Album: Diesel & Dust, by Midnight oil, 1987

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
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning

The time has come to say fairs fair
to pay the rent, now to pay our share

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

The time has come to say fair's fair
To pay the rent, now 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

A call to action! How can be complacent when everything around us is on fireq (wars, exploitation of people, environmental threats, etc)



The Dead Heart

We don't serve your country
Don't serve your king
Know your custom don't speak your tongue
White man came took everyone

We don't serve your country
Don't serve your king
White man listen to the songs we sing
White man came took everything

We carry in our hearts the true country
And that cannot be stolen
We follow in the steps of our ancestry
And that cannot be broken

We don't need protection
Don't need your land
Keep your promise on where we stand
We will listen we'll understand

Mining companies, pastoral companies
Uranium companies, collected companies
Got more right than people
Got more say than people

Forty thousand years can make a difference to the state of things
The dead heart lives here


A call to refuse to serve the western civilization and to support and going back to lost traditions and way of life



Dreamworld

The breakfast creek hotel is up for sale
The last square mile of terra firma gavelled in the mail
So farewell to the norfolk island pines
No amount of make believe can help this heart of mine

End - your dreamworld is just about to end
Fall - your dreamworld is just about to fall
Your dreamworld will fall

So shut that buckle and turn that key again
Take me to a place they say the dreaming never ends
Open wide drive that mystery road
Walk through edens garden and then wonder as you go

Sign says honeymoon to rent
Cloudland into dreamland turns
The sun comes up and we all learn
Those wheels must turn


Western culture destroys natural landscapes for touristic accommodations which calls them Dreamlands. But the real dreamland is the natural environment and not the full of cement and artificial gardens. This song reminds us Joni Mitchel’s Big Yellow Taxi


Warakurna

There is enough for everyone
In Redfern as there is in Alice
This is not the Buckingham Palace
This the crown land
This is the brown land
This is not our land

Some folks live in water tanks
Some folks live in red brick flats
There is enough, the law is carved in granite
It's been shaped by wind and rain

White law could be wrong
Black law must be strong
Warakurna, cars will roll
Don't drink by the water hole
Court fines on the shopfront wall
Beat the grog and save your soul

Some people laugh, some never learn
This land must change or land must burn
Some people sleep, some people yearn
This land must change or land must burn

Diesel and dust is what we breathe
This land don't change and we don't leave
Some people live, some never die
This land don't change this land must lie
Some people leave, always return
This land must change or land must burn

Warakurna, camels roam
Fires are warm and dogs are cold
Not since Lassiter was here
Black man's got a lot to fear

Some people laugh, some never learn
This land must change or land must burn
Some people leave, always return
This land must change or land must burn


Another call to refuse western domination and authorities, indigenous people work like slaves under bad and unhealthy conditions. The call maybe violent: This land must change or land must burn



Sell my soul

Lets begin, I am ready, lets begin
Sell my soul to him
Shed my skin, I just wanna shed my skin
I dont wanna sell my soul to him
Mechanize, city bursts and farmers die
They cry
Sleep face down in a goods train heading south in the rain

In this world I often think you understand me
In these words I often think youd recognise me
cos