Midnight Oil - Official Site

releases

20,000 Watt R.S.L.(1997)

CDCBS 488866 2

What Goes On (Redneck Wonderland)
Power And The Passion (10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1)
Dreamworld (Diesel And Dust)
White Skin Black Heart (Redneck Wonderland)
Kosciuszko (Red Sails In The Sunset)
The Dead Heart (Diesel And Dust)
Blue Sky Mine (Blue Sky Mining)
US Forces* (10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1)
Beds Are Burning (Diesel And Dust)
One Country (Blue Sky Mining)
Best Of Both Worlds (Red Sails In The Sunset)
Truganini (Earth and Sun and Moon)
King Of The Mountain (12' single mix)
Hercules (Species Deseases EP)
Surfs Up Tonight/A> (Breathe)
Back On The Borderline (Head Injuries)
Don't Wanna Be The One (Place Without A Postcard)
Forgotten Years (Blue Sky Mining)

Digital remastering by Tim Young at Metropolis, London
From original albums as marked

WHAT GOES ON

(Midnight Oil)

POWER AND THE PASSION

(Hirst/Moginie/Garrett)

People, wasting away in paradise
Going backward, once in a while
Moving ahead, falling behind
What do you believe
What do you believe
What do you believe is true
Nothing they say makes a difference this way
'Cos nothing they say will do
Take all the trouble that you can afford
At least you won't have time to be bored
Oh the power and the passion
Oh the temper of the time
Oh the power and the passion
Sometimes you've got to take the hardest line
I see sunburnt faces around
With skin so brown
Smiling zinc cream and crows
Sundays the beach never a cloud
Breathing eucalypt, pushing panelvans, stuff and munch junk food
Laughing at the truth, 'cos Gough was tough till he hit the rough
Uncle Sam and John were quite enough
Too much of sunshine too much of sky
It's enough to make you wanna cry
I see buildings, clothing the sky in paradise
Sydney, where the nights are warm
Daytime telly, blue rinse dawn
Dad's so bad he lives in a pub, underarms and football clubs
Flat chat, Pine Gap in every home a Big Mac
And no one goes back, that's that
You take what you get and get what you please
It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees

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DREAMWORLD

(Midnight Oil)

The Breakfast Creek hotel is up for sale
The last square mile of terra firma gavelled in the mail
so farewell to the Norfolk Island pines
No amount of make believe can help this heart of mine
End - your dreamworld is just about to end
Fall - your dreamworld is just about to fall
Yours dreamworld will fall
So shut that buckle and turn that key again
Take me to a place they say the dreaming never ends
Open wide drive that mystery road
Walk through eden's garden and then wonder as you go
Sign says honymoon to rent
Cloudland into dreamland turns
The sun comes up and we all learn
Those wheels must turn

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WHITE SKIN BLACK HEART

(Midnight Oil)

KOSCIUSKO

(Hirst/Moginie)

Older than Kosciusko
Darwin down to Alice Springs
Dealers in the clearinghouse
The settlements explode
High up in the homelands
Miners drive across the land
Encounter no resistance
When the people block the road
Old than Kosciusko
Dry white seasons years ago
Darkness over Charleville
The fires begin to glow
No end to the hostility
Now they wanna be somehwere else
No stranger to brutality
Now they'd like to be someone else
Older than Kosciusko
Driven back to Alice Springs
Endless storms and struggle
Now the figes begin to rage
High up in the homelands
Celebration 'cross the land
Builds up like a cyclone
Now the fires begin to rage
Call off the ultimatum
No don't turn away
Call off the ultimatum until yesterday
Call off the ultimatum, no don't turn away
Bind up the brokenhearted
No don't turn away
Call off the ultimatum until yesterday

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THE DEAD HEART

(Midnight Oil)

We don't serve your country
Don't serve your king
Know your custom don't speak your tongue
White man came took everyone
We don't serve your country
Don't serve your king
White man listen to the songs we sing
White man came took everything
We carry in our hearts the true country
And that cannot be stolen
We follow in the steps of our ancestry
And that cannot be broken
We don't need protection
Don't need your land
Keep your promise on where we stand
We will listen we'll understand
Mining companies, pastoral companies
Uranium companies
Collected companies
Got more right than people
Got more say than people
Forty thousand years can make a difference to the state of things
The dead heart lives here

