“This song is for Henry Kissinger who got the Nobel peace prize for bombing the living daylights out of Cambodia” is one of the greatest song intros ever.
All of those places are from the north of New South Wales to Queensland, I think it has to do with the Queensland government stripping the land for resources, which they are still trying to do. Look up the Adarni coal mine if you want to get angry
In America, in mainstream culture, I _guess_ they were one-hit wonders, but a couple other of their songs charted, too. It is mentioned in the video that "Blue Sky Mine" became a bit of a favorite of alternative radio, as well. On the Billboard Hot 100 chart (which is the general mainstream chart), though, it only hit #57, while "Beds are Burning" broke the Top 20, peaking at #17. That said, if you go by Billboard's Alternative Rock charts, they've had a number of hits. Forgotten Years and Blue Sky Mine both hit #1 on that chart. King of the Mountain and Truganini were Top 5s (#3 and #4, respectively), and then they had another four that placed Top 20 on this particular chart. On the Mainstream Rock chart (boy, Billboard has a lot of charts), Blue Sky Mine hit #1, Beds are Burning hit #6, and Truganini hit #10. So, depending on the chart, Beds are Burning wasn't necessarily even their biggest hit. I was in high school from 89-93 and I remember several of these songs on the rock station, and if you listen to the alternative stations these days, you will hear more than just Beds are Burning in the rotation. I did get a chance to see them live in Hobart (Tasmania) in the summer of '93, though, while visiting my cousins who moved out there from the States that year. What a great show! Guys were fantastic live and it was one of the highlights of my trip to Australia.
@@ZeldaEd123 Yeah yeah, I figured he probably meant manatee and I was just making a joke... but now I look it up and Dugongs are real and not just a pokemon based on a manatee. The dugongs are in the manatee family though. So I guess I learned something.
It's hard to properly explain what the Oils meant to Australia. After decades of desperately hoping the world, well, Britain and the US, would like us and our music, Midnight Oil were the first band that were ours and we didn't care what the rest of the world thought. They sang our way, they sang about our issues, they sang without trying to disguise their accent and they didn't give a stuff about what Countdown (Australian music show) or the rest of the world thought. And their issues became our issues because they didn't just sing about them, they backed them up with deeds and actions. I first saw the Oils live at Festival Hall in Brisbane when they supported the Ramones. What a night that was. If you could have plugged those two bands into the grid they could have powered the entire east coast. There'd been plenty of Australian groups that had made it overseas before. The Saints, Radio Birdman, Little River Band, the Bee Gees, INXS, Men at Work, etc. But they either became huge and lost (or never had) their Australianess, (Bee Gees, INXS, LRB ) or had a hit and flamed out (The Saints, Men at Work). Midnight Oil always seemed very comfortable in their own skin, in their own country. I get the feeling they would have been just as passionate, just as powerful and just as happy playing at the Bondi Lifesavers as they were playing on the world stage. They were just that kind of band. Fun Fact: They changed their name from Farm to Midnight Oil after it was drawn randomly out of a hat.
From a May 2019 article: "“I wrote the chorus before we went out into the desert and it was actually translated from Italian. I had been to an art exhibition which featured the story of the fascists during the Second World War, Mussolini and the fightback from the partisans. The guy who put the exhibition on explained to me that there was an expression from Italy about the fightback from those partisans, ‘How could you sleep when beds are burning?’ and I thought we could write a song about the same idea of an ancient Australian community who had so much thrown at it but was still joyfully dancing in the desert, singing their songs and pushing back against all the shocking things that had been visited upon them ever since Europeans had arrived in this country."
@@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley, I think it's supposed to be from both. The "It belongs to them, Let's give it back" lines make more sense from the colonial viewpoint than the aboriginal one.
I gotta be honest this is SUPER weird to watch as an Australian. Like nothing Todd said was WRONG or anything it's just... like growing up knowing all this it's very bizarre to hear it presented as weird trivia.
Yeah. It's especially weird considering that Midnight Oil is a household name here, and hearing that they're 1 hit wonders overseas is kinda strange. Same thing with the Diviynils. Like, I found out that my mum saw them the night she got her HSC results (back when it was still called the HSC in Victoria). This was one of the songs I studied earlier this year as part of a section on protest music. Like, there's a few references to political slogans (namely Whitlam's It's time).
Probably Victorian radio as well. It's weird I've never actually sat down to listen to a Midnight Oil album but I knew each one he played through some sort of osmosis.
I'm a Canadian and I recognized ALL of these. I went and listened to a few albums and realized that these guys had a ton of airplay in Canada. I had no clue tons of songs I remember as a kid were by these guys. Maybe it's that good ole commonwealth thing.
It's crazy hearing Midnight Oil described as a one hit wonder. They're such a massive part of our pop culture identity, but it's so specific to Australia I guess it's not surprising they couldn't quite crack the American market.
I’m not even Australian (U.S. citizen) and I find it baffling that anyone here would consider them a “One-hit Wonder.” Those of us that were in college or around that age at the time definitely remember them for 2 albums and several singles. They got heavy airplay for more than this song on many stations in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
@@chrissturgeon1571 I’m a Canadian and I’m trying to work on a follow up to my CanCon video but it’s so hard because aside from a few big names like Drake, Justin Bieber, Shania Twain, and Avril Lavigne I’m not sure what’s legit popular or Canadian popular. Like I’m positive people know Sum 41 and Simple Plan but unsure if people would know Headley or Mariana’s Trench.
@@tegantalks9612 Well, that was always the double edge sword of Can Con laws. Even huge bands like the Hip never had corresponding international followings. I'd say the Celine Dions, Drakes, and Rushes are more the exception than the rule. Not that we don't punch above out weight in the Entertainment industry, but (because great bands like Half Moon Run, The Evaporators, or The Silverhearts get lost in the noise) many bands are only ever 'Canadian famous'... and that's fine.
Yeah, my aunt (who was quite, let's say alternative) was into them big time. Found lots of lps in her stash, not allowed to take them with me... They have a ton of great songs, brilliant band.
Calling them Aussie U2 is still really apt. Not only because of their politics limiting their international success, but the Oils and U2 were the pioneers of that “Big Music” post-punk trend in the late 80s and early 90s. Music designed for singing against a grand Australian sunset. Or a sweeping helicopter shot. Post-punk music that just felt massive and anthemic.
Can I give some insight here. I'm an Australian in my twenties who occasionally goes to the nightclub scene. The DJ will do normal stuff (Rihanna, Avicci, whatever) but then will eveyr now and then smash on a Midnight Oil song and literally everyone runs to the dancefloor. 'You're the Voice' by Johny Farnem gets an even bigger response. These are just classics that everybody knows. Also at a club once in Wollongong they played Hot Potato by the Wiggles and the whole dancefloor knew all the actions. We really are into retro music.
Australian in my twenties as well whose parents grew up in the 70's (dad) and 80's (mum) so they had taught my sisters and I the two best decades of Australian Music. Khe Sanh, You're the voice and god so many more are legendary songs here
Aussies (as a whole) have really weird taste in music. They let a solo song by one of the guys from LMFAO go to #1 and they really like Pink. (Then again, at least they didn't do like we [New Zealand] did and let that horrid Charlie Puth 'Marvin Gaye' song go to #1. That fact will never not irk me).
I know very little (re: nothing) about your country's politics, but maybe think of it this way: Him running as whatever ALP is kept them (ALP) from running a different and probably worse candidate.
Midnight Oil got a lot of play in the 80s on KROQ in Los Angeles way before they broke. I think if you listened to alt-rock radio in the 80s you knew these guys.
"Blue Sky Mine" made it to #1 on Billboard's alternative rock chart and still gets played on American alt-rock radio stations. So I think it's more accurate to call Midnight Oil a "two hit wonder" in America.
They were on Baltimore's alt rock channel WHFS in the early nineties and the most-played track was definitely not included in this video... damned if I can find it though
The two previous albums to "Diesel and Dust", "10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1" and "Red Sails in the Sunset" were total monsters. To me they were like an Australian version of The Clash. Most of the music in this video are from those two albums.
While talking about the politics, people often forget the music - and 10 to 1 and Red Sails contained some of the most brilliant and innovative songwriting of the era. Or any era. And as performers - unparalleled.
You forgot to mention Midnight Oil's "Hit and Run" concert in-front of the Exxon building on the 30th of May 1990 in NYC. They unveiled a banner saying "Midnight Oil Makes You Dance - Exxon Oil Makes Us Sick". It was an impromptu show in-front of 10,000 people to protest the Exxon Valdez Disaster. They called the concert "Black Rain Falls". Loved the vid btw
Yeah, Todd _really_ dropped the ball on this one. To add a few more details for the uninitiated, the event was captured in the music video for Midnight Oil's _King of the Mountain._ I particularly enjoyed the NYC cops obliviously dancing along to the music, while the band, right in front of them, performed _illegally_ on the back of a semi-trailer parked in the street in front of the Exxon building on Sixth Avenue. They'd performed at the Radio City Music Hall the night before and their name was still up on the ticker sign (You can still find their set list for the night online, guess which song they opened with) so it kinda added some credibility to their street performance on the day. However, they didn't have a permit to perform on the street (go figure!), and they weren't there for long, but they pulled off one of the greatest gonzo concerts of all time with a big middle finger to Exxon in the very heart of Capitalist America itself.
Colonial genocide is such a rough subject. In Canada we are still uncovering thousands of child graves from the residential school horrors. We have Propagandhi in Canada to hold up the mirror, but we could use a Midnight Oil up here now. I always loved these guys. Truganini was a favourite of mine.
I'd argue The Tragically Hip were our version of Midnight Oil. They sang about very Canadian topic and they'd highlight first nations issues fairly regularly. Sadly, nobody has really picked up their torch after Gord passed.
Propagandhi are almost deliberately obtuse though. No choruses, complex metaphors everywhere (except when they're almost too direct for their own good, see Albright Monument, Baghdad), yeah they critique and expose serious issues but there's a kind of hopelessness to them, like the swinging fist of state power is too strong and we can never fight back. I fucking love Propagandhi (and their kinda-sorta heirs apparent Protest The Hero) but fuck me, they're a hard sell.
@@defeatstatistics7413 Yeah, this is fair. Much as I find Today's Empires and Supporting Caste to be two of the best records of the 2000's, this is far from wrong. You'd probably have better luck getting a hardcore Christian into Deicide than getting most people into Prop.
Looks like a lot of the comments are coming from Australian folks, so let me reminisce a bit about Midnight Oil as an American. I was a university student when I first saw the video for "Beds Are Burning" on MTV. I loved the song right away, and I remember the videos for "The Dead Heart" and "Dreamworld" as well. All great songs. I bought Diesel and Dust -- on CASSETTE! - and loved all of it. When the Blue Sky Mining album came out, the videos for "Blue Sky Mine" and "Forgotten Years" got a fair bit of airplay on MTV as well. And I bought and enjoyed the CD. I got to see an Oils concert in Los Angeles around 1993, when they were touring to support the Earth and Sun and Moon album. One of the best live shows EVER! By then, I had listened to some of their music that preceded Diesel and Dust, with the song "Kosciusko" being a particular favorite. This is all a long-winded way of saying that, while Midnight Oil may not have spent much time on the US charts, the band certainly has its US fans who love and appreciate the band for more than "Beds Are Burning."
Thank you for that. "The Oils" , as they are fondly called by Aussie fans, which is most of Australia, even now, are endemic to our culture now. They were important to the plight of the Aborigines being recognised and brought to the forefront of the youth of Australia. And their music was fantastic. Australia produced so much fantastic music from the 60's to the 90's that most of the world hasn't heard, and I think it's a loss to the world music scene. We are intensely proud of our artists from this time. Unfortunately it's died off now, but then I'm in my 50's now so don't know the new music. But my 25 year old music loving kid says that most modern music is "mostly shit! You guys had the best of it." I agree with them.😂
@@StephBer1 I'm sure there are many fantastic Australian artists of all kinds that we just don't know about here in the US. But I do know this: Midnight Oil, INXS, and The Road Warrior/Mad Max 2 all came out of Australia. Two of my all-time favorite bands and my favorite movie! And here's a nice coincidence for you. You posted your reply to my comment early this morning, California time. And this afternoon, "Beds Are Burning" came on the radio! Sounds like your 25-year-old has good taste in music. Keep on rockin' my friend!
