Because of the mutual admiration society formed during the 1993 Canadian “Another Roadside Attraction” tour, I had intended to pair the Tragically Hip reviews with the Midnight Oil reviews. Unfortunately, I ran into a problem obtaining one of the books I needed to present the Oils properly. European sources were either out of stock or offered incredibly long wait times, so I contacted my Aunt Pug in the States to see if the Americans could do better. After multiple delays on her end, she received the book and shipped it to me with an apology in the form of a carton of my favorite American cigarettes, duty-free. She didn’t know that the Irish branch of the family had sworn off American products, and I did give some thought to trashing the cigarettes until I concluded that it would be rude not to accept her very thoughtful gift.

When motivated, I am the Queen of Finding Loopholes.

Unpopular habits aside, the delays actually worked to my advantage by accidentally coming close to syncing where each band was in their developmental trajectory. Chronologically speaking, the Oils were a decade ahead of the Hip, releasing 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 in 1982, while the Hip released Fully Completely in 1992. Both albums marked a significant change in sound and production; the Oils’ album turned out to be their breakthrough album in Australia, while the Hip wowed their Canadian fans with their second chart-topper. The big departure in their trajectories came in 1987 with the Oils’ release of Diesel and Dust, which topped both the Australian and Canadian charts and accomplished something that eluded the Hip throughout their existence: commercial success in the USA.

The Hip were already fans of the Oils when they invited them to join the tour, while the Oils had never heard of the Hip. When the Oils agreed to play second bill to the Hip on the 1993 tour, they had already established themselves as a must-see live act, and the Hip faced a daunting challenge following them on the bill. Gord Sinclair: “The very first gig that we played in Victoria was the first time I’d ever seen them play, and we were like ‘Wow. Like, we’re up against it.’ They clearly came fully intending to blow us off the stage every night.” Gord Downie: “I wouldn’t recommend going on after Midnight Oil to anyone.” (No Dress Rehearsal)

Despite their misgivings, the crowds began chanting for the Hip after the Oils finished their performance, and once they got over their intimidation, the Hip viewed the Oils as unofficial mentors and fellow travelers. While there are significant differences in sound and style, the two bands had much in common beyond living in countries with memberships in the Commonwealth. Both were concerned with the goings-on in their respective countries and shared socio-political views concerning the environment, social justice, and the plight of the indigenous populations—and both bands featured dynamic frontmen in Peter Garrett of the Oils and Gord Downie of the Hip.

Connections explained, it’s time to focus on Midnight Oil.

*****

The narrative of the band’s origins pretty much followed the traditional script: playing popular cover songs and going through several name changes. They started out in the early 70s bearing the name Schwampy Moose with a lineup consisting of drummer and vocalist Rob Hirst, Jim Moginie on guitar, Andrew James on bass, and according to Glen Humphries’ book Sounds Like an Ending, “two other guys—one who played the flute.” They played covers of Cream, Creedence and Led Zeppelin for the surfers on Sydney’s beaches for a couple of years, during which they changed their name twice (to Sparta, then Farm). After finally figuring out that they weren’t going anywhere without a lead singer, they placed an ad in the Sydney Morning Herald and found their frontman.

A tall long-haired blonde guy by the name of Peter Garrett knocked on the door and got the gig. There may have been other people audition but no one in the band remembers any of them – the shock of seeing this towering dude must have wiped any other singers from the memory banks . . .  They gave Garrett the gig – partially because of his striking appearance and partially because he had his own PA.

Humphries, Glen. Sounds Like An Ending: Midnight Oil, 10-1 and Red Sails in the Sunset (p. 9). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Garrett also brought with him a synthesizer and a passion for prog rock bands like Focus, Jethro Tull and Yes, as well as the Australian pop band Skyhooks. The downside of hiring this 6’6″ frontman was that he was studying for a law degree in Canberra, making Farm a part-time entity. They did manage to squeeze in a few tours in the east, but they would only become a serious contender in the music scene when Garrett decided to complete his degree in Sydney and then brought in Martin Rotsey to double up on guitar and Peter. The newly christened Midnight Oil also made a major change in their offerings by writing original songs and shifting to an aggressive mix of punk and rock in response to the growing pub rock scene. Somewhere during this time frame (1976-1977), Peter Garrett shaved his head. Combined with his frantic dance moves and towering presence, Garrett earned a reputation as the most mesmerizing performer in the scene.

As the buzz surrounding the band steadily increased, one might think that record companies would have lined up to sign the Oils. Nah.

