Music # 10 'Place Without a Postcard' Midnight Oil

This is one of the 'old fashioned quintessential 'Oils' albums and its only good played loud or live!! Its full of songs about what trendy politicians today call 'aspirational Australians'... which is idiot talk for people with hopes, fears, struggles and a daily grind to eke out a living in this country. It speaks not of hackneyed Aussie bush metaphors but is ringing with the sweat of small old pubs, backyard bbqs and the tears of the average Australian family in all it endures. Its one of my favourite albums of all time because it is uncomplicated... this is largely due to songs like 'Lucky Country' which I hadn't heard the 'Oils' play live for nearly 15 years until they took a 'chocolate wheel' on the road so punters could spin up songs they ought to play thru the gig. Read these lyrics and this song could have been written yesterday. It also reminds me of the Psalms and the so-called 'minor' prophets.

Lucky Country
Speed, and this
There's a feeling I get when I look to the sun
Love, it's so tough
Cause it raises your hopes and then it makes you run

We're all looking for a shorter day
We're all looking for an easy way
Even when the debts are dead and gone

Down, the stairs
And an eight mile drive waits for you to turn on
Hear, the time clocks sing
And the smoke in the distance reaches the eye line

We're all working on a shorter day...

No conversation as you go
There's so much space the heat moves you
Terracotta homes, backyard barbecue and eucalyptus smell
It's fine on the clothes line
It's fast food and slow life and red roof
My silence, comic interruptions
Surely there's some relief from atomic art
And the fragile state of world events
With clowns who love the kings and power and the mutant media babes
wanking on dreams and fashions and toilet paper flowers
Don't talk to me in this backyard - it's clandestine, it's nuclear
Smell of space and now forever I wanna go
Straight down the exit eight mile attraction
U-turn is up and the time clock sings lets go

Lucky country
Where the geckos are paid to live in the sun
On and on there's a ribbon of road and a mile to spare
Lucky country
Lucky country