After I got into Diesel and Dust, I began buying up their back catalog and especially loved Red Sails in the Sunset and 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1. Really like Blossom & Blood from Species Deceases too. I liked most of their later work as well... Earth&Sun&Moon was great, still really like Golden Age from Capricornia (an honestly hopeful song by them, wow). Around the same time I got into a few other Australian bands... probably the one I liked the most after Midnight Oil was Hunters & Collectors.
I remember when I first heard this song. I was 11 and my family had just moved to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. We'd been there long enough that I was exposed to the history, and Beds Are Burning made sense to me in a general way. Same thing with Blue Sky Mine when it came out. I just figured he was talking about bad mining conditions in general. What I'm saying is, even if you don't know the specific story behind a song, I think the themes have a universality to them that you can grab onto. Great show.
Oh the themes absolutely have universality. If you live anywhere in the western hemisphere, most of Africa, and lot of Asia, you absolutely have a local story that this song can translate to. I saw recently that Taika Waititi is using his Hollywood clout to try and get indigenous stories made, producing a show about Native Americans called Reservation Dogs. I'd like to see a lot more of these indigenous stories being told. Millions of voices silenced forever, it's the least we could do.
And we hired Navajo men who didn't understand English to work in Uranium mines while purposely obscuring any education and stiffing them of compensation when they inevitably all got cancer.
Enh. That’s small potatoes. The “stealing children” from native Americans is something done on gigantic scale in the US and Canada. Never mind the Trail of Tears. These days, the only children being stolen are coming in via Mexico, so that’s a huge improvement. Oh wait, no, native Americans still have a much higher chance of having DCS take their children away, including when controlling for the same situation (never mind that said situation is mostly caused by the government indirectly).
Thank Christ you acknowledged that Midnight Oil are faaaaarr from one hit wonders. Even now, the name commands a lot of respect in Australia; they're not current, but they're not has-beens. As an Australian, thank you so much for portraying Australia and its people as more than just punchlines or Crocodile Dundee stereotypes. You did an exceptional job summarising the effect WW1 had on the Australian cultural identity (I couldn't have done a better job) and some of the low-lights of our history - you even taught me some things I didn't know about. Well done and thank you. If anyone likes Midnight Oil, try listening to early Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. They lost their Aussie twang half-way through the nineties, but their first 8 studio albums were vicious and brutal, though not as political as Midnight Oil.
Nick Cave is the only singer I can think of where I legit like the majority of their work. I have 2 or 3 songs of so many artists and band, but I have almost all of Nick Cave's complete albums. Wasn't too into Grinderman...
Yeah, even limiting it to the U.S., they're a real reach as far as being "one hit wonders." I think just saying that only having one top-40 hit makes you a one-hit wonder is overly reductionist. Lots of bands had 1 crossover hit but numerous hits on their homegrown charts (be it Rock, Alternative, Country, R&B, etc.) I don't consider those "one hit wonders."
Armistice Day is legit. That song is so dark and disturbing, but it's so satisfying. That riff too, the single note slow breakdownish riff, I love that.
As an Australian I feel kind of dorkishly flattered that you put so much time and research into this, Todd. Nice work! To me the "beds are burning" metaphor was always just meant to represent the guilt we should feel for all the terrible things done to the Aboriginal people for which we haven't yet made amends. As in, how can you sleep so soundly with this terrible, and indeed burning collective guilt on your conscience?
Literally what research? He said Australian politics is obscure and no one knows anything about it (because only Americans count I guess) and he gave zero information on the subject of the song except that it's about "the Natives"
@Andy Salter you have no idea how oppression compounds like negative interest over multiple generations... Please, don't feel guilty, but do some fucking research
@Andy Salter racism is more than outwardly saying you hate someone, insisting on painting all Australian Aboriginal ppl with the same dismissive brush and actively ignoring the context of the horrors they've suffered is an inherently racist action and your rambling doesn't help your case. So again, fuck off racist
@@Kat-qe1vk Indeed. It's historic, systemic, deliberate. Anybody that _does_ come out of minority populations on top is either extremely fortunate or _extremely_ resilient, and had to fight against a bunch of obstacles that bigots, from way back when and recently, deliberately installed to either hate or to keep people in poverty to make capitalists happy. Until these barriers are broken and a better system installed, reparations are made and peaceful integration achieved, these issues will only continue in perpetuity. Anyone else reading? "Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" is only applicable from a position of privilege. If you're disadvantaged from, say, ethnicity, as most dark-skinned indigenous groups are within countries with white people, there is little-to-any privilege to be had. It's a fundamentally unfair, rigged contest. Quit putting the onus on OBVIOUSLY oppressed groups, and put it on the damn system. Chances are, it's rigged to hold YOU back too.
Genuinely impressed by the amount and quality of research you've done regarding my humble nation simply in order to understand the context behind a single song. Also: 'You know how in America we have this thing where we tend to screw over black people and screw over the natives? Okay, well, in Australia the black people are the natives, so they were able to screw them over much more efficiently than we did.' That is so incredibly savage, and so incredibly accurate. Much respect.
@@qwertyTRiG Ha, well, cheers! Surprising to be recognised for TH-cam comments... maybe if I can't make it as a famous TH-camr I can be a famous TH-cam commenter... probably less money in that :P
Can I just say your understanding of the context of Australian history and politics is so far beyond the average non-australian it makes me really happy you reviewed it and helped others have even a smallest new knowledge about our country.
I think the burning beds metaphor, is equating Australia as a country to a bed, I.e somewhere comfortable and safe, like home, aborigines being the native people of Australia they are intrinsically linked with the country, hurting them is like hurting the country. He's asking how Australians can sleep at night knowing their country's culture and history is being destroyed, "how do you sleep when your bed is burning?" The other meaning that comes to mind is more literal, the singer is taking on the perspective of an aboriginal person, singing as if he was one, they were taken from their homes, and then their homes were bombed. The main chorus line, "How can we sleep when our beds are burning?" Is supposed to imply that although the aborigines have been relocated, their homes are still burning, because a government camp will never be their home. Just a few thoughts off the top of my head.
Thanks for doing Midnight Oil Todd. I'm an Australian and I love Midnight Oil more than any other Aussie band, and we've got some good ones. Thanks for being open and forthcoming about the dark spots that they sing about as well. We've done some pretty messed up things in this country, and pretending we didn't only makes it worse.
I heard that Eurodance remake before, it was a minor hit in Europe. Can't remember the band's name, but I bet they had no idea what the song was about.
***** I did know that in fact, I've seen the signs in photographs. It's a shame we don't still have bands like Midnight Oil to sing about the injustices in our past, and lets be honest, our present.
There are definitely still bands that do stuff like this; they just don't get as successful, sadly. Actually, a lot of Australian hip hop (I am Australian and our hip hop is legitimately super good, by the by) is very political - Bliss n Eso, for example, have done a bunch of environmental stuff in their work.
Aussie hip-hop, eh? I'm guessing it's better than Hilltop Hoods, which is about the extent of my Oz rap knowledge. (Sorry, I'm a Kiwi. We're too busy playing our own stuff). Also, yeah, Oz has some major problems with racism. I'm going to be fair here and say that we haven't exactly been great with regards to Māori people (to say the least), but there was the Treaty of Waitangi, which allowed for restitution once our local civil rights movement started revving up in the '60s and '70s. (I can see Bastion Point from my house, BTW). Australia does have a ton of good things, but when you guys (as a generalisation) do bad stuff, you don't half-ass it. (Refugee camps on Nauru,, anyone? Seriously, WTF).
This plays a lot on Canadian radio, actually. The political turmoil over Aboriginal rights is similar to First Nations in Canada (both being former British colonies), so this song addresses similar issues like residential schools and urban development on native land.
Unless I am mistaken (and I very well may be, since I'm more familiar with the Australian side of it), the aboriginal tribes had it worse than the First Nations. In Australia during the Victorian era, there was an active attempt to essentially breed the aborigine out of the aborigine.
The Canadian government had a similar mindset. "Take the Indian out of the Indian." Residential schools ripped First Nations children from their families, and placed them in schools frequently staffed by nuns and priests. Use of their native languages was prohibited and punished, and predictably, abuse of all kinds was rampant. After his diagnosis of terminal cancer, Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie spent the remainder of his time working on projects that focused on the damage that residential schools and the government have done to the First Nations. This included a project telling the true story of an Anishinaabe child who died in the 60s while trying to escape back to his Nation from a residential school. Estimates of children who died as a result of abuses in this system range into the thousands, and the last federally operated residential school only closed in 1996. We also have an ongoing movement demanding a serious investigation into the disappearances and murders of large numbers of Indigenous women (Hundreds acknowledged by the government, but into the thousands projected by First Nations activists), an issue that many are content to continue ignoring. Canada has a very ugly side, and it's not confined to the past or within our borders. We deployed a military unit known to be full of racists to Somalia in the 90s (Which resulted in war crimes). The government later reneged on a deal to bring Afghans who assisted Canadian soldiers in Coalition operations back to Canada with their families. That decision was met by protest from the Canadian Forces stating that this was effectively leaving the Afghans open to retaliation by the Taliban, but as far as I remember, it dropped out of news coverage not long afterwards. Heavy subject matter, but Midnight Oil's big hit is relevant from a Canadian perspective, is what I'm coming back to.
I married a Native man. His mother, when she was a kid, had to run and hide from the Mormons that drove through the reserve looking to scoop up children. His older cousins remember when it was illegal for Natives to go downtown after dark. Like you said, this stuff isn't so far in the past as we might like to think.
Actually I've only heard Beds are Burning a couple ties on the radio. Granted I like the hard rock station, and they usually prefer to play the Alexisonfire cover of Dead Heart
My mom was sitting in the other room and then said “is that midnight oil.” She then came over and watched the whole video, singing every lyric and then telling me she had seen them live. Btw if it makes you feel old to know that college students now have parents who grew up in the 70s-80s I’m truly sorry.
Your mom had sex with a bunch of guys before she met your dad. Not necessarily all at once-I’m not trying to wreck your conception of your mom. I’m hoping you’ll stop feeling so young and see your mom as a complete human being independent of her role as your mom. If you already do, ignore this comment. Everyone is else: as an exercise, imagine your parents having lots of sex with other partners when they were young.
No worries. Gen-X(people who grew up in the 70s and 80s) are either 50 years old or about to be. We came to terms with getting old a while ago. It's the later Millennials and early Gen-Zers that are about to be hitting their 30s and staring down middle age.
One of these days, you lot better be rich enough, quick enough, and smart enough to make Todd do 99 Luftballons. I will never understand why it's gone unreviewed for so long
jseeker1867 I assume because the song is in German. covering things in languages you don't speak sounds hard. although nena would be interesting. she had a billion hits in Germany.
As an Australian who is pretty familiar with Midnight Oil you totally nailed it.This is why I love this show you clearly do a lot of research and I really respect that. But hearing them being referred to as a One Hit Wonder feels so odd!
Unfortunately, the music scene here in the US was (and still is) finicky about what's being put on the radio, compared to now for the net with TH-cam and Spotify, we're able to discover more and more, without having to use the radio so much. There are SO many bands that have been worthwhile to listen to from Australia, UK and more, but unfortunately, you'd have to either be "in the know" or have a friend who's "in the know".
Patrick Lauer - I'm Australian too - and boy, these guys were huge here! BTW I even had the pleasure of interviewing Martin Rotsey for Australian citizenship way back in the early -80's. This Todd in the Shadows guy is a very fine researcher and presenter. He's covered a lot of ground in 16+ minutes.