Record companies saw “something” but Peter Garrett’s unconventional performing style, thrashing and prancing like a deranged madman, gave them no reference point to fall back on. One record company even suggested that Garrett could tone down his act by dressing up as Spiderman. The Oils were underwhelmed by what the record companies were offering and opted to form their own independent record label, Powderworks. In June 1978 Midnight Oil entered Sydney’s legendary Alberts Studio (AC/DC, The Angels) and recorded their first album in 10 days. (HowlSpace).

The eponymous debut album failed to capture the excitement of their live performances and peaked at #43 on the Australian charts. Their second attempt came much closer to capturing the excitement, but Head Injuries only fared a little better, ending up at #36. After the follow-up EP Bird Noises topped out at #26, the band decided it was time for a change of scenery.

In June 1981, the band had headed to England to record what would be their third album Place Without a Postcard. At the helm was Glyn Johns, who had worked with the likes of The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. This was going to be the band’s big break, the album that would pull them out of the pub circuit in the capital cities and into bigger venues, the album that would catch the ears of music fans in the suburbs of Australia and start the next phase of their career.

But it didn’t. According to biographer Mark Dodshon, several members of the band hated the experience of recording with Johns. And it seems the producer didn’t think much of those months in mid-1981 either; he only mentions Midnight Oil once in his autobiography Sound Man—as part of a list of artists who recorded in his farmhouse studio. The band’s international record label A&M didn’t think much of the album, delivering the standard record company complaint: “We can’t hear any hits. Go back and record some” (a weird complaint for an album that opens with perennial fan favourite “Don’t Wanna Be The One”). Not at all surprisingly, the band refused and so the label threw tapes at the band and effectively said “don’t let the door hit your arses on the way out.”

The band had travelled halfway around the world to write what was a very Australian album. So when they signed a deal with a new record company to release Place Without a Postcard, it went well in the band’s home – reaching No. 12 on the charts. But it really didn’t do much business anywhere else. So the album the band had hoped would take them to the next level ended up leaving them in the same place. That place included being heavily in debt to the Chatswood branch of the ANZ bank and having to tour relentlessly around the country to get out of the red.

Humphries, Glen. Sounds Like An Ending: Midnight Oil, 10-1 and Red Sails in the Sunset (pp. 15-16). (Function). Kindle Edition.

The Oils could have packed it in at that point, but . . .

Instead, they did something that seems a bit insane; they put themselves in debt again and went back to England in September 1982 to record the next album. “We took the gamble of going back to London and living in pretty bad conditions,” Hirst said in Your Name’s on the Door, “not knowing whether we were going to spend the rest of our lives paying off this record that we’d decided to embark upon.” Once over there, they connected with this young producer called Nick Launay, who had a brief CV that included the messy noise of The Birthday Party’s “Release the Bats.” Go and listen to that song and it becomes clear the band made a risky decision to pick Nick. Perhaps even more so when he started coming up with what to the band were weird ideas – overdubbing, multi-tracking, recording the drums without any cymbals, cutting various takes of songs to pieces and then reassembling the finished product with an intro from one song, a verse from another, a guitar solo from here and a middle eight from there. It certainly added to the truckloads of pressure the band was feeling at the time. The way some members saw it, this album they were recording with this Launay kid was the band’s last chance. It could end up being the swansong of Midnight Oil. In a wide-ranging interview with the Depth Perception podcast Moginie said the second time they went to London was “make or break”.

Humphries, Glen. Sounds Like An Ending: Midnight Oil, 10-1 and Red Sails in the Sunset (pp. 16-17). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Nick Launay proved to be the perfect choice because he was a novice. Peter Garrett told Noise11.com’s Edina Patsy in 2016 that “We also caught Nick Launay at a really good time in his career where he was really willing to go out on a ledge and see what he could do.” (Humphries, ibid) Confirmation of their faith in Nick came when they chose him to produce their next album, Red Sails in the Sunset.

Still, the experience of recording the album was fraught with challenges. Humphries also notes, “Hirst himself said he had a nervous breakdown due to being unhappy about the fact that the band was burning through money while staying in England and the pressure of needing this album to be a success. Infighting. Money worries. Nervous breakdowns. Career pressures. If you were a gambler, you’d lay down money that this new album would stiff, with maybe a side bet on the band breaking up before its release. And yet, most likely because of what Hirst categorised as the band’s ‘desperate bloody-mindedness,’ the album 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 did alright. Okay, well, it did better than alright. When it was released in November 1982, it ended up going platinum seven times over, peaked at No. 3 on the album charts, and was still in the top 100 two years later when the follow-up Red Sails in the Sunset was released.”

I love it when the good guys win.