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BLUE SKY MINING

There'll be food on the table tonight
There'll be pay in your pocket tonight
My gut is wrenched out it is crunched up and broken
My life that is lived 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 blue 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 on 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 shareholders
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 you 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 on the blue sky mine
(There'll be food on the table tonight)
And if I walk up and down on the blue sky mine
(There'll be pay in your pocket tonight)
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 mine

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U.S. FORCES

(Moginie/Garrett)

US forces give the nod
It's a setback for your country
Bombs and trenches all in rows
Bombs and threats still ask for more
Divided world the CIA
Who controls the issue
You leave us with no time to talk
You can write your own assessment
Sing me songs of no denying
Seems to me too many trying
Waiting for the next big thing
Will you know it when you see it
High risk children dogs of war
Now market movements call the shots
Business deals in parking lots
Waiting for the meat of tomorrow
Everyone is too stoned to start emission
People too scared to go to prison
We're unable to make decisions
Political party line don't cross that floor
L. Ron Hubbard can't save your life
Superboy takes a plutonium wife
In the shadows of Ban the Bomb we live
Sing me songs of no denying
Seems to me too many trying
Waiting for the next big thing

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BEDS ARE BURNING

(Midnight Oil)

Out where the river broke
The bloodwood and the desert oak
Holden wrecks and boiling diesels
Steam in forty five degrees
The time has come
To say fair's fair
To pay the rent
To pay our share
The time has come
A fact's a fact
It belongs to them
Let's give it back
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning
Four wheels scare the cockatoos
From Kintore East to Yuendemu
The western desert lives and breathes
In forty five degrees

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ONE COUNTRY

(Moginie/Garrett)

Who'd like to change the world
Who wants to shoot the curl
Who gets to work for bread
Who wants to get ahead
Who hands out equal rights
who starts and ends that fight
And not rant and rave
Or end up a slave
Who can make hard won gains
Fall like the summer rain
Now every man must be
What his life can be
So don't call me the tune, I will walk away
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
Don't call me baby
Don't talk in maybes
Don't talk like has-beens
Sing it like it should be
Who laughs at their nagging doubts
Lying on a neon shroud, running around
Just got to touch someone
I want to be
So don't call me the tune, I will walk away
One country one
Country one country
Who wants to sit around
Turn it up, turn it down
Only a man can be
What his life can be
One vision
One people
One landmass
We are defenceless
We have a lifeline
One ocean
One policy
Seabed lies
One passion
One movement
One instant
One difference
One lifetime
One understanding
One country
One understanding
Transgression
Redemption
One island
One placemat
One firmament
One element
One moment
One fusion
Yes, and one time

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BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

(Hirst/Moginie)

You say times are tough
We've got the best of both worlds here
Things are rough
We've got the best of both worlds here
Times are tough
We've got the best of both worlds here
The real world is not as calm as it appears to be from here
The real world is not as calm as it appears to be from here
The old world is not as safe with the new world closing in
The great south land can be as great as the one it could have been
The one it could have been
The real world is not as calm as it appears to be from here
The small world is not as strong and the testing ground is near
The old world is not as safe as the one we could have seen
The great south land can be as great as the one it could have been
The one it could have been
We've got the best of both worlds

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TRUGANINI

There's a road train going nowhere
Roads are cut, lines are down
We'll be staying at the Roma bar
Till that monsoon passes on
The backbone of this country's broken
The land is cracked and the land is sore
Farmers are hanging on by their fingertips
We cursed and stumbled across that shore
I hear much support for the monarchy
I hear the Union Jack's to remain,
I see Namatjira in custody
I see Truganini's in chains
And the world won't stand still
Blue collar work it don't get you nowhere
You just go round and round in debt
Somebody's got you on that treadmill, mate
And I hope you're not beaten yet
I hear much support for the monarchy
I see the Union Jack in flames, let it burn
I see Namatjira with dignity
I see Truganini's in chains

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KING OF THE MOUNTAIN

(Hirst/Moginie)