If you use the narrow defnition of "only one single to reach the Billboard Top 40", well, they are. And you know who else qualifies by that definition? Jimi Hendrix. The Grateful Dead. Rush. Frank Zappa. And several others. With that said, I do remember hearing Midnight Oil on American radio quite a bit during the late '80s and early '90s.
And also one called "Bullet the Blue Sky" about the results of Ronald Reagan's foreign policy vis-a-vis Central America... "Bullet" is probably the hardest rocking song in U2's entire discography.
Wow. He's never posted two videos so close together like he has over the last few weeks. It's good to see his channel becoming more active... Hope I don't jinx it!
Baack when he was one of the biggest name on tgwtg (for I think 6-8 months) he was making a video every two weeks. It was a better year for pop music tho, songs weren't necessarily better but stuff sounded different and their were bigger personalities so he had a bigger pool for material.
I knew the song as soon as I heard the notes, but did not know the title. This guy is now one of my favourite guys ever, and I'm going to need to get like, this bands entire discography. I shall call him "less douchey and more effective Bono"
Australia has had so many damn PMs too, you guys have had like 9 in my lifetime. I'm used to Canadian where you elect for sometimes decades because you've resigned yourself to picking a turd so why go fishing for a new one when the one you have already stinks enough? Like damn Australia who knew you were so ambitious and full of hope (or rage, or whatever emotion it is that you guys have)?
Holy shit, all these years I had no idea what that song was actually about. It was a big hit here in NZ too. I have a newfound respect for these guys. Garrett truly practiced what he preached.
As a non-Aussie, Midnight Oil are fucking kickass. Their album 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 is beyond brilliant. SPEAK TO MEEEEEE, SPEAK TO MEEEEEE!!!! Highly, highly, highly recommend checking them out regardless of your knowledge on Australian political issues. It's a cool learning point and it's kickass music.
Thank you Todd for spreading the word to Americans about the dangers of drop bear. Far too often have I seen mauled tourists rushed into emergency wards with injuries that could have been so easily avoided.
SMH so many lost tourists, so much lost tourism money. I mean, we still rifle through their pockets after they die, we are descended from convicts after all, but it's not the same as selling pointless trinkets (i.e. keepsakes made in Taiwan or China and sold as "Australiana") to tourists.
In the name of international gratitude, please allow us to return the favor. If you ever visit the western part of the United States please know that the southwestern jackalope is really quite dangerous, and plagues unsuspecting tourists and Burning Man attendees alike. The whiskers may be cute, but those antlers should not be ignored.
Any American tourists heading to Australia, a great tip commonly used by Australians themselves, spread vegemite on the back of your hands, it'll ward off any dropbears in your area #yourwelcome
Todd, if you like Midnight Oil, i'd suggest to look up some of Warumpi Band. It's a band that is mostly Aboriginal members who toured with Midnight Oil in the 1980's and did a number of songs in a dialect of Aboriginal language. Did a lot of politically themed songs as well and had a bit of a blues rock sort of sound to them. They were also the band that originally did 'My Island Home' that was later covered by Christina Anu, which i'm not too sure if you've ever heard of, not sure if her only hit ever made it overseas.
This is super impressive. This might be Todd's best video I wasn't expecting him at all to go into this kind of depth (i'm an Aussie and yeh, Midnight Oil are more relevant than ACDC probably). The points about history are so important to the bands identity, and I'm grateful that Todd didn't bullshit this one at all (like that POS channel "lie like music" that is pretty much a shitty wikipedia recap) The detail put into a relatively short video really makes me retroactively appreciate his other videos more, as Todd clearly has improved and goes above and beyond. The Midnight Oil song "US Forces" (which you should listen to right now) deserved to be a worldwide smash hit. That's a masterpiece and this vid made me realise just how crap it is that a band so ahead of it's time didn't get wider reception. 10/10 video
Ya not wrong about ACDC after bon died they were hardly aussie anymore and yes US Forces is great song worth listen bu forgotten years is their best IMO
Took your advice and listened to US Forces. Can confirm. IT'S EPIC! Todd is probably right in that it was too edgy for the time, but it's still a really good song.
As an American, I was late to discover Midnight Oil by Australian standards, but I was rather early by American standards. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 was my first Midnight Oil album, in 1982, and I was instantly hooked by the very first cut, the eerie "Outside World", which in retrospect, I guess was partly about *us*. In 1984, I played the hell out of the "Best of Both Worlds" single, which had the most badass riff I ever heard. The riff and energy were so intense, I never paid much mind to the lyrics, which were very Aussiecentric. When they finally hit the top-40 in America, I was a little ambivalent. I was pleased that they were getting their due at last, but a little saddened that I had to share my "secret discovery" with the rest of the world lol. Great band, even if I never understood a word of it.
Just an interesting aside that occurred to me while watching this. Todd refers to the fact that "even a backwater hick like Crocodile Dundee" references injustice against Aboriginals. Paul Hogan himself was not a "backwater hick" but a working class inhabitant of Sydney who came to fame after competing in a TV talent show. He was working as a rigger on the Sydney Harbour Bridge (that means he installed the rigs that allowed painters and maintenance men to repair and paint the bridge). He hated the talent show as cruel and demeaning and the idea was simply to make fun of it by appearing as a deliberately incompetent magician. He ended up winning because the performance was so funny, was invited onto a local current affairs show to comment as an "ordinary worker" on news of the day, then ended up with his own sketch show. What is often left out is that he was a shop steward for his union, which was Communist-led (another peculiar Australian thing, while the Australian Communist Party wasn't huge, and was never a significant electoral force, nearly a 1/4 of Australian workers from the 1940s through to the 1970s were members of unions that were either led by Communists or by "unity tickets" of Communists and members of the left wing of the Labor Party). If you listen to his famous speech at the Oscars where he tells all the stars present to behave badly to entertain the viewers, note how he refers to them as "fellow workers". He was obviously referencing his experience as a shop steward, though when he was a shop steward back on the bridge the normal form would have been to refer to his members when addressing them at meetings as "comrades". As Todd points out, Australia is a stranger place than you might think, full of contradictions.
Midnight Oil were really popular on the rock and alt-rock stations back in the 80s, and even into the early 90s. In fact, Blue Sky Mine went #1 on the Rock and AltRock charts and Forgotten Years hit #1 on the AltRock charts, while Beds Are Burning peaked at #6 on the Rock charts. Despite this, Beds are Burning is their only Billboard Top 40 single.
I once heard Midnight Oil described as "U2 if U2 was fun." I saw them on the Diesel and Dust US tour right when "Beds Are Burning" was peaking, and it remains one of the best shows I've seen. They knew how to get their message across--attach it to super-catchy tunes.
Peter Garrett is a national treasure. If any Americans here watch Sourcefed, Maude on that used to be a television host here, and is Peter's neice. And thank you for mentioning Hoodoo Gurus! They are my favourite.
My dad got to see them play live a few times with a couple of the other big Australian acts back in the late 80s and early 90s because he worked with the Australian Grande Prix. My dad still plays a lot of this music to this day and that’s why I know a bit more about Australian culture than the typical Canadian.
I have seen a lot of bands over many years of concert going, but when I saw Midnight Oil on the "Earth and Sun and Moon" tour they struck me as the most intense and TIGHT live band that I had ever seen.
Someone once said Peter Garrett could whisper louder than some people screamed, and my lord is that apt. The entire band (rest in peace Bones) deserves all the credit, especially Rob and Jim for doing a lot of the song writing, but my lord what a front man that Garrett.
Not sure why the algorithm coughed this one up several years later, and I almost didn't click because "WHAT?!? do you mean, One Hit Wonder?!?" and then I thought about it okay, yeah, technically here in the US they were, so hey, curiosity won out. MARVELOUS work. The Oils are one of my "big three" all time faves, and you did them justice. Thank you.
Ahhh yes... do you know this song is the favourite Midnight Oil song of John Howard, one of our former Prime Ministers? The punchline is that he was largely responsible for stonewalling attempts at indigenous reconciliation during his time in office.
It's a bit like one of David Cameron's favourite songs being the Eton Rifles by the Jam. Which is about a group of posh Eton school boys (which Cameron was one of at the time) assaulting protesting workers.
It's a bit like New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie's not so secret idolization of staunch liberal Bruce Springsteen, or Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan's favorite band is Rage Against the Machine. I can't make this up.
Leviadragon like Hillary Clinton favorite song is KMFDM - Stray Bullet the favorite also of Eric Harris of Columbine its on his way back machine archive of his aol blog before the word blog was invented.
Wait. So in 1983 Bowie released Let's Dance. Singing "put on your red shoes and dance the blues, in the serious moonlight." He made the video about aboriginals getting evicted, which presumably was very popular worldwide even if people didn't know what it was about. Then, in Australia, Midnight Oil decides to write a hit song about the same topic, and chooses to write "how can we dance when the world is turning?" Which reads to me like a direct response to Bowie. In shorthand: Bowie: "Let's dance." Midnight Oil: "How can we dance?" And here's the kicker. Midnight Oil are most certainly a serious band. And you know how you might see oil at midnight, under the moonlight... the serious moonlight. This is insanity.
Just chiming years after the fact, but the Oils are one of my favourite bands of all time. I'm Finnish, so I never had the opportunity to see them live, but still they are legends! There's a lot of good songs on their back catalogue, but my personal number one is Head Injuries (released in 1979 a year before my birth). There's the intensity but it's young and raw. Just lovely.
New Year's Day is specifically and explicitly about the martial law in December of 1981 in Poland and about how it attempted to quench the rising Solidairy movement, Bono has admitted this, I believe.
I know you were nervous about covering this subject matter Todd, but it's really great that you did. So many people learned about this thing that happened, thanks to the band writing about it, then you writing about them. Keep it up!
I think Redgum deserves an honourable mention, they’re probably the most political Aussie band, ever moreso than Midnight Oil (which is saying something). Different genre, but they get me worked up politically just as much, if not more than, The Oil.
Eruk Umunuellsun I'm sure that the horn part at the end is pure french horn, I _think_ it's mixed in with trombones at the horn stab, or at least that's my recollection from watching it performed at the 2000 Olympics closing ceremonies. Regardless, it's pretty rare for a rock song to have french horns in it. Less so for the trumpet and the flute, so my family mostly has the advantage over me... or at least most of them do. (My niece plays the xylophone. Todd mentioned probably _the_ rock song this decade that used that, "Ain't it Fun", on the appropriate top-Ten Best list.)
I'm from the U.S. and I'm a huge Midnight Oil fan! Awesome band! And not just Beds are Burning, even though it's an awesome song, too! We're not all oblivious over here!
These are some very passionate artists who know the power and sometimes responsibility of their craft. They've earned my respect. I may have to get some of their songs.
Great video, Todd! As an Australian, it's slightly bizarre to see someone talk about an Australian band in such big detail. I have to say, you did an amazing job with your research into the band and its history. Great work! Keep up the great work with the videos!
Their "Blue Sky Mining" album was one of the first rock albums my dad introduced me to, along with the far more remembered "Out of Time" from R.E.M, back when I was in preschool. I have really fond memories of this band, much like Chumbawumba, which became even more fond when I began to understand the meaning behind the lyrics.
Something I don't hear people talking about much as an influence on 80s Australian music is the impact of the Australian government opening up tertiary education and abolishing university fees in the mid 70s with the conception of Midnight Oil (Peter Garrett would have been in his 20s at the time). My parents were both from working class families and wouldn't have gotten university education otherwise. Essentially, a broader part of the population were getting higher levels of education and their voices were more likely to be heard, joining conversations about social issues that they probably didn't have the academic language for or even social access to beforehand. I think this is partially why there would be increased demand in this sort of musical discourse in the 80s in Australia. Midnight Oil were BIG back then and even released an album last year. (Sorry for the rant)
As someone who was only listening to Top-40 radio (NYC & Philadelphia) stations in the late 80's, I recognized Blue Sky Mine, so it must have gotten enough radio play folr me to remember it 35 years later even if it wasn't a hit.