*****

After listening to the first three pub rock albums and the EP, it became clear that Midnight Oil was gradually moving beyond the limits of punk without losing touch with the genre’s anti-establishment orientation. The pubs were simply too small to support a band on a mission to make a difference, and the environment was not conducive to music appreciation. Garrett described the dynamics in The Big Australian Rock Book: “You get booked into a pub or hotel, say in the western suburbs of Sydney. Halfway through your set, two large, drunk truck drivers decide to have a fight. They’re beating each other up and careening towards the corner where the band is set up. Meanwhile, everyone else is going, ‘Aaah, turn it down, I’m trying to watch TV.’ Try to contemplate that as an environment to play music in every night for three years.” In the book The Real Thing: Adventures in Australian Rock & Roll, 1957-now, he described the motivation behind 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1: “We wanted, as a band, to make this album lyrically stronger, because these are fucking desperate times. It’s very important for us to get immediate, because we can’t go on making records like this for years and years and people can’t go on ignoring it.”

“Lyrically stronger” generally meant tackling large issues of worldwide importance in addition to long-standing problems in the homeland. While the Oils had flirted with socio-political themes previous efforts, those issues took center stage on the breakthrough album, as pointed out in a retrospective piece on the album’s lasting impact on Sound Distractions. “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 emerged at a time when we actively questioned US foreign policy and the very real prospect of nuclear war. It was a time when Australians began to consider their place on the world stage, questioning our alliances and the consequences of our government’s policies. In asserting who we were at that time, we also began to question the actions of our past, particularly our treatment of and relationship with indigenous Australians. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 explored those themes and as such remains an important part of our cultural and political landscape.”

The title of the album (usually shortened to 10-1 for convenience) represents either a nuclear missile launch or a countdown to nuclear Armageddon. The latter became a worldwide concern once Reagan took office and ramped up the military budget to an all-time high and spent billions on new-and-improved nuclear weapons, even though the existing arsenal was capable of destroying most of the planet.

Huh. I wonder why the song “American Idiot” just popped into my head.

*****

“Outside World” (Moginie): Jim Moginie predicted that “Outside World” was “going to completely fuck them up.” By “them,” he meant their loyal pub rock followers who would likely find themselves baffled by the song’s dramatic shift away from punk-tinged pub rock. Some have labeled the music as “atmospheric,” a generic term often applied to New Age music that is so un-Oils. I would describe Moginie’s composition as more complex—an animated mood board with variations reminiscent of unstable weather: one minute it’s raining, the next minute it’s sunny, and a few thunderclaps appear to heighten the drama.

The song opens with a duet where Moginie plays wobbly single notes on a keyboard, backed by Peter Gifford handling the rhythm with four-note figures on the bass, never leaving the bottom two strings and never going higher than the eighth fret. The combination of uncertainty expressed in the overtones of the wobbly notes and the insistent rhythm from the bass evokes “uh-oh” feelings of anxiety. The keyboard disappears for four bars, and all we hear are those incessant bass notes, heightening the tension. Thankfully, the mood is broken by a luscious orchestral swoop from the synthesiser, initiating a call-and-response pattern involving the synth and a matching wobbly-note response. The response time shortens during the next three go-rounds, fading into faint hissing sounds followed by one helluva thunderclap from Rob Hirst. After a sudden shot of mellotron-like synth that feels like a sudden sunbreak, Peter Garrett begins his vocals, backed largely by the orchestral synth. His voice is both commanding and calming, the tone of a man who is here to tell the truth and nothing but the truth:

There’s a wind on the eastern side
Ghost gums dance in the moonlit night
Mopoke mourns the racketeers
The bosses they can sense your mood
All in place to a hand that rules
They all want to deal you out

Translations:

• Ghost Gums: “Corymbia aparrerinja, a species of tree that is endemic to Central Australia. It has smooth bark, lance-shaped or curved adult leaves, flower buds in groups of three or seven, white flowers, and cup-shaped to cylindrical fruit . . . this species of tree features in Aboriginal Dreamtime stories and gained prominence with the wider public in the 20th century through the paintings of Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira.” (Wikipedia)
• Mopoke: “The morepork (Ninox novaeseelandiae), also known by its Māori name ruru, is a smallish brown owl found in New Zealand, the Australian islands of Norfolk Island . . . Its names (also including boobook and mopoke) are onomatopoeic, owing to the species’ distinctive calls.” (Wikipedia)

These natural treasures represent the “outside world” of Mother Nature, providing a sharp contrast to the unnatural goings-on of the human race. The Mopoke mourns the blind greed and elitism of the upper class, “the people who would keep us on our knees,” according to Andy Partridge of XTC. The chord progression Moginie employed in the verses is well-designed and mysteriously captivating, opening with the soft sound of an Fmaj7 chord, then moving to Cm-Db-Ab-Bb, closing with an Ab-dim chord in the transition to the chorus. The chorus is set to a simpler pattern of Am-F-Dm-G, minimizing interference with Garett’s passionate vocal:

I can see the outside world
Everything’s inviting in the outside world
Leaving all my problems in the outside world
Nothing’s going to touch me in the outside world

Author Humphries interpreted the chorus as “So maybe what we have here in ‘Outside World’ is a tacit admission that they’ve decided to start looking at places other than Australia for things to write about,” which tells us that he paid no attention to the Ghost Gums and the Mopoke. All the narrator’s problems play out in the corrupt “inside world,” while the outside world of natural beauty is where he can leave all that bullshit behind. As we’ll see shortly, even when the Oils wrote about events involving “other places,” they usually connected those happenings to how they would impact Australia.

What follows is a variation on the opening passage featuring the introduction of distorted wobbly notes that sound like quacking ducks. The ducks and synth leave the scene for a couple of seconds, then Peter steps in to deliver the closing verse and chorus, marked by subtle changes in the time signature, tinkling bells, marimba or synth-equivalent, and restrained backing from Hirst, who then engages in a few healthy whacks to introduce the reprise of the chorus:

As previously noted in my review of “Respectable Street” by XTC, caravans = RVs. As for the Lismore Road, I think everyone on the planet who spends five days a week toiling away on the job and robotically makes plans for a relaxing weekend in the country or on the beach can identify with the experience of having your TGIF dreams go up in smoke: “Lismore Bangalow Road is a vital 33-km, two-lane rural road in the NSW Northern Rivers region, connecting Lismore to the Pacific Highway at Bangalow. It serves as a key tourist route and freight corridor, frequently used to access Byron Bay. The road is known to be quite busy, with some sections reported to have significant potholes and requiring caution.” The dream of living in a caravan and moving closer to nature may not be as exciting as the dream of winning the lottery and buying your own private jet, but it’s one of the few dreams the lower classes can reasonably hold onto, assuming the moguls don’t eliminate their jobs to make the stockholders happy.

A reprise of the chorus follows, with Garrett singing through and an echo patch, and Hirst providing rough punctuation in between the lines. The fade begins as a repeat of the opening passage, but Hirst soon enters the scene with muscular punctuation, slipping into a steadier beat as the mood board shifts into darkness and chaos with dissonant phrases, distorted voices in the background, and a Black Sabbath-like blast of heavily distorted guitar playing a downward riff over Hirst’s all-out attack. The mood then shifts out of the darkness with a short keyboard figure that cues the closing orchestral strike from the synth. I can understand how the piece would have fucked up the core fan base, but beneath all the strange sounds, the Oils were still the Oils, continuing to fight for the common folk.

“Only the Strong” (Hirst-Moginie): Glen Humphries more than redeemed himself from his meh review of “Outside World” with a spot-on assessment of  “Only the Strong.” Since I can’t do any better, I’ll let Mr. Humphries take care of the intro:

All those Midnight Oil fans who were left scratching their heads at the weirdness of the opening track no doubt felt a bit better about 26 seconds into track two. After wading through 25 seconds that had them thinking, “Jeez, they must have forgotten to hit the stop button after they finished recording the first song” (but which sneakily has a bit from both songs, acting as a neat segue from one to the next), they get the bald one screaming about being locked in his room. Any thought to what that might mean is cast to the wind when the guitars and drums come in, seemingly fighting each other to be the first musical notes we hear. The guitars and drums tumble and jostle for position until they take a breather for that line about eating and sleeping. Then in comes the song’s signature sound, that guitar tremolo riff that is so good it gets space on the track all to itself.

Humphries, Glen. Sounds Like An Ending: Midnight Oil, 10-1 and Red Sails in the Sunset (p. 22). (Function). Kindle Edition.

In my review of ELO 2, I mentioned that I sometimes shut out the rest of the players and give my full attention to Bev Bevan on drums. I found myself doing the same with Rob Hirst. As noted in a tribute to the man on Canada Billboard, “Hirst wasn’t just a timekeeper for the Oils, as they’ve lovingly known in these parts. He was their power station, one of the most formidable and accomplished drummers to emerge from these parts.”

His part on this song is actually a patch job. “Launay got Hirst to play the song through several times. Sometimes he’d play it straight, other times he could do his impression of Animal from The Muppet Show. Then Launay would cut out the best drum bits. ‘I spent a whole day editing all the best bits together with razor blades and sticky tape,’ he told Divola, ‘but in the end that song to me captures what I saw live, where Midnight Oil is this powerful steamroller of a machine.’” (Humphries, p.24) Studio fiddling aside, all of Hirst’s contributions demonstrate his incredible agility, his mastery of syncopation, and the untamed ferocity he could bring to a song.