Walking through the high dry grass
Pushing my way through slow
Yellow belly black snake
Sleeping on a red rock
Waiting for the stranger to go
Sugar train stops at the crossing
Cane cockies cursing below
Bad storm coming
Better run to the top of the mountain
Mountain in the shadow of light
Rain in the valley below
Mountain in the shadow of light
Rain in the valley
Well you can say you're Peter, say you're Paul
Don't put me up on your bedroom wall
Call me king of the mountain
Blacksmith fires up the bellows
Cane cutters burning the load
Workers of the world
Run to the top of the mountain
Mountain in the shadow of light...
I can't take the hands from my face
There are some things we can't replace
Mountain...
Over liquid tarmac wastelands of cactus and heat
Down cobblestone alleyways of washing day sheets
Up ghost prairie mountains of sunset and space
Across the wilderness
Out further than the bush
I will follow you

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HERCULES

(Moginie/Garrett/Hirst)

My life is a valuable thing
I want to keep it that way
I won't cry
My life's such a valuable thing
Some things don't fade away
I don't mind
We give the best we can give
We won't forget we can't forgive
Keep us radioactive free
Strike a bell in Hiroshima park
You know that we can't see in the dark
We try & try & we try...
Who waits for the planes to come
When everybody's got you on the run
South Pacific carry on
It seems to me that what we're saying
Nobody wants to talk about
This is no time to be wondering why
I do the best I can do
The human jungle and the global zoo
I'll find my way it's a very special world
Why wait for the planes to come
When everybody's got us on the run
South Pacific carry on
Here comes the Hercules
Her comes the submarines
Sinking South Pacific dreams

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SURF'S UP TONIGHT

(Midnight Oil)
Wherever the wind blows, when it blows over the sea
The moon's sitting high, waves will rise water shapes, waves will take you there
Surf's up tonight
Summer's on hold, it will go running away, you've got to move now
Get inside, take that dive, get inside today
Surf's up tonight
Now I was lonely, you were too, I met you down at the waterline
Now there's something we can do, now there's something left to do
Wherever you are when you're coming over land
There's a place where you can throw it all away
There's a place where you can forget, you get wet, it's free
You get high, you're alive . . .
Surf's up tonight

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BACK ON THE BORDERLINE

(James/Garrett/Hirst)

From the bar to the bedroom I'm swimming in the neon
Lighted pictures of a redhead, plasticoated hot on
And sometimes when that mirror shows
The smile of disbelief
Stained signature of nightmares
They're stolen by the thief
I'm back on the borderline
Yes I'm back on the borderline
By the end make a bet and only place is laminex
Laugh a lot cry a lot salt and pepper supper sex
And sometimes when that magic of the moment
Fails the test
In retrospect that diamond day
Did not make second best
And sometimes when a thousand voices
Tell you that you're wrong
A saint in any form
Becomes a sinner all along

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DON'T WANNA BE THE ONE

(Hirst/Garrett/Rotsey/Moginie)

I'm an innocent victim, I'm just like you
We end up in home units with a brick wall view
I can't believe the perfect families on my colour TV
If I don't make it to the top it'll never bother me
And I don't wanna be the one
And I don't wanna be the one
I'm an innocent bystander caught in the path
Waiting out the back while the corporate attack
Assaults the senses with relentless scenes of passion and delight
I cut up all the options and went running for my life

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FORGOTTEN YEARS

(Hirst/Moginie)

Few of the sings of the father
Are visited upon the son
Hearts have been hard
Hands have been clenched into fists too long
Our sons need never be soldiers
Our daughters will never need guns
These are the years between
These are the years that were hard fought and won
Contracts torn at the edges
Old signatures stained with tears
Seasons of war and grace
These should not be forgotten eyras
Still it aches like tetanus
It reeks of politics
How many dreams remain?
This is a feeling too strong to contain
The hardest years, the darkest years
The roarin' years, the fallen years
These should not be forgotten years
The hardest years the wildest years
The desperate and divided years
Our shoreline was never invaded
Our country was never in flames
This is the calm we breathe
This is a feeling too strong to contain
Still it aches like tetanus
It reeks of politics
Signatures stained with tears
Who can remember, we've got to remember
The hardest years, the darkest years...
Forsaking aching breaking years
The time 'n' tested heartbreak years
These should not be forgotten years
The blinded years, the binded years
The desperate and divided years
These should not be forgotten years
Remember

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