It's been weird to see bands heard semi-regularly on the radio here in Australia (Midnight Oil, Divinyls) talked about as one hit wonders - I wasn't alive in the '80s and yet "Pleasure and Pain", "The Power and the Passion" and the like are fairly well known here. Well-researched, though. Some other good politics-heavy Australian groups from around the same era are Spy v. Spy (no massive hits, but "Don't Tear It Down" was their biggest) and Redgum (famous here for their #1 hit "I Was Only 19", but they've got plenty more great material beyond that).
It's a bit odd watching this since when I first heard this song in Year 3 I knew exactly what it was about. This is all really big stuff for Australians, and you probably won't meet a person over the age of 7 or 8 who grew up in Australia and didn't know about the stolen generation and the land rights battle.
Jon Heiman I don’t think that’s fair, especially not when considering the music scene of the 70s-90s. We had some amazing music here in Aus, and I just sad that other countries didn’t get to enjoy all the awesome music we did. Like Cold Chisel, the Angels, The Living End, Icehouse, Redgum, and of course, Midnight Oil (this is only a very truncated list, there’s so much more).
I've been an Oils fan since the 70s. Seen them in a small venue in Portland, OR, three times in the 90s. The first time was at Winterland in San Francisco in 1984. They have so many excellent songs, and they are awesome!
I was at university in New Zealand (the Canada to Australia's USA) in the early to mid eighties and Midnight Oil were huge. The Power and the Passion was probably the biggest party singalong in the circles I was in. By the time Beds are Burning came out we were graduating and I heard less of this than their previous three albums.
Speaking from an Australian perspective, considering the very Australian subject matter and context of their music it's more surprising to me that they had any hits at all in the US.
Mickey Possingham Great music bridges cultural boundaries. Also, as an American, I do have a frame of reference for white colonials screwing over the native inhabitants of their land.
There's actually nothing wrong with inexperienced celebrities getting involved in politics as long as they're in it for honest, altruistic intentions. The problem would only arise if instead they were dumb, narcissistic, and in it only to help their business.
Well, it could be an issue if their job is really complex and they lack the knowledge or understanding to do it properly. Especially, if it's something really important where screwing up can hurt a lot of people and there isn't really a lot of oversight to make sure something bad doesn't happen. It also helps if they have someone around they trust and will listen to who can guide them through the details.
Chris McWilliams artistwithouttalent This is true of anybody in a representative democracy, not just musicians. No politician knows enough for all the roles which government must fulfill.
Peter Garrett had graduated as a lawyer before co-founding Midnight Oil - he was no green horn when he ran for the Australian Senate, and later for the Parliament. Nevertheless, politics was a chastening experience for him - he ultimately accepted responsibility for the Rudd government's "home insulation debacle" which resulted in the deaths of four roofing insulation installers in 2009. Peter Garrett was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia, January 2003, the year prior to his being elected to the House of Representatives.
@Howard the Duck I mean....yes? He's amoral, ignorant, insecure, hot-headed...the list goes on. Fine if you're an entertainer. Really, really bad qualities if you are holding the most important position in the world.
When someone cant sleep they often say "it's like the beds burning" or my beds burning". Hes saying he cant sleep and is tossing and turning because this shit is weighing on his mind.
I once heard Peter Garrett described as, "Rock and roll's only singing barrister." Apparently he got a law degree and passed his bar exam -- then played in a band for a few years, before settling down and going into politics, something totally unsurprising for a lawyer to do. Midnight Oil was really big for short time, while I was in high school. The topic of government mistreatment of First Nations peoples was common to Australia, Canada, and the US, though it unfolded slightly differently in each location. Midnight Oil was remarkable in that they were writing rock songs about something other than, "boy meets girl, boy loses girl," but they weren't protest songs either. The band symbolized youthful energy rising up and speaking out against social injustices, not just angry and spiteful, but with vision for a better world, and a willingness to participate in the changes they professed.
As an Australian, it's always interesting to see an outsider's view on our culture. Midnight Oil is huge here, you can't listen to an oldie or alt station for ten minutes without hearing one of their songs. It's interesting to hear that Beds are Burning was the breakout hit though, since Blue Sky Mine, Forgotten Years and Power and the Passion all get basically equal airtime here. By the way, the burning beds isn't a metaphor. Like what happened in your country with the Indians, our government decided to give Aboriginals living on reservations blankets covered in smallpox, to try and eliminate them quietly. They're burning beds so as not to die of disease.
Some well-meaning Australians need to come together and make a comprehensive list of great music that isn't hitting stateside. Between Kevin Parker, Midnight Oil, and Garreth Liddard you guys are holding out on the rest of the world.
As an Australian I have watched this a few times because it is so interesting seeing the Oils talked about like this. For Americans it is like if an Australian made a video about the obscure one hit wonder band The Beatles and their only hit Yellow Submarine. A lot of Australians would respond to that comparison with "no offence to The Beatles, but they are not on the same level as Midnight Oil"
Forgotten Years. My favorite as well. I remember hearing it on the radio one time back around 2002 and not again until I found it on youtube last year. Should be mandatory listening on Veterans day & Memorial day.
On tonight's news I heard Australia's giving reparations for the Stolen Generations after decades of bad faith from Canberra, what a timely episode, Todd.
My dad was on tour with Pigface in the 90’s and Käpt’n K and En Esch from KMFDM were there. My dad goes to K, mocking his bald head, “I loved your work in Midnight Oil!” K goes “huh?!” and Esch busts a gut.
“This song is for Henry Kissinger who got the Nobel peace prize for bombing the living daylights out of Cambodia” is one of the greatest song intros ever.
You can actually hear people heading to the exit....
@@lordscrewtape2897They just can't handle facts
Anthony Bourdain would have approved
😅
@@r3thsp3kt It is a great injustice of the world that Henry Kissinger didn't die young, and that Anthony Bourdain didn't live to be 100.
I was gonna say, how the hell are Midnight Oil one hit wonders? And then I remembered, I'm Australian.... Yeah, makes sense...
How easy is it to forget you are Australian?
Oh my God, can you explain what the fuck he's talking about at 6:34 then?
All of those places are from the north of New South Wales to Queensland, I think it has to do with the Queensland government stripping the land for resources, which they are still trying to do. Look up the Adarni coal mine if you want to get angry
TheCharnstar I’m Australian too and I didn’t think these guys were OHWS
In America, in mainstream culture, I _guess_ they were one-hit wonders, but a couple other of their songs charted, too. It is mentioned in the video that "Blue Sky Mine" became a bit of a favorite of alternative radio, as well. On the Billboard Hot 100 chart (which is the general mainstream chart), though, it only hit #57, while "Beds are Burning" broke the Top 20, peaking at #17.
That said, if you go by Billboard's Alternative Rock charts, they've had a number of hits. Forgotten Years and Blue Sky Mine both hit #1 on that chart. King of the Mountain and Truganini were Top 5s (#3 and #4, respectively), and then they had another four that placed Top 20 on this particular chart. On the Mainstream Rock chart (boy, Billboard has a lot of charts), Blue Sky Mine hit #1, Beds are Burning hit #6, and Truganini hit #10. So, depending on the chart, Beds are Burning wasn't necessarily even their biggest hit. I was in high school from 89-93 and I remember several of these songs on the rock station, and if you listen to the alternative stations these days, you will hear more than just Beds are Burning in the rotation.
I did get a chance to see them live in Hobart (Tasmania) in the summer of '93, though, while visiting my cousins who moved out there from the States that year. What a great show! Guys were fantastic live and it was one of the highlights of my trip to Australia.
He was the environment minister when I was in primary school and would often come hang out and talk about saving the dugongs, hes a good dude
Dugongs ? You have Pokemon in Australia ?
@@Gatorade69 what scares me is that with how little people seem to know about australia i don't know if this is actually a joke or not haha
@@Gatorade69 Also known as the Manatee.
@@ZeldaEd123 Yeah yeah, I figured he probably meant manatee and I was just making a joke... but now I look it up and Dugongs are real and not just a pokemon based on a manatee. The dugongs are in the manatee family though. So I guess I learned something.
@@Gatorade69 I was expecting you to ask whether it has wings or lives in a tree.
It's hard to properly explain what the Oils meant to Australia. After decades of desperately hoping the world, well, Britain and the US, would like us and our music, Midnight Oil were the first band that were ours and we didn't care what the rest of the world thought. They sang our way, they sang about our issues, they sang without trying to disguise their accent and they didn't give a stuff about what Countdown (Australian music show) or the rest of the world thought. And their issues became our issues because they didn't just sing about them, they backed them up with deeds and actions. I first saw the Oils live at Festival Hall in Brisbane when they supported the Ramones. What a night that was. If you could have plugged those two bands into the grid they could have powered the entire east coast. There'd been plenty of Australian groups that had made it overseas before. The Saints, Radio Birdman, Little River Band, the Bee Gees, INXS, Men at Work, etc. But they either became huge and lost (or never had) their Australianess, (Bee Gees, INXS, LRB ) or had a hit and flamed out (The Saints, Men at Work). Midnight Oil always seemed very comfortable in their own skin, in their own country. I get the feeling they would have been just as passionate, just as powerful and just as happy playing at the Bondi Lifesavers as they were playing on the world stage. They were just that kind of band.
Fun Fact: They changed their name from Farm to Midnight Oil after it was drawn randomly out of a hat.
And even with their newest stuff always staying true to writing songs about things that genuinely matter in Australia.
You need a life.
Radio Birdman
Beautifully put mate.
INXS never had Australianness? Also, Chisel gave a stuff about what the rest of the world thought?
From a May 2019 article: "“I wrote the chorus before we went out into the desert and it was actually translated from Italian. I had been to an art exhibition which featured the story of the fascists during the Second World War, Mussolini and the fightback from the partisans. The guy who put the exhibition on explained to me that there was an expression from Italy about the fightback from those partisans, ‘How could you sleep when beds are burning?’ and I thought we could write a song about the same idea of an ancient Australian community who had so much thrown at it but was still joyfully dancing in the desert, singing their songs and pushing back against all the shocking things that had been visited upon them ever since Europeans had arrived in this country."
Oohh, so it's sung from the native Australians point of view? Now that's a twist, lol.
Fasanating
Was that from Rob?
@@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley, I think it's supposed to be from both. The "It belongs to them, Let's give it back" lines make more sense from the colonial viewpoint than the aboriginal one.
Italian here - never heard of that expression
I gotta be honest this is SUPER weird to watch as an Australian. Like nothing Todd said was WRONG or anything it's just... like growing up knowing all this it's very bizarre to hear it presented as weird trivia.
Yeah. It's especially weird considering that Midnight Oil is a household name here, and hearing that they're 1 hit wonders overseas is kinda strange. Same thing with the Diviynils. Like, I found out that my mum saw them the night she got her HSC results (back when it was still called the HSC in Victoria).
This was one of the songs I studied earlier this year as part of a section on protest music. Like, there's a few references to political slogans (namely Whitlam's It's time).
CommanderFreddy I know, I feel the same way.
Or INXS for that matter
INXS had a few hits in America, even into the 90s.
INXS was a way bigger deal over here than Midnight Oil was.
For reference, ALL of the songs in this video are regular plays on most Sydney radio stations.
Probably Victorian radio as well. It's weird I've never actually sat down to listen to a Midnight Oil album but I knew each one he played through some sort of osmosis.
Natalie Kirk By "most Sydney radio stations", I assume you mean "Triple M"
Natalie Kirk I'm from WA and born in 1999 and most of these songs I've heard many many times
Tim Mackie And WSFM.
I'm a Canadian and I recognized ALL of these. I went and listened to a few albums and realized that these guys had a ton of airplay in Canada. I had no clue tons of songs I remember as a kid were by these guys. Maybe it's that good ole commonwealth thing.