The opening verse and all those that follow seem to tell a story about a captive or a kid locked in his bedroom for being naughty:

When I’m locked in my room
I just want to scream
And I know what they mean
(One more day of eating and sleeping)

It turns out that the song is about the torture inherent in non-stop gigging:

“There I am, back in 1981, sitting alone in the Diplomat Motor Inn in Acland Street, St Kilda, Melbourne,” Hirst wrote. “I’m going crazy in a room stinking of Winfields and Pine-o-Clean, with Chinese restaurant wallpaper all around and the remains of a fettuccine alfredo on the floor, scrawling the words to ‘Only The Strong’.” It turns out it’s more a message of trying to survive life on the road and the endless touring the band was doing at the time. At least that’s what he said in the DVD about the making of the album, also called Only the Strong. “It was a time when were doing gig after gig after gig,” Hirst said. “There was exhaustion, there was a road craziness and cabin fever going altogether [and being an asthmatic playing in venues that resembled “glorified ashtrays” didn’t help].

Humphries, Glen. Sounds Like An Ending: Midnight Oil, 10-1 and Red Sails in the Sunset (p. 23). (Function). Kindle Edition.

The arrangement is largely an all-out bash with hot guitars and a manic vocal from Garrett, but the Oils change gears in the fade with a gorgeous and still upbeat segment featuring bright acoustic guitars—a little bit of healing after the incessant demands of touring.

“Short Memory” (Garrett-Hirst-Moginie): I’ve harped about my generation’s complete ignorance of history on several occasions, so I’m happy to find I have company. The bane is particularly rampant in the USA, which helps to explain why stupid voters keep electing stupid leaders who twist history to their liking:

A search of graduation requirements at most American institutions of higher learning revealed it is possible to graduate from nearly any two- or four-year college or university in the United States, be it a community college or an Ivy League institution, without gaining even a rudimentary understanding of the world. A recent survey of over eleven hundred American colleges and universities found that only 17 percent require students to take courses in U.S. government or history, while only 3 percent require them to take coursework in economics. Don’t get me wrong. Virtually every college or university offers multiple courses in international relations or American foreign policy, many of them well taught and comprehensive in what they cover. But unless a student chooses to major in these subjects, these courses are not required for graduation—and in many cases not even then for those who do choose to major in a related area. One survey of the top American colleges and universities showed less than a third required history majors to take a single course in U.S. history or government!

Haass, Richard (2020). The World: A Brief Introduction (Function). Kindle Edition.

If you want to know how stupid American leaders are, I highly recommend Profiles in Ignorance by Andy Borowitz.

“Short Memory” is a recitation covering centuries of history involving government-abetted genocide, mass murders, repression of people of color, capitalist exploitation and acts of cruelty. Those name-checked include both perpetrators and victims, three to a verse. Each verse ends with the phrase “short memory.” The flaw in the song can be detected in the first three verses:

Conquistador of Mexico
The Zulu and the Navaho
The Belgians in the Congo, short memory

Plantation in Virginia
The Raj in British India
The deadline in South Africa, short memory

The story of El Salvador
The silence of Hiroshima
Destruction of Cambodia, short memory

Other than Hiroshima and maybe the reference to American slavery, I’m sure that most listeners knew nothing about the other examples, as World History is not a required course in many countries. The music is bass-heavy and ornamented with a smorgasbord of sounds that fall short of a solid composition. Still, I appreciate the effort to send the “history repeats itself” message, because people need that knowledge to make more intelligent choices.

“Read About It” (Garrett-Hirst-Moginie): Oh, how I long for the days when there was no cable TV, no social media, unpoliticized nightly news, and something called journalistic integrity. I long for those days even though I never experienced them personally. By the time I started following the news on TV, it had become infotainment, as predicted by the film Network. While there are still a few sources that practice ethical, apolitical journalism, you have to retain a certain amount of skepticism because you can never be sure that they’re giving you the whole story or ignoring stories that should be told. To be fair, journalists today have to deal with governments that spin the “news” rather than tell the truth, and a whole raft of conspiracy theories from social media “influencers” and other internet nutcakes.

Bottom line: we never know what the fuck is going on, and there is no way for democracies to survive if people consistently lack access to the truth.

