Midnight Oil 'Song a Day' #33 "Blue Sky Mine"

Classic Oils own clip!!!
   I remember wondering how the Oils could follow up Diesel & Dust, such a unique record, let alone world wide smash hit!! Then came this album and to me it was a different sound, more lush and commercial [but in a good catchy way] and some brilliant tunes. Many long time Oils fans don't rate this record and prefer early albums and EPs... I love this album and this song, even after the D-Gen parody "Who's Gonna Shave Me."
   The Oils decision to not relentlessly tour the world with this album but instead to take a year off and stay at home [families, tiredness etc] is well documented. Would they have been as big as U2 if they had... don't know, but ti was typical them to focus on the music and let the image and fame look after itself!! The other great story is detailed in the 20,000 Watt sleeve with Tim Winton talking Oils fandom and the WA pub eavesdrop from local miners, no Oils fans normally, reckoning at least those '^&%kickers' got that right...

"Blue Sky Mine"
Hey, hey-hey hey
There'll be food on the table tonight
Hey, hey, hey hey
There'll be pay in your pocket tonight
My gut is wrenched out it is crunched up and broken
A life that is led is no more than a token
Who'll strike the flint upon the stone and tell me why
If I yell out at night there's a reply of bruised silence
The screen is no comfort I can't speak my sentence
They blew the lights at heaven's gate and I don't know why
But if I work all day at the blue sky mine
(There'll be food on the table tonight)
Still I walk up and down on the blue sky mine
(There'll be pay in your pocket tonight)
The candy store paupers lie to the share holders
They're crossing their fingers they pay the truth makers
The balance sheet is breaking up the sky
So I'm caught at the junction still waiting for medicine
The sweat of my brow keeps on feeding the engine
Hope the crumbs in my pocket can keep me for another night
And if the blue sky mining company won't come to my rescue
If the sugar refining company won't save me
Who's gonna save me?
But if I work all day...
And some have sailed from a distant shore
And the company takes what the company wants
And nothing's as precious, as a hole in the ground
Who's gonna save me?
I pray that sense and reason brings us in
Who's gonna save me?
We've got nothing to fear
In the end the rain comes down
Washes clean, the streets of a blue sky town