I believe the most reasonable reworking of "Failed Follow-Up" would be "After The Hit."
Think it might overlap with "Did they ever do anything else?"
@@santiagobauza4257 I'd say it implies "Immediately After the Hit," though said in-quotes title could also work.
@@santiagobauza4257 maybe combine the 2 segments and call it, what happened next?
It's crazy hearing Midnight Oil described as a one hit wonder. They're such a massive part of our pop culture identity, but it's so specific to Australia I guess it's not surprising they couldn't quite crack the American market.
It's like telling a Canadian that the Tragically Hip were OHWs.... crickets. The rest of the world: Who?
I’m not even Australian (U.S. citizen) and I find it baffling that anyone here would consider them a “One-hit Wonder.” Those of us that were in college or around that age at the time definitely remember them for 2 albums and several singles. They got heavy airplay for more than this song on many stations in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
@@chrissturgeon1571 I’m a Canadian and I’m trying to work on a follow up to my CanCon video but it’s so hard because aside from a few big names like Drake, Justin Bieber, Shania Twain, and Avril Lavigne I’m not sure what’s legit popular or Canadian popular. Like I’m positive people know Sum 41 and Simple Plan but unsure if people would know Headley or Mariana’s Trench.
@@tegantalks9612 Well, that was always the double edge sword of Can Con laws. Even huge bands like the Hip never had corresponding international followings. I'd say the Celine Dions, Drakes, and Rushes are more the exception than the rule. Not that we don't punch above out weight in the Entertainment industry, but (because great bands like Half Moon Run, The Evaporators, or The Silverhearts get lost in the noise) many bands are only ever 'Canadian famous'... and that's fine.
Yeah, my aunt (who was quite, let's say alternative) was into them big time. Found lots of lps in her stash, not allowed to take them with me...
They have a ton of great songs, brilliant band.
Calling them Aussie U2 is still really apt. Not only because of their politics limiting their international success, but the Oils and U2 were the pioneers of that “Big Music” post-punk trend in the late 80s and early 90s. Music designed for singing against a grand Australian sunset. Or a sweeping helicopter shot. Post-punk music that just felt massive and anthemic.
The difference is that Midnight Oil is a dramatically better band and Garrett had dramatically better politics than Bono
@@browncoat697Yeah but Midnight Oil never wrote Beautiful Day
U2 did benefit from 70-80 years of The Troubles to draw on for topics, imagery and psychological trauma.
@@EmyrDerfelAnd Midnight Oil had 200 years of colonial history, penal exploitation and racial apartheid to draw on
Except the Oils lead singer isn’t making an asshole of himself on a global scale
As an Australian, hearing Todd try to deliver a condensed version of our national history is just... the greatest of joys.
but you have to admit, he does it justice considering the length
Can I give some insight here. I'm an Australian in my twenties who occasionally goes to the nightclub scene. The DJ will do normal stuff (Rihanna, Avicci, whatever) but then will eveyr now and then smash on a Midnight Oil song and literally everyone runs to the dancefloor. 'You're the Voice' by Johny Farnem gets an even bigger response. These are just classics that everybody knows. Also at a club once in Wollongong they played Hot Potato by the Wiggles and the whole dancefloor knew all the actions. We really are into retro music.
Oooh, do people do the clap-along to "You're The Voice" as they get on the floor and the song picks up?
ElNeroDiablo God, I hope so
Australian in my twenties as well whose parents grew up in the 70's (dad) and 80's (mum) so they had taught my sisters and I the two best decades of Australian Music. Khe Sanh, You're the voice and god so many more are legendary songs here
A club playing a Wiggles song? What?!
Aussies (as a whole) have really weird taste in music. They let a solo song by one of the guys from LMFAO go to #1 and they really like Pink. (Then again, at least they didn't do like we [New Zealand] did and let that horrid Charlie Puth 'Marvin Gaye' song go to #1. That fact will never not irk me).
you gotta love Australia. we took some popular protest singer and made him Minister for Education
We made a reality TV star PRESIDENT! Everyone else is officially off the hook for everything forever.
Well, we have Feargal Sharkey as head of -the BPI- UK Music.
Ryan's Rambling Rants and an actor once
Christ, at least a protest singer took an active interest in the country's political history!
I know very little (re: nothing) about your country's politics, but maybe think of it this way: Him running as whatever ALP is kept them (ALP) from running a different and probably worse candidate.
"There's blood on your hands, Sir Robert Menzies!"
Pig Iron Bob definitely had blood on his hands.
"Selling to the Japanese can't possibly hurt."
And a few minutes later Todd claimed that he could not name any Australian prime ministers!
Midnight Oil got a lot of play in the 80s on KROQ in Los Angeles way before they broke. I think if you listened to alt-rock radio in the 80s you knew these guys.
"Blue Sky Mine" made it to #1 on Billboard's alternative rock chart and still gets played on American alt-rock radio stations. So I think it's more accurate to call Midnight Oil a "two hit wonder" in America.
They did a reunion tour a couple of years ago and were epic. I saw them twice in Oz. Two of the best shows of my life.
What Matthew Colville, you watch TiTS? Small world, thanks for getting my friends into DnD
I was going to make this comment. It was the album 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 and the song Power and the Passion around 1983
They were on Baltimore's alt rock channel WHFS in the early nineties and the most-played track was definitely not included in this video... damned if I can find it though
The two previous albums to "Diesel and Dust", "10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1" and "Red Sails in the Sunset" were total monsters. To me they were like an Australian version of The Clash. Most of the music in this video are from those two albums.
Just recently heard side a of red sails, and yes they are great. Easily one of the best sounds coming out of Australia during that period
Red sails in the sunset is an amazing album, I was blown away by it
While talking about the politics, people often forget the music - and 10 to 1 and Red Sails contained some of the most brilliant and innovative songwriting of the era. Or any era. And as performers - unparalleled.
"A terrible infestation of people" may be the most succinct description of imperialism/colonialism I've ever heard. Thank you, Todd.
Honestly.
It's also completely ignorant. What was the number of people? How long were they given? Succinct...
@@8bitorgy Are you trying to Devil's Advocate colonialism?
@@gabe_s_videos i'm sorry is that English?
@@8bitorgy I’m sorry, let me try again:
Are you trying to play Devil’s Advocate for Colonialism?
You forgot to mention Midnight Oil's "Hit and Run" concert in-front of the Exxon building on the 30th of May 1990 in NYC. They unveiled a banner saying "Midnight Oil Makes You Dance - Exxon Oil Makes Us Sick". It was an impromptu show in-front of 10,000 people to protest the Exxon Valdez Disaster. They called the concert "Black Rain Falls". Loved the vid btw
Yeah, Todd _really_ dropped the ball on this one. To add a few more details for the uninitiated, the event was captured in the music video for Midnight Oil's _King of the Mountain._ I particularly enjoyed the NYC cops obliviously dancing along to the music, while the band, right in front of them, performed _illegally_ on the back of a semi-trailer parked in the street in front of the Exxon building on Sixth Avenue. They'd performed at the Radio City Music Hall the night before and their name was still up on the ticker sign (You can still find their set list for the night online, guess which song they opened with) so it kinda added some credibility to their street performance on the day. However, they didn't have a permit to perform on the street (go figure!), and they weren't there for long, but they pulled off one of the greatest gonzo concerts of all time with a big middle finger to Exxon in the very heart of Capitalist America itself.
Colonial genocide is such a rough subject. In Canada we are still uncovering thousands of child graves from the residential school horrors. We have Propagandhi in Canada to hold up the mirror, but we could use a Midnight Oil up here now. I always loved these guys. Truganini was a favourite of mine.
I'd argue The Tragically Hip were our version of Midnight Oil. They sang about very Canadian topic and they'd highlight first nations issues fairly regularly. Sadly, nobody has really picked up their torch after Gord passed.
You guys have A Tribe Called Red in the EDM scene, so that's something.
They literally haven't found a body. Just a bunch of bullshit signatures using ground penetrating radar.
Propagandhi are almost deliberately obtuse though. No choruses, complex metaphors everywhere (except when they're almost too direct for their own good, see Albright Monument, Baghdad), yeah they critique and expose serious issues but there's a kind of hopelessness to them, like the swinging fist of state power is too strong and we can never fight back.
I fucking love Propagandhi (and their kinda-sorta heirs apparent Protest The Hero) but fuck me, they're a hard sell.
@@defeatstatistics7413
Yeah, this is fair. Much as I find Today's Empires and Supporting Caste to be two of the best records of the 2000's, this is far from wrong. You'd probably have better luck getting a hardcore Christian into Deicide than getting most people into Prop.
Looks like a lot of the comments are coming from Australian folks, so let me reminisce a bit about Midnight Oil as an American. I was a university student when I first saw the video for "Beds Are Burning" on MTV. I loved the song right away, and I remember the videos for "The Dead Heart" and "Dreamworld" as well. All great songs. I bought Diesel and Dust -- on CASSETTE! - and loved all of it.
When the Blue Sky Mining album came out, the videos for "Blue Sky Mine" and "Forgotten Years" got a fair bit of airplay on MTV as well. And I bought and enjoyed the CD.
I got to see an Oils concert in Los Angeles around 1993, when they were touring to support the Earth and Sun and Moon album. One of the best live shows EVER! By then, I had listened to some of their music that preceded Diesel and Dust, with the song "Kosciusko" being a particular favorite.
This is all a long-winded way of saying that, while Midnight Oil may not have spent much time on the US charts, the band certainly has its US fans who love and appreciate the band for more than "Beds Are Burning."
I consider E&S&M to be one of their best albums. You should join the Powderworkers Facebook group. We have Oils fans from all over the world on there.
Thank you for that. "The Oils" , as they are fondly called by Aussie fans, which is most of Australia, even now, are endemic to our culture now. They were important to the plight of the Aborigines being recognised and brought to the forefront of the youth of Australia. And their music was fantastic. Australia produced so much fantastic music from the 60's to the 90's that most of the world hasn't heard, and I think it's a loss to the world music scene. We are intensely proud of our artists from this time. Unfortunately it's died off now, but then I'm in my 50's now so don't know the new music. But my 25 year old music loving kid says that most modern music is "mostly shit! You guys had the best of it." I agree with them.😂
@@StephBer1 I'm sure there are many fantastic Australian artists of all kinds that we just don't know about here in the US. But I do know this: Midnight Oil, INXS, and The Road Warrior/Mad Max 2 all came out of Australia. Two of my all-time favorite bands and my favorite movie!
And here's a nice coincidence for you. You posted your reply to my comment early this morning, California time. And this afternoon, "Beds Are Burning" came on the radio!
Sounds like your 25-year-old has good taste in music. Keep on rockin' my friend!
@@imranhusain6087 Keep safe and happy, my friend. And I'm glad The OIls are still getting played there.
After I got into Diesel and Dust, I began buying up their back catalog and especially loved Red Sails in the Sunset and 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1. Really like Blossom & Blood from Species Deceases too. I liked most of their later work as well... Earth&Sun&Moon was great, still really like Golden Age from Capricornia (an honestly hopeful song by them, wow).
Around the same time I got into a few other Australian bands... probably the one I liked the most after Midnight Oil was Hunters & Collectors.
I remember when I first heard this song. I was 11 and my family had just moved to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. We'd been there long enough that I was exposed to the history, and Beds Are Burning made sense to me in a general way. Same thing with Blue Sky Mine when it came out. I just figured he was talking about bad mining conditions in general. What I'm saying is, even if you don't know the specific story behind a song, I think the themes have a universality to them that you can grab onto. Great show.
Oh the themes absolutely have universality. If you live anywhere in the western hemisphere, most of Africa, and lot of Asia, you absolutely have a local story that this song can translate to.
I saw recently that Taika Waititi is using his Hollywood clout to try and get indigenous stories made, producing a show about Native Americans called Reservation Dogs. I'd like to see a lot more of these indigenous stories being told. Millions of voices silenced forever, it's the least we could do.