The Oils deserve credit for seeing through the bullshit back in 1982, but we have to remember that Australia gave the world Rupert Murdoch, which may have given the Oils an unfair advantage. The song opens with static and odd sounds that lead to low-volume electric guitar strumming backed by Hirst’s cowbell. My initial reaction was to increase the volume, but before I could reach the volume knob, the full band exploded in my ears at maximum volume with bright guitars strumming away at high speed to a chord pattern of B-E-B-E-B-E-G#m, the latter chord replaced by a C#-Am set to close the three-line verses. The feel of the song is uplifting, and I feel that uplift even more when the boys join in harmony to deliver the first four verses:

The rich get richer
The poor get the picture
The bombs never hit you when you’re down so low

Some got pollution
Some revolution
There must be some solution, but I just don’t know

The bosses want decisions
The workers need ambitions
There won’t be no collisions when they move so slow

Nothing ever happens
Nothing ever matters
No one ever tells me so what am I to know . . . what am I to know

Nobody likes to be left in the dark, but it’s standard practice in many organizations to tell employees what they think they should know, which is usually superficial crapola. I love how the guitars disappear for the lines “Nothing ever happens/Nothing ever matters,” highlighting the alienation felt by the folks at the bottom. The strumming disappears in the chorus as the Oils go minimalist with group vocal harmonies on the first two lines and Garrett soloing on the last two.

You wouldn’t read about it
Read about it
Just another incredible scene
There’s no doubt about it

The Oils did not forget those who live in authoritarian states where the only “news” the populace receives is state-sponsored propaganda. While reminding us of the dangers posed by closed societies with nuclear stockpiles, they also call out the equally dangerous stance taken by the Reagan administration against the so-called Evil Empire.

The Hammer and Sickle
The news is at a trickle
The commissars are fickle but the stockpile grows

Bombers keeping coming
Engines softly humming
The Stars and Stripes are running for their own big show

Another little flare-up
Storm brewed in a teacup
Imagine any mix-up and the lot would go

All it takes is one tiny misunderstanding, and it’s bye-bye world.

After an extended version of the chorus and a repetition of the main motif, the Oils repurpose the bright guitar arrangement in the form of an extended instrumental passage, lowered to the key of Bb. They close the passage with a sour Cdim chord followed by four seconds of absolute silence . . . then WHAM! They’re back in the key of B with a reprise of the opening verses. The song ends after several repetitions of the main motif with the guitars at full power before fading into the ether.

With its brilliant arrangement, time-shifting in 7/4, 4/4, and 6/4, well-distributed power and insightful lyrics, “Read About It” is one of my favorite Midnight Oil songs. There’s only one thing that puzzles me. Will someone please explain to me how Rob Hirst could sing perfect harmonies with ample enthusiasm while dishing out complex, powerful and tasteful drum patterns at the same time?

“Scream in Blue” (Garrett-Moginie-Rotsey): Humphries tagged this as “the band’s most overt love song.” Lines like “I could kill for this one time and not be caught” are more likely to come out of the mouth of a murderous rapist, and Garrett’s delivery bears an eerie resemblance to Boris Karloff. No thanks!

“US Forces” (Garrett-Moginie): Though the song specifically deals with the heightened Cold War tensions of the early 80s and the Oils’ concern with nuclear proliferation during the Reagan era, one cannot ignore the pattern in American foreign policy that began in the post-war era and continues to this day: the consistent use of military power, economic power and subterfuge to shape the world to American preferences. While Peter Garrett referred to “US Forces” as a song of its time, I think Jim Moginie’s take speaks to the truth:

“I think ‘US Forces give the nod’ was a sentiment that a lot of Americans took the wrong way,” he said. “They were ‘how dare you insult us when we saved you in the Second World War’. The point was that they were taking over the world by owning it with money, coming into countries and taking over like that. “I love American people but the politics of America has been a bit of a problem. The same sentiments are still going on 35 years later.”

Humphries, Glen. Sounds Like An Ending: Midnight Oil, 10-1 and Red Sails in the Sunset (p. 37). (Function). Kindle Edition.

The two verses that open the song speak directly to the problems associated with American meddling:

US Forces gives the nod
It’s a setback for your country
Bombs and trenches all in rows
Bombs and threats still ask for more

Divided world the CIA
Say who control the issue
You leave us with no time to talk
You can write your own assessment

Unfortunately, the remaining lyrics tend to wander off-course (what the hell is L.Ron Hubbard doing here?), and the music feels oddly cheerful in spots. Humphries described the song as “too poppy,” while I would say that the music doesn’t fit the mood expressed in the lyrics. Now that we know that Trump will stop at nothing to get what he wants and the other branches of government will provide nothing in the way of checks and balances, the song seems a bit dated. To be fair, I don’t think the Oils would have imagined the United States turning into a military dictatorship, but it sure is leaning that way now.

