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Rating: Damned clichés. You try to shake them off, but somehow they always find you: they inhabit the dirtiest and most degraded rooms of the collective imagination and they catch your eye as soon as you turn off your brain for a moment. Italians? Pizza, spaghetti, and mandolin, obviously. The English? Fish and chips, hooligans, umbrella, and bowler hat. You get the idea. And Australians?
Let's see: sea, desert, a huge sky, kangaroos, kookaburra, koala, more kangaroos, more desert, the "bush," a dingo howling at an enormous moon, the blood-stained rock of Ayers Rock, yet more kangaroos, the Aborigines traveling in dreams, eucalyptus plants, the platypus, a few more kangaroos, the Maori who are in New Zealand but who cares, we're at the antipodes anyway, and then the surfers, I think I forgot the kangaroos, did I mention them?
As you may have guessed, we're talking about Australia.
The classic postcard one that can only be imagined by those who have never been there. Like me.
A bit like Salgari made his readers imagine mysterious India (in his case, however, he completely made it up), the Midnight Oil, a band from Sydney with a farmer-like aesthetic, took me to Australia in 1987 with their "Diesel and Dust": a title and a cover capable of perfectly capturing the album's atmosphere, full of dust and fuel, scorched by the sun. An album of deserted roads and midday ecstasies that still sounds exactly like my cliché of Australia, even though it's anything but superficial.
Midnight Oil, throughout their long career (almost 25 years), have well narrated the deep soul of their country. Their commitment to environmental protection and the rights of Aboriginal minorities was evident from raw, passionate lyrics imbued with social themes: not surprisingly, the singer Peter Garrett left the group about a decade ago, ending it, to dedicate himself to politics on behalf of the local Labor Party. He served as Minister for the Environment and is currently Minister for School Education, Early Childhood, and Youth. Not bad for an old rocker...
But in the end, how is this blessed CD?
I find it 70% successful, rich in qualities but not without limitations. Garrett on vocals, charismatic, very tall, and bald, reminds me a bit of Matt Johnson from The The, but less autistic and more rebellious. The guitars sound warm and natural. In the most effective tracks, like the rough, beautiful "Dead Heart," the hypnotic "Whoah," "Put Down That Weapon," the harsh "Sell My Soul," and "Gunbarrel Highway," Midnight Oil's sun-scorched rock hovers around the inspired solo debut of Robbie Robertson, which also came out in 1987.
It's a pity that an excess of '80s tones and the temptation of pop refrains end up ruining the lyrical and musical tension of some tracks; especially "Sometimes," "Warakurna," and "Dreamworld." There's a bit too much of an attempt to blend rock with more easily accessible sounds. The single "Beds Are Burning" managed to balance the various ingredients and launched these "rednecks" with hearts of gold among the international stars. Success in their homeland lasted for years, earning them eleven "Aria," the Australian equivalent of the Grammy Award, but in subsequent records, the magic of the Great Platypus (a reference to...? ) was lost along the way.
Considering their seemingly immense potential at the time, I regard them largely as a missed opportunity, but this "Diesel and Dust" still sounds like a great Australian postcard. We're on a big dirt road in the desert, the sunset light sets Ayers Rock ablaze, there are Aborigines, big trucks, koalas clinging to eucalyptus trees, and I'm breastfeeding a baby platypus. In the distance, the call of a kookaburra, the howl of a dingo, the ... of a kangaroo. By the way, what the heck sound does a kangaroo make?