And we hired Navajo men who didn't understand English to work in Uranium mines while purposely obscuring any education and stiffing them of compensation when they inevitably all got cancer.
Because a lot of them smoked it could not be proven that there was any culpability on the part of the US government when they got lung cancer.
thatdapperfellow JFC! Source??
@Kausachun Velasco Thanks
@SgtBaker16 You could have gone with compassion but that's what you went with instead. Yikes.
Enh. That’s small potatoes. The “stealing children” from native Americans is something done on gigantic scale in the US and Canada. Never mind the Trail of Tears.
These days, the only children being stolen are coming in via Mexico, so that’s a huge improvement. Oh wait, no, native Americans still have a much higher chance of having DCS take their children away, including when controlling for the same situation (never mind that said situation is mostly caused by the government indirectly).
Thank Christ you acknowledged that Midnight Oil are faaaaarr from one hit wonders. Even now, the name commands a lot of respect in Australia; they're not current, but they're not has-beens. As an Australian, thank you so much for portraying Australia and its people as more than just punchlines or Crocodile Dundee stereotypes. You did an exceptional job summarising the effect WW1 had on the Australian cultural identity (I couldn't have done a better job) and some of the low-lights of our history - you even taught me some things I didn't know about. Well done and thank you.
If anyone likes Midnight Oil, try listening to early Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. They lost their Aussie twang half-way through the nineties, but their first 8 studio albums were vicious and brutal, though not as political as Midnight Oil.
Nick Cave is the only singer I can think of where I legit like the majority of their work. I have 2 or 3 songs of so many artists and band, but I have almost all of Nick Cave's complete albums.
Wasn't too into Grinderman...
Yeah, even limiting it to the U.S., they're a real reach as far as being "one hit wonders." I think just saying that only having one top-40 hit makes you a one-hit wonder is overly reductionist. Lots of bands had 1 crossover hit but numerous hits on their homegrown charts (be it Rock, Alternative, Country, R&B, etc.) I don't consider those "one hit wonders."
Natalie Kula they just did two sold out world tours in two years, thats current
I’d love to go to Australia I want to see Sydney.
Also Warumpi Band and No Fixed Address
Armistice Day is legit. That song is so dark and disturbing, but it's so satisfying. That riff too, the single note slow breakdownish riff, I love that.
Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts is a totally cohesive brief. Just read it as "Minister of Stuff We Don't Want to Fund".
bombing the living daylights out of cambodia
damn peter garrett ... much aplauses
I mean he’s clearly not wrong
@SgtBaker16 shut up
I want to see an American call out Kissinger like Garrett did.
As an Australian I feel kind of dorkishly flattered that you put so much time and research into this, Todd. Nice work! To me the "beds are burning" metaphor was always just meant to represent the guilt we should feel for all the terrible things done to the Aboriginal people for which we haven't yet made amends. As in, how can you sleep so soundly with this terrible, and indeed burning collective guilt on your conscience?
Literally what research? He said Australian politics is obscure and no one knows anything about it (because only Americans count I guess) and he gave zero information on the subject of the song except that it's about "the Natives"
@Andy Salter you have no idea how oppression compounds like negative interest over multiple generations... Please, don't feel guilty, but do some fucking research
@Andy Salter Oh, a racist. Don't usually find a lot of those in Todd's comments. Fuck off.
@Andy Salter racism is more than outwardly saying you hate someone, insisting on painting all Australian Aboriginal ppl with the same dismissive brush and actively ignoring the context of the horrors they've suffered is an inherently racist action and your rambling doesn't help your case. So again, fuck off racist
@@Kat-qe1vk Indeed. It's historic, systemic, deliberate. Anybody that _does_ come out of minority populations on top is either extremely fortunate or _extremely_ resilient, and had to fight against a bunch of obstacles that bigots, from way back when and recently, deliberately installed to either hate or to keep people in poverty to make capitalists happy. Until these barriers are broken and a better system installed, reparations are made and peaceful integration achieved, these issues will only continue in perpetuity.
Anyone else reading? "Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" is only applicable from a position of privilege. If you're disadvantaged from, say, ethnicity, as most dark-skinned indigenous groups are within countries with white people, there is little-to-any privilege to be had. It's a fundamentally unfair, rigged contest. Quit putting the onus on OBVIOUSLY oppressed groups, and put it on the damn system. Chances are, it's rigged to hold YOU back too.
Peter Garret's dancing is everything I want to be as a person. 👌 👌👌 👌
It should be. :D
👌
Genuinely impressed by the amount and quality of research you've done regarding my humble nation simply in order to understand the context behind a single song.
Also: 'You know how in America we have this thing where we tend to screw over black people and screw over the natives? Okay, well, in Australia the black people are the natives, so they were able to screw them over much more efficiently than we did.' That is so incredibly savage, and so incredibly accurate. Much respect.
That quote is now one of my favourite quotes form a TH-cam video. Spot on!
Huh. I'm used to seeing you in the comments of British panel show clips. It feels odd but kind of cool to see you here.
@@qwertyTRiG Ha, well, cheers! Surprising to be recognised for TH-cam comments... maybe if I can't make it as a famous TH-camr I can be a famous TH-cam commenter... probably less money in that :P
@@DodderingOldMan Go for fame!
@@DodderingOldMan I bet you could get a patreon going ;)
Can I just say your understanding of the context of Australian history and politics is so far beyond the average non-australian it makes me really happy you reviewed it and helped others have even a smallest new knowledge about our country.
I think the burning beds metaphor, is equating Australia as a country to a bed, I.e somewhere comfortable and safe, like home, aborigines being the native people of Australia they are intrinsically linked with the country, hurting them is like hurting the country. He's asking how Australians can sleep at night knowing their country's culture and history is being destroyed, "how do you sleep when your bed is burning?"
The other meaning that comes to mind is more literal, the singer is taking on the perspective of an aboriginal person, singing as if he was one, they were taken from their homes, and then their homes were bombed.
The main chorus line, "How can we sleep when our beds are burning?" Is supposed to imply that although the aborigines have been relocated, their homes are still burning, because a government camp will never be their home.
Just a few thoughts off the top of my head.
Thanks for doing Midnight Oil Todd. I'm an Australian and I love Midnight Oil more than any other Aussie band, and we've got some good ones. Thanks for being open and forthcoming about the dark spots that they sing about as well. We've done some pretty messed up things in this country, and pretending we didn't only makes it worse.
Them and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
I heard that Eurodance remake before, it was a minor hit in Europe. Can't remember the band's name, but I bet they had no idea what the song was about.
***** I did know that in fact, I've seen the signs in photographs. It's a shame we don't still have bands like Midnight Oil to sing about the injustices in our past, and lets be honest, our present.
There are definitely still bands that do stuff like this; they just don't get as successful, sadly. Actually, a lot of Australian hip hop (I am Australian and our hip hop is legitimately super good, by the by) is very political - Bliss n Eso, for example, have done a bunch of environmental stuff in their work.
Aussie hip-hop, eh? I'm guessing it's better than Hilltop Hoods, which is about the extent of my Oz rap knowledge. (Sorry, I'm a Kiwi. We're too busy playing our own stuff).
Also, yeah, Oz has some major problems with racism. I'm going to be fair here and say that we haven't exactly been great with regards to Māori people (to say the least), but there was the Treaty of Waitangi, which allowed for restitution once our local civil rights movement started revving up in the '60s and '70s. (I can see Bastion Point from my house, BTW). Australia does have a ton of good things, but when you guys (as a generalisation) do bad stuff, you don't half-ass it. (Refugee camps on Nauru,, anyone? Seriously, WTF).
This plays a lot on Canadian radio, actually. The political turmoil over Aboriginal rights is similar to First Nations in Canada (both being former British colonies), so this song addresses similar issues like residential schools and urban development on native land.
Unless I am mistaken (and I very well may be, since I'm more familiar with the Australian side of it), the aboriginal tribes had it worse than the First Nations. In Australia during the Victorian era, there was an active attempt to essentially breed the aborigine out of the aborigine.
The Canadian government had a similar mindset. "Take the Indian out of the Indian." Residential schools ripped First Nations children from their families, and placed them in schools frequently staffed by nuns and priests. Use of their native languages was prohibited and punished, and predictably, abuse of all kinds was rampant. After his diagnosis of terminal cancer, Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie spent the remainder of his time working on projects that focused on the damage that residential schools and the government have done to the First Nations. This included a project telling the true story of an Anishinaabe child who died in the 60s while trying to escape back to his Nation from a residential school. Estimates of children who died as a result of abuses in this system range into the thousands, and the last federally operated residential school only closed in 1996.
We also have an ongoing movement demanding a serious investigation into the disappearances and murders of large numbers of Indigenous women (Hundreds acknowledged by the government, but into the thousands projected by First Nations activists), an issue that many are content to continue ignoring.
Canada has a very ugly side, and it's not confined to the past or within our borders. We deployed a military unit known to be full of racists to Somalia in the 90s (Which resulted in war crimes). The government later reneged on a deal to bring Afghans who assisted Canadian soldiers in Coalition operations back to Canada with their families. That decision was met by protest from the Canadian Forces stating that this was effectively leaving the Afghans open to retaliation by the Taliban, but as far as I remember, it dropped out of news coverage not long afterwards.
Heavy subject matter, but Midnight Oil's big hit is relevant from a Canadian perspective, is what I'm coming back to.
I married a Native man. His mother, when she was a kid, had to run and hide from the Mormons that drove through the reserve looking to scoop up children. His older cousins remember when it was illegal for Natives to go downtown after dark. Like you said, this stuff isn't so far in the past as we might like to think.
Actually I've only heard Beds are Burning a couple ties on the radio. Granted I like the hard rock station, and they usually prefer to play the Alexisonfire cover of Dead Heart
At least there's south Africa to make everyone feel slightly less bad about how shitty their country was.
That line about the Mad Max world being an improvement has depressingly aged very well.
How's Sydney 2020 going... Looking like Thunderdome from the outside.
@@RatelHBadger I wrote that comment during the bushfires, shit was positively apocalyptic. The thunderdome likely isn't far away.
@@cbfdxbxsb 2 man enter, ScoMo leave
Just reading those last two words... that's nice.
@@cbfdxbxsb yes
My mom was sitting in the other room and then said “is that midnight oil.” She then came over and watched the whole video, singing every lyric and then telling me she had seen them live. Btw if it makes you feel old to know that college students now have parents who grew up in the 70s-80s I’m truly sorry.
Your mom had sex with a bunch of guys before she met your dad. Not necessarily all at once-I’m not trying to wreck your conception of your mom. I’m hoping you’ll stop feeling so young and see your mom as a complete human being independent of her role as your mom.
If you already do, ignore this comment. Everyone is else: as an exercise, imagine your parents having lots of sex with other partners when they were young.
No worries. Gen-X(people who grew up in the 70s and 80s) are either 50 years old or about to be. We came to terms with getting old a while ago. It's the later Millennials and early Gen-Zers that are about to be hitting their 30s and staring down middle age.
Congrats on having a cool mum.
If it makes anyone feel old, let me tell you, as one of those kids, I don't feel particularly young.
One of these days, you lot better be rich enough, quick enough, and smart enough to make Todd do 99 Luftballons. I will never understand why it's gone unreviewed for so long
jseeker1867 ... Um, he did do 99 Luftballoons. A couple years ago, actually.
theoriginalsache No he didn't.
Where? Link it!
Maybe it got removed for some reason?
jseeker1867 I assume because the song is in German. covering things in languages you don't speak sounds hard.
although nena would be interesting. she had a billion hits in Germany.
As an Australian who is pretty familiar with Midnight Oil you totally nailed it.This is why I love this show you clearly do a lot of research and I really respect that. But hearing them being referred to as a One Hit Wonder feels so odd!
Unfortunately, the music scene here in the US was (and still is) finicky about what's being put on the radio, compared to now for the net with TH-cam and Spotify, we're able to discover more and more, without having to use the radio so much.
