got nothing to fear
In the end the rain comes down
Washes clean, the streets of a blue sky town
"Forgotten Years"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9eap_cKLP4
"King of the Mountain"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuC_k51NUqU
'Blue Sky Mining'
full album:
https://myspace.com/midnightoil/music/album/blue-sky-mining-remastered-19433783
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhfcgexZdh5qbWrtaYELitl5p0gx30LMA
1. "Blue Sky Mine" Garrett, Hillman, Hirst, Moginie, Rotsey 4:18
2. "Stars of Warburton" Garrett, Moginie 4:43
3. "Bedlam Bridge" Hirst 4:25
4. "Forgotten Years" Hirst, Moginie 4:21
5. "Mountains of Burma" Hirst 4:50
6. "King of the Mountain" Hirst, Moginie 3:58
7. "River Runs Red" Hirst, Moginie 5:28
8. "Shakers and Movers" Garrett, Moginie 4:32
9. "One Country" Garrett, Moginie 5:56
10. "Antarctica" Garrett, Hirst, Moginie, Rotsey 4:22
bonus track
11. "You May Not Be Released**" Moginie 3:38
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