30 DAY SONG CHALLENGE: DAY NINETEEN A song from your favourite album? "Beds are Burning" Midnight Oil

'The Oils' had always done things 'their own way'... band meetings, the Office running it's charity and band business out of Glebe, reforming for 'Sound Wave' and the Bushfire Concert, taking 12 months off just as they were about to break big world wide after this album and even wanting to perform a new song when they were asked to play at the Sydney Olympics. Perhaps Ignatius Jones and his team sold them on the 'behind the scenes' work that was being done to represent indigenous culture so brilliantly... so instead they agreed to play this song "Beds are Burning" and collaborated with their usual costume designer to fit the velcro covers to the word "sorry" on their overalls.
   The album represents the bands experiences travelling through remote parts of Australia and traditional communities. It's a great story that these 'pioneers' found out that no matter how far they journeyed into the outback with NT legends 'The Warumpi Band' they discovered that Slim Dusty had been going there for thirty years!!
   This is a driving album, a colelction for when your annoyed, a reminder of a white perspective that makes room for other voices and a band absolutely on fire, producing a unique Australian sound.
   Nobody plays guitar like Moginie and Rotsey, Rob Hirst' drums and harmonies make their sound and the other guy can't sing [but he has 'something']!!

"Beds are Burning"
Out where the river broke
The bloodwood and the desert oak
Holden wrecks and boiling diesels
Steam in forty five degrees

The time has come
To say fair's fair
To pay the rent
To pay our share

The time has come
A fact's a fact
It belongs to them
Let's give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning
Four wheels scare the cockatoos
From Kintore East to Yuendemu
The western desert lives and breathes
In forty five degrees