There are SO many bands that have been worthwhile to listen to from Australia, UK and more, but unfortunately, you'd have to either be "in the know" or have a friend who's "in the know".
Yep, and thank god for that, I've founds so many great Aussie and English bands thanks to TH-cam that I doubt I've had found out otherwise.
oliviaisgod I’m Australian and man these guys are huge here!
Patrick Lauer - I'm Australian too - and boy, these guys were huge here!
BTW I even had the pleasure of interviewing Martin Rotsey for Australian citizenship way back in the early -80's.
This Todd in the Shadows guy is a very fine researcher and presenter. He's covered a lot of ground in 16+ minutes.
If you use the narrow defnition of "only one single to reach the Billboard Top 40", well, they are. And you know who else qualifies by that definition? Jimi Hendrix. The Grateful Dead. Rush. Frank Zappa. And several others.
With that said, I do remember hearing Midnight Oil on American radio quite a bit during the late '80s and early '90s.
I've been waiting for this one for so long.
YOU'RE A MIDNIGHT OIL FAN? THIS EXCITES ME!
Didn't expect to see you down here
@@artistwithouttalent Don't you mean down UNDER here?
I'll escort myself out.
It's weird that Todd thinks "New Years Day" is the angriest U2 song when they have a song about Bloody Sunday.
And also one called "Bullet the Blue Sky" about the results of Ronald Reagan's foreign policy vis-a-vis Central America... "Bullet" is probably the hardest rocking song in U2's entire discography.
He said "one of"
@@AbbeyRoadkill1 And also the best.
_"How can we dance when the beds are burning?"_
Peter Garret: Like this!!!
Wow. He's never posted two videos so close together like he has over the last few weeks. It's good to see his channel becoming more active... Hope I don't jinx it!
I imagine he needed to finish the requests now so he can focus on the year end countdowns
Justice J. Srisuk good job he won't upload for a month now
I guess his bed is burning, so he can't sleep, amirite? No? Okay...
Baack when he was one of the biggest name on tgwtg (for I think 6-8 months) he was making a video every two weeks. It was a better year for pop music tho, songs weren't necessarily better but stuff sounded different and their were bigger personalities so he had a bigger pool for material.
Justice J. Srisuk to be fair it is kinda like he didn't get that last video uploaded. Weird because he LIKED the song.
I knew the song as soon as I heard the notes, but did not know the title. This guy is now one of my favourite guys ever, and I'm going to need to get like, this bands entire discography. I shall call him "less douchey and more effective Bono"
"name an Australian prime minister" its ok Todd I barely can either and I've lived in Australia all my life
I mean we did have 5 in the last how so many years
That's kind of concerning considering we can't opt out of voting lol
Who could forget Bob Hawke, the Australian PM who has a Guinness World Record for beer drinking?
Australia has had so many damn PMs too, you guys have had like 9 in my lifetime. I'm used to Canadian where you elect for sometimes decades because you've resigned yourself to picking a turd so why go fishing for a new one when the one you have already stinks enough? Like damn Australia who knew you were so ambitious and full of hope (or rage, or whatever emotion it is that you guys have)?
Here's hoping that that Morrison jerkoff gets ousted soon.
Holy shit, all these years I had no idea what that song was actually about. It was a big hit here in NZ too. I have a newfound respect for these guys. Garrett truly practiced what he preached.
As a non-Aussie, Midnight Oil are fucking kickass. Their album 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 is beyond brilliant. SPEAK TO MEEEEEE, SPEAK TO MEEEEEE!!!! Highly, highly, highly recommend checking them out regardless of your knowledge on Australian political issues. It's a cool learning point and it's kickass music.
Thank you Todd for spreading the word to Americans about the dangers of drop bear. Far too often have I seen mauled tourists rushed into emergency wards with injuries that could have been so easily avoided.
SMH so many lost tourists, so much lost tourism money. I mean, we still rifle through their pockets after they die, we are descended from convicts after all, but it's not the same as selling pointless trinkets (i.e. keepsakes made in Taiwan or China and sold as "Australiana") to tourists.
In the name of international gratitude, please allow us to return the favor. If you ever visit the western part of the United States please know that the southwestern jackalope is really quite dangerous, and plagues unsuspecting tourists and Burning Man attendees alike. The whiskers may be cute, but those antlers should not be ignored.
Vortex Productions Part of me wants to believe that the concern in your comment is sarcastic. I feel so horrible.
Any American tourists heading to Australia, a great tip commonly used by Australians themselves, spread vegemite on the back of your hands, it'll ward off any dropbears in your area #yourwelcome
I myself have been the victim of a drop bear.
It pooped on my shoe during a photo session.
Todd, if you like Midnight Oil, i'd suggest to look up some of Warumpi Band. It's a band that is mostly Aboriginal members who toured with Midnight Oil in the 1980's and did a number of songs in a dialect of Aboriginal language. Did a lot of politically themed songs as well and had a bit of a blues rock sort of sound to them. They were also the band that originally did 'My Island Home' that was later covered by Christina Anu, which i'm not too sure if you've ever heard of, not sure if her only hit ever made it overseas.
Found them on Spotify. I'll check them out soon; thanks for the recommendation!
Would also be cool to look at goanna
This is super impressive. This might be Todd's best video I wasn't expecting him at all to go into this kind of depth (i'm an Aussie and yeh, Midnight Oil are more relevant than ACDC probably). The points about history are so important to the bands identity, and I'm grateful that Todd didn't bullshit this one at all (like that POS channel "lie like music" that is pretty much a shitty wikipedia recap) The detail put into a relatively short video really makes me retroactively appreciate his other videos more, as Todd clearly has improved and goes above and beyond.
The Midnight Oil song "US Forces" (which you should listen to right now) deserved to be a worldwide smash hit. That's a masterpiece and this vid made me realise just how crap it is that a band so ahead of it's time didn't get wider reception.
10/10 video
Ya not wrong about ACDC after bon died they were hardly aussie anymore and yes US Forces is great song worth listen bu forgotten years is their best IMO
The bit about Reagan era America not being ready for that is the funniest line in this whole video.
Took your advice and listened to US Forces. Can confirm. IT'S EPIC!
Todd is probably right in that it was too edgy for the time, but it's still a really good song.
Watching this again since Australia is literally burning from all the wildfires at the moment. Had to think of this review.
As an American, I was late to discover Midnight Oil by Australian standards, but I was rather early by American standards. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 was my first Midnight Oil album, in 1982, and I was instantly hooked by the very first cut, the eerie "Outside World", which in retrospect, I guess was partly about *us*. In 1984, I played the hell out of the "Best of Both Worlds" single, which had the most badass riff I ever heard. The riff and energy were so intense, I never paid much mind to the lyrics, which were very Aussiecentric. When they finally hit the top-40 in America, I was a little ambivalent. I was pleased that they were getting their due at last, but a little saddened that I had to share my "secret discovery" with the rest of the world lol. Great band, even if I never understood a word of it.
The Hills that Have Eyes are Alive With Music
Arrowdodger just found this channel, finally watched this video and that was my first thought. 😂✌🏻👊🏼
So Garett's basically Bono with actual power
s14.favim.com/orig/160531/disney-gif-lion-king-Favim.com-4364274.gif
and not a huge self-fellating dildo
Bravoler 🤣
And even more obnoxious.
@Ornate Orator Bono is not British.
Just an interesting aside that occurred to me while watching this. Todd refers to the fact that "even a backwater hick like Crocodile Dundee" references injustice against Aboriginals. Paul Hogan himself was not a "backwater hick" but a working class inhabitant of Sydney who came to fame after competing in a TV talent show. He was working as a rigger on the Sydney Harbour Bridge (that means he installed the rigs that allowed painters and maintenance men to repair and paint the bridge). He hated the talent show as cruel and demeaning and the idea was simply to make fun of it by appearing as a deliberately incompetent magician. He ended up winning because the performance was so funny, was invited onto a local current affairs show to comment as an "ordinary worker" on news of the day, then ended up with his own sketch show. What is often left out is that he was a shop steward for his union, which was Communist-led (another peculiar Australian thing, while the Australian Communist Party wasn't huge, and was never a significant electoral force, nearly a 1/4 of Australian workers from the 1940s through to the 1970s were members of unions that were either led by Communists or by "unity tickets" of Communists and members of the left wing of the Labor Party). If you listen to his famous speech at the Oscars where he tells all the stars present to behave badly to entertain the viewers, note how he refers to them as "fellow workers". He was obviously referencing his experience as a shop steward, though when he was a shop steward back on the bridge the normal form would have been to refer to his members when addressing them at meetings as "comrades". As Todd points out, Australia is a stranger place than you might think, full of contradictions.
That is really interesting, thanks for sharing!
As a fellow marxist I'm now inspired to watch crocodile dundee
So he's a comrade? Dope!
Paul Hogan and Arnold Schwarzenegger are my two favorite Australians. Yes, I’m an American, why do you ask?
@@MarcosElMalo2 Well played, Sir, well played. 👋👋👋
Midnight Oil were really popular on the rock and alt-rock stations back in the 80s, and even into the early 90s. In fact, Blue Sky Mine went #1 on the Rock and AltRock charts and Forgotten Years hit #1 on the AltRock charts, while Beds Are Burning peaked at #6 on the Rock charts. Despite this, Beds are Burning is their only Billboard Top 40 single.
I once heard Midnight Oil described as "U2 if U2 was fun." I saw them on the Diesel and Dust US tour right when "Beds Are Burning" was peaking, and it remains one of the best shows I've seen. They knew how to get their message across--attach it to super-catchy tunes.
My Dad had this album, and he loved this song. I would've loved to send him this video. :( #RIPDad
Peter Garrett is a national treasure. If any Americans here watch Sourcefed, Maude on that used to be a television host here, and is Peter's neice.
And thank you for mentioning Hoodoo Gurus! They are my favourite.
Wow you're beautiful.
Mars Needs Guitars. I saw them in a small pub in Florida, circa 1986. Big Fan at the time.
I was so pleased to see the Gurus get a mention!
This song blows my socks off every time I hear it. Sometimes I get chills. I truly am a grade A slacktivist...
Peter Garrett’s dancing is so iconic. Midnight Oil was one of the loudest bands you could ever see play live! Amazing. Great review, love your sarcasm
My dad got to see them play live a few times with a couple of the other big Australian acts back in the late 80s and early 90s because he worked with the Australian Grande Prix. My dad still plays a lot of this music to this day and that’s why I know a bit more about Australian culture than the typical Canadian.
I have seen a lot of bands over many years of concert going, but when I saw Midnight Oil on the "Earth and Sun and Moon" tour they struck me as the most intense and TIGHT live band that I had ever seen.
Someone once said Peter Garrett could whisper louder than some people screamed, and my lord is that apt. The entire band (rest in peace Bones) deserves all the credit, especially Rob and Jim for doing a lot of the song writing, but my lord what a front man that Garrett.
Not sure why the algorithm coughed this one up several years later, and I almost didn't click because "WHAT?!? do you mean, One Hit Wonder?!?" and then I thought about it okay, yeah, technically here in the US they were, so hey, curiosity won out.
MARVELOUS work. The Oils are one of my "big three" all time faves, and you did them justice. Thank you.
Ahhh yes... do you know this song is the favourite Midnight Oil song of John Howard, one of our former Prime Ministers? The punchline is that he was largely responsible for stonewalling attempts at indigenous reconciliation during his time in office.
And also being responsible for the 2007 intervention.
It's a bit like one of David Cameron's favourite songs being the Eton Rifles by the Jam. Which is about a group of posh Eton school boys (which Cameron was one of at the time) assaulting protesting workers.
It's a bit like New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie's not so secret idolization of staunch liberal Bruce Springsteen, or Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan's favorite band is Rage Against the Machine. I can't make this up.
Leviadragon like Hillary Clinton favorite song is KMFDM - Stray Bullet
the favorite also of Eric Harris of Columbine its on his way back machine archive of his aol blog before the word blog was invented.
facinating
maaaaaaaaate a bloody Aussie classic if I ever heard one.