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Beds Are Burning (04:16)
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
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning
The time has come to say fairs fair
To pay the rent, now to pay our share
Four wheels scare the cockatoos
From Kintore East to Yuendemu
The western desert lives and breathes
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
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning
The time has come to say fair's fair
To pay the rent, now 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
02 Put Down That Weapon (04:38)
Under the waterline
No place to retire
To another time
The eyes of the world now turn
And if we think about it
And if we talk about it
And if the skies go dark with rain
Can you tell me does our freedom remain
Put down that weapon or we'll all be gone
You can't hide nowhere with the torchlight on
And it happens to be an emergency
Some things aren't meant to be
Some things don't come for free
Above the waterline
Point the finger yeah point the bone
It's the harbour towns
That the grey metal ships call home
And if we think about it
And if we talk about it
And if the sea goes boiling black
Can you tell me what you'll do about that
Put down that weapon or we'll all be gone
I must know something to know it's so wrong
And it happens to be an emergency
Some things aren't meant to be
Some things don't come for free
They keep talking about it
They keep talking...
Put down that weapon or we'll all be gone
You must be crazy if you think you're strong
03 Dreamworld (03:37)
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
[Chorus]
End - your dreamworld is just about to end
Fall - your dreamworld is just about to fall
Your 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 mistery road
Walk through Eden's garden and then wander as you go
Chorus
Sign says honeymoon to rent
Cloudland into dreamland turns
The sun comes up and we all learn
Those wheels must turn
05 Warakurna (04:37)
There is enough for everyone
In Redfern as there is in Alice
This is not the Buckingham Palace
This is the crown land
This is the brown land
This is not our land
Some folks live in water tanks
Some folks live in red brick flats
There is enough, the law is carved in granite
It's been shaped by wind and rain
White law could be wrong
Black law must be strong
Warakurna, cars will roll
Don't drink by the water hole
Court fines on the shopfront wall
Beat the grog and save your soul
Some people laugh, some never learn
This land must change or land must burn
Some people sleep, some people yearn
This land must change or land must burn
Diesel and dust is what we breathe
This land don't change and we don't leave
Some people live, some never die
This land don't change this land must lie
Some people leave, always return
This land must change or land must burn
Warakurna, camels roam
Fires are warm and dogs are cold
Not since Lassiter was here
Black man's got a lot to fear
Some people laugh some never learn
This land must change or land must burn
Some people leave, always return
This land must change or land must burn
06 The Dead Heart (05:11)
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 serve your country
Don't serve your king
Know your custom don't speak your tongue
White man came took everyone
We don't need protection
Don't need your land
Keep your promise on where we stand
We will listen we'll understand
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 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
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
07 Whoah (03:50)
The lord is my temple
God is by my side
You pay rates on that temple
Build materials at the side
He gives reasons
To get through the day
He doesn't have rinse action
He just says
Whoah - oh
Don't wanna see you back here again
Girls are not smiling
The stars have gone out
The man with the landslide
Got his head in the ground
Like an unopened letter
Left under the door
He says I am the answer you're looking for
Whoah - oh
Don't wanna see you back here again
Above we dream in the Androporosphere
Who maintains the drunken machinery
Before we dream of a time
When those men come from West Point
08 Bullroarer (04:59)
In the desert in the dry
Before the breaking of the rain
The temperature in the shade
Had reached a hundred and ten again
In the desert in the dry
On the overland telegraph line
Don't take the law into your own hands
Don't go looking for a fight
I've heard the bullroarers
In the desert in the dry
Sun sits so high
Long day's mile and the
Radio crackles and the bones bleached white
It's a knock-em-down storm
See the tin roof shake
Wild dog howls and the long grass
Whistles and the tall trees break
I've seen the wild horses
I've heard the bullroarers
I've seen the wild horses
Shifting sands and broken plans
Lead me on to my homeland
10 Sometimes (03:51)
I know that the sunset empire shudders and shakes
I know there's a floodgate and a raging river
I say the silence of the ribbons of iron and steel
I say hear the punch drunk huddle drive hammer and steel
Sometimes you're beaten to the call
Sometimes you're taken to the wall
But you don't give in
I know that the cannibals wear smart suits and ties
I know they arm wrestle on the altar
I say don't leave your heart in a hard place
Sometimes you're shaken to the core
Sometimes the face is gonna fall
But you don't give in
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