“Power and the Passion” (Garrett-Hirst-Moginie): This iconic contribution to Australian music has been performed on every Midnight Oil tour since its release. The tribute to Rob Hirst mentioned above reminds us that “His solo in ‘Power And the Passion,’ from 1982, is both powerful, passionate, and one of the most memorable pieces of percussion in Aussie rock music’s impressive history.”

I have no disagreement with that observation or with Humphries’s belief that the solo “is arguably the moment” in “Power and the Passion.” However, I do think that Peter Gifford’s outstanding bass performance on this song deserves far more attention than it has received. Humphries admitted he didn’t notice Gifford’s contribution until much later, providing proof that every person’s ears are set to different channels, and as an admitted bass whore, I always latch on to what the bass guitarist is up to.

Strangely enough, the song is set to a disco beat, but hints of Saturday Night Fever are blasted to smithereens with ample shots of Midnight Oil power, and Hirst’s solo travels far beyond the limitations of that silly genre. The vocal arrangement combines Garrett’s sardonic observations with suitably powerful and passionate unison singing in the bridges and chorus. In keeping with the pattern established in the preceding songs, “Power and the Passion” is full of surprises, with sudden changes in mood, stop-time, and a no-holds-barred outro featuring a three-man brass section doing their very best to compete with the guitars and Hirst’s explosive performance.

“Power and the Passion” is essentially an attempt to get people to realize that “these are fucking desperate times.” That is not an easy thing to do in consumerist societies where people are geared to seek comfort and spend their spare time enjoying various pleasures rather than fretting about the state of the world—largely because they feel they can’t do a damn thing about it anyway.

People, wasting away in paradise
Going backwards, once in a while
Taking your time, give it a try
What do you believe, what do you believe?
What do you believe is true?
And nothing they say makes a difference this way
Nothing they say will do

You take all the trouble that you can afford
At least you won’t have time to be bored
At least you won’t have time to be bored

Oh-oh, the power and the passion
Oh-oh, the temper of the time
Oh-oh, the power and the passion
Sometimes you’ve got to take the hardest line

I think the typical consumer would respond, “I believe in me-me-me, now leave me alone.” Fortunately, the Oils knew what they were up against and refused to back down. The remaining verses express deep concern about complacency, indifference, and American influence in both the marketplace and military agreements.

Sunburnt faces around, with skin so brown
Smiling, zinc cream and crowds, Sundays the beach, never a cloud
Breathing eucalyptus, pushing panel vans
Stuff and munch junk food, laughing at the truth
‘Cause Gough was tough ’til he hit the rough
Hey, Uncle Sam and John were quite enough

Too much of sunshine, too much of sky
It’s just enough to make you wanna cry
It’s just enough to make you wanna cry (chorus, Hirst solo)

I see buildings clothing the sky, in paradise
Sydney nights are warm, daytime telly, blue rinse dawn
And dad’s so bad, he lives in the pub
It’s an underarms and football club
Flat chat, Pine Gap, in every home a Big Mac
And no one goes outback, that’s that

You take what you get to get what you please
It’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees
It’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees

Translations:

• Blue Rinse is a dilute hair dye used to reduce the yellowed appearance of grey or white hair.
• Gough Whitlam served as Prime Minister from 1972 to 75, representing the Australian Labor Party. During his tenure, “Significant laws were passed in relation to a range of issues, including education, community health and wellbeing, Indigenous Australians, multiculturalism, women’s rights, international relations, defence, environment, economy, and the arts.” Whitlam was ousted by the Governor General Sir John Kerr (the only PM to get the ax in that manner), allegedly after a political brouhaha resulting in a constitutional crisis. The true reason for his dismissal will be explained in the following translation.
• Pine Gap: Pine Gap is a joint Australian–United States satellite communications and signals intelligence surveillance base and Australian Earth station near the town of Alice Springs that began operations in 1970. From Wikipedia: “Gough Whitlam, Prime Minister of Australia, considered closing the base. Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer who had helped set up the facility, said that this consideration “caused apoplexy in the White House, and a kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion,” with the CIA and MI6 working together to get rid of the Prime Minister. On 11 November 1975, the day Whitlam was scheduled to brief the Australian Parliament on the secret CIA presence in Australia, he was dismissed from office as he was unable to guarantee supply (money required for the functions of the government) by the Governor-General John Kerr, using reserve powers, described as “archaic” by critics of the decision . . . according to revelations from CIA whistleblower Christopher John Boyce, Kerr allegedly maintained ties with CIA-funded organizations and was referred to as ‘our man Kerr’ by the agency.