MMAAAAAATE
Gus98Bus MA MA MAAAAAAATE
Onya maaaaaaate.
Gus98Bus M8!
David Bowie's Let's Dance video is also about aboriginals getting evicted because of bomb testing . Maybe it wasn't that obscure.
Bowie really liked Australia. He spent a lot of time here, so I'm not shocked he knew about that to be honest.
Pretty sure Kate Bush has a song about the same thing
Wait. So in 1983 Bowie released Let's Dance. Singing "put on your red shoes and dance the blues, in the serious moonlight." He made the video about aboriginals getting evicted, which presumably was very popular worldwide even if people didn't know what it was about. Then, in Australia, Midnight Oil decides to write a hit song about the same topic, and chooses to write "how can we dance when the world is turning?" Which reads to me like a direct response to Bowie. In shorthand:
Bowie: "Let's dance."
Midnight Oil: "How can we dance?"
And here's the kicker. Midnight Oil are most certainly a serious band. And you know how you might see oil at midnight, under the moonlight... the serious moonlight.
This is insanity.
Just chiming years after the fact, but the Oils are one of my favourite bands of all time. I'm Finnish, so I never had the opportunity to see them live, but still they are legends! There's a lot of good songs on their back catalogue, but my personal number one is Head Injuries (released in 1979 a year before my birth). There's the intensity but it's young and raw. Just lovely.
Midnight Oil has been such a staple of Australian music for so long that many of their melodies and ideas have transcended genre
New Year's Day is specifically and explicitly about the martial law in December of 1981 in Poland and about how it attempted to quench the rising Solidairy movement, Bono has admitted this, I believe.
holy shit, fr? i'm polish and never knew this :0
Jesus, I think this is the most political band I've ever come across! They make the Clash seem basically apathetic.
You REALLY need to listen to more punk.
Ya I think you haven't heard Rage Against The Machine haha
They’re not even the most political Aussie band. I think that title goes to Redgum.
@@katherinemorelle7115 in terms of output though, the Oils have everyone covered.
Napalm Death, anyone?
I'm definitely going to have to check this band out.
I'm also feeling this.
Check out blue sky mine!
Red Sail in the Sunset is one of the best albums ever.
Ro Jaws mate, 10-1
Same
Midnight Oil are a top shelf band. Great musicians, even better song writers.
I know you were nervous about covering this subject matter Todd, but it's really great that you did. So many people learned about this thing that happened, thanks to the band writing about it, then you writing about them. Keep it up!
Good thing I saw this 30 seconds after it was made public, you know, 2 minutes before it is wrongly claimed.
I own all the Midnight Oil albums and love nearly all their songs. Easily some of the best protest music ever.
I think Redgum deserves an honourable mention, they’re probably the most political Aussie band, ever moreso than Midnight Oil (which is saying something). Different genre, but they get me worked up politically just as much, if not more than, The Oil.
Probably the first OHW song you did that features _my_ instrument. Long live the French horn in rock!
lucky you...some of us don't have the luxury of their instrument in any of this kind of music
Is it the hornstab in the begining of the song? sounds great.
Eruk Umunuellsun I'm sure that the horn part at the end is pure french horn, I _think_ it's mixed in with trombones at the horn stab, or at least that's my recollection from watching it performed at the 2000 Olympics closing ceremonies. Regardless, it's pretty rare for a rock song to have french horns in it. Less so for the trumpet and the flute, so my family mostly has the advantage over me... or at least most of them do. (My niece plays the xylophone. Todd mentioned probably _the_ rock song this decade that used that, "Ain't it Fun", on the appropriate top-Ten Best list.)
Yeah. Forget the trumpet, man! French horn's where it's at!
As a bass clarinetist I'm still waiting for that spotlight.
I'm from the U.S. and I'm a huge Midnight Oil fan! Awesome band! And not just Beds are Burning, even though it's an awesome song, too! We're not all oblivious over here!
These are some very passionate artists who know the power and sometimes responsibility of their craft. They've earned my respect. I may have to get some of their songs.
He's right. Midnight Oil's 'Power and the Passion' is a huge deal down here.
Great video, Todd!
As an Australian, it's slightly bizarre to see someone talk about an Australian band in such big detail. I have to say, you did an amazing job with your research into the band and its history. Great work!
Keep up the great work with the videos!
Their "Blue Sky Mining" album was one of the first rock albums my dad introduced me to, along with the far more remembered "Out of Time" from R.E.M, back when I was in preschool. I have really fond memories of this band, much like Chumbawumba, which became even more fond when I began to understand the meaning behind the lyrics.
Something I don't hear people talking about much as an influence on 80s Australian music is the impact of the
Australian government opening up tertiary education and abolishing university fees in the mid 70s with the conception of Midnight Oil (Peter Garrett would have been in his 20s at the time). My parents were both from working class families and wouldn't have gotten university education otherwise. Essentially, a broader part of the population were getting higher levels of education and their voices were more likely to be heard, joining conversations about social issues that they probably didn't have the academic language for or even social access to beforehand. I think this is partially why there would be increased demand in this sort of musical discourse in the 80s in Australia. Midnight Oil were BIG back then and even released an album last year.
(Sorry for the rant)
As someone who was only listening to Top-40 radio (NYC & Philadelphia) stations in the late 80's, I recognized Blue Sky Mine, so it must have gotten enough radio play folr me to remember it 35 years later even if it wasn't a hit.
It's been weird to see bands heard semi-regularly on the radio here in Australia (Midnight Oil, Divinyls) talked about as one hit wonders - I wasn't alive in the '80s and yet "Pleasure and Pain", "The Power and the Passion" and the like are fairly well known here. Well-researched, though.
Some other good politics-heavy Australian groups from around the same era are Spy v. Spy (no massive hits, but "Don't Tear It Down" was their biggest) and Redgum (famous here for their #1 hit "I Was Only 19", but they've got plenty more great material beyond that).
Funnily enough, Todd also did a "One Hit Wonderland" video on The Divinyls - I Touch Myself.
It's a bit odd watching this since when I first heard this song in Year 3 I knew exactly what it was about. This is all really big stuff for Australians, and you probably won't meet a person over the age of 7 or 8 who grew up in Australia and didn't know about the stolen generation and the land rights battle.
(I live in an area where working for the government is really common so it might be influenced by that
Thank you for appreciating aussie music. Not often do people notice us all the way down here.
Author Bill Bryson once described Australia as a cultural black hole: everything enters but nothing leaves.
And that's a damn shame. :(
It sure feels like it.
Livia a ikr
Jon Heiman I don’t think that’s fair, especially not when considering the music scene of the 70s-90s. We had some amazing music here in Aus, and I just sad that other countries didn’t get to enjoy all the awesome music we did.
Like Cold Chisel, the Angels, The Living End, Icehouse, Redgum, and of course, Midnight Oil (this is only a very truncated list, there’s so much more).
I've been an Oils fan since the 70s. Seen them in a small venue in Portland, OR, three times in the 90s. The first time was at Winterland in San Francisco in 1984. They have so many excellent songs, and they are awesome!
I was at university in New Zealand (the Canada to Australia's USA) in the early to mid eighties and Midnight Oil were huge. The Power and the Passion was probably the biggest party singalong in the circles I was in. By the time Beds are Burning came out we were graduating and I heard less of this than their previous three albums.
Speaking from an Australian perspective, considering the very Australian subject matter and context of their music it's more surprising to me that they had any hits at all in the US.
Mickey Possingham Great music bridges cultural boundaries. Also, as an American, I do have a frame of reference for white colonials screwing over the native inhabitants of their land.
There's actually nothing wrong with inexperienced celebrities getting involved in politics as long as they're in it for honest, altruistic intentions. The problem would only arise if instead they were dumb, narcissistic, and in it only to help their business.
Well, it could be an issue if their job is really complex and they lack the knowledge or understanding to do it properly. Especially, if it's something really important where screwing up can hurt a lot of people and there isn't really a lot of oversight to make sure something bad doesn't happen.
It also helps if they have someone around they trust and will listen to who can guide them through the details.
multitudeofidols Even if they're well-intentioned it still doesn't help if they don't know what they're talking about.
Chris McWilliams artistwithouttalent This is true of anybody in a representative democracy, not just musicians. No politician knows enough for all the roles which government must fulfill.
Peter Garrett had graduated as a lawyer before co-founding Midnight Oil - he was no green horn when he ran for the Australian Senate, and later for the Parliament. Nevertheless, politics was a chastening experience for him - he ultimately accepted responsibility for the Rudd government's "home insulation debacle" which resulted in the deaths of four roofing insulation installers in 2009.
Peter Garrett was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia, January 2003, the year prior to his being elected to the House of Representatives.
@Howard the Duck I mean....yes? He's amoral, ignorant, insecure, hot-headed...the list goes on. Fine if you're an entertainer. Really, really bad qualities if you are holding the most important position in the world.
Finally reviewing a real Aussie band. Kudos to the patron.
When someone cant sleep they often say "it's like the beds burning" or my beds burning". Hes saying he cant sleep and is tossing and turning because this shit is weighing on his mind.
Now that line from Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer" makes more sense.
I once heard Peter Garrett described as, "Rock and roll's only singing barrister." Apparently he got a law degree and passed his bar exam -- then played in a band for a few years, before settling down and going into politics, something totally unsurprising for a lawyer to do. Midnight Oil was really big for short time, while I was in high school. The topic of government mistreatment of First Nations peoples was common to Australia, Canada, and the US, though it unfolded slightly differently in each location. Midnight Oil was remarkable in that they were writing rock songs about something other than, "boy meets girl, boy loses girl," but they weren't protest songs either. The band symbolized youthful energy rising up and speaking out against social injustices, not just angry and spiteful, but with vision for a better world, and a willingness to participate in the changes they professed.
"Midnight Oil was really big for short time."??? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... you're funny.
As an Australian, it's always interesting to see an outsider's view on our culture. Midnight Oil is huge here, you can't listen to an oldie or alt station for ten minutes without hearing one of their songs. It's interesting to hear that Beds are Burning was the breakout hit though, since Blue Sky Mine, Forgotten Years and Power and the Passion all get basically equal airtime here. By the way, the burning beds isn't a metaphor. Like what happened in your country with the Indians, our government decided to give Aboriginals living on reservations blankets covered in smallpox, to try and eliminate them quietly. They're burning beds so as not to die of disease.
Yes, was hoping for a Midnight Oil episode! Such a cool history behind this band
Forgotten Years and Truganini are two of the greatest rock songs ever written.
Some well-meaning Australians need to come together and make a comprehensive list of great music that isn't hitting stateside. Between Kevin Parker, Midnight Oil, and Garreth Liddard you guys are holding out on the rest of the world.
Garrett is basically king Midas, everything he touches turns to gold
As an Australian I have watched this a few times because it is so interesting seeing the Oils talked about like this. For Americans it is like if an Australian made a video about the obscure one hit wonder band The Beatles and their only hit Yellow Submarine.
A lot of Australians would respond to that comparison with "no offence to The Beatles, but they are not on the same level as Midnight Oil"
Forgotten Years. My favorite as well. I remember hearing it on the radio one time back around 2002 and not again until I found it on youtube last year. Should be mandatory listening on Veterans day & Memorial day.
On tonight's news I heard Australia's giving reparations for the Stolen Generations after decades of bad faith from Canberra, what a timely episode, Todd.
I'm here before *The Man* get our hero from the Shadows!!
Deebo Molina hells yeah
I cant express enough, how big these guys were and still are in Australia
My dad was on tour with Pigface in the 90’s and Käpt’n K and En Esch from KMFDM were there. My dad goes to K, mocking his bald head, “I loved your work in Midnight Oil!” K goes “huh?!” and Esch busts a gut.
Omg frickin hilarious. What was your dad doing with them on the tour? I saw a show on that your