When you have friends like the United States and the United Kingdom, who needs enemies? It’s not surprising that the Nixon-Kissinger partnership would have engaged in such nefarious behavior, but the British involvement was both disgusting and pathetic. Fuck ’em both.

“Maralinga” (Garrett-Moginie): “Maralinga is a desert area around 3,300 square kilometres (1,300 sq mi) large located in the west of South Australia, within the Great Victoria Desert. The area is best known for being the location of several British nuclear tests in the 1950s.” (Wikipedia) What the author of that article failed to mention is that Maralinga had been the traditional territory of the Maralinga Tjarutja people for tens of thousands of years, and the Brits moved them out of their ancestral home to conduct their stupid and dangerous experiments.

These tests were designed to see what would happen in the event of an accidental explosion of an A-bomb en route to its destination. For instance, what would happen if a plane carrying a bomb crash-landed? To find out they used TNT to blow up simulated warheads containing plutonium. What these experiments did was scatter more than 22 kilograms of a particularly heinous form of plutonium across the South Australian desert. During a less-than-enthusiastic clean-up by the British, some of this was buried, some of it wasn’t, and then the Brits told Australia everything was sweet and left.

Humphries, Glen. Sounds Like An Ending: Midnight Oil, 10-1 and Red Sails in the Sunset (p. 47). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Everything was not sweet. When the Maralinga Tjarutja were allowed to return home, they returned to a plutonium-contaminated desert.

While I appreciate the Oils’ attempt to spread the word about the impact of British atomic testing and deceit through the perspective of a native,  there is a fundamental problem with the recording: the band drowns out the most impactful lyrical passages—like this one:

And the grass became granite and the sky a black sheet
Our bed was a graveyard, we couldn’t feel our blistered feet
And the moaning and groaning and sighing of death
And the silence that followed and the very harsh reality

The problem was not addressed in the remaster, so I assume the low volume was intentional. It was also a huge mistake.

“Tin Legs and Tin Mines” (Garrett-Moginie-Rotsey): I have to agree with Humphries when he opined that the song was another “let’s fuck ’em up” offering: “Hey, let’s write a song with a whole lot of random phrases that don’t really mean anything when they’re all strung together and watch as people go crazy trying to work out what the song’s about.” He does make a game attempt at interpretation, but fails to uncover anything remotely resembling a cohesive theme.

On the plus side, I love the introduction with its subtle piano . . . but that’s about it.

“Somebody’s Trying to Tell Me Something” (Garrett, Gifford, Hirst, Moginie, Rotsey): This group composition finds the Oils expressing all the doubts, fears and pressures they were feeling at a time when they had no idea whether or not the new album would land well with the listening public or come up a cropper. Here is the full set of lyrics, excluding the many repetitions of “Somebody’s out there, Somebody’s waiting.”

… Breaking me down, lunatic noises
Breaking me down, desperate voices
Breaking me down, the phone is blistering
Breaking me down, death by listening

… Somebody’s out there, Somebody’s waiting
Somebody’s trying to tell me something
Somebody’s trying to talk to me

… Cracking me up, silence threatening
Cracking me up, storm is deafening
Cracking me up, pressure brought to bear
Cracking me up, now I’m getting there

Humphries noted that the song “sparks negative memories” for Hirst, which is understandable given his nervous breakdown, but he obviously took a lot of his frustration out through his drum performance. I don’t know whether it was therapeutic for the others, but the strength of the unison vocals and the hard-driving instrumental passage indicate that they certainly unloaded a lot of baggage. The piece ends on the line “Breaking me down,” with the vocals on the word “down” extended for thirty or so seconds before collapsing on a downward spiral of exhaustion—a perfect ending to an album created in make-or-break mode.

*****

Given the stress levels, a rookie producer and the uncertainty about the new musical directions, there was no way in hell that 10-1 would achieve perfection, but the album has its fair share of masterpieces to compensate for those that fall short—much like the Oasis album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory. The level of musicianship the Oils displayed on 10-1 is top-notch, and the positive response to the album confirmed that they were heading in the right direction. Things would only get better for the Midnight Oils.

Australians have had a rough time lately with the Bondi Beach massacre and two massive heatwaves triggering bushfires, blackouts, and heat-related deaths. In between the two heatwaves, Rob Hirst died after a long battle with cancer. The tributes poured in from all over the world, but the one that best captured his legacy came from Australian rocker Jimmy Barnes: “Rob Hirst has had a massive impact on Australian culture. He was the engine driving one of the greatest live bands of all time. RIP, dear Rob. You are irreplaceable, one of a kind, and myself, my family, and all the rest of this great country will miss you so much.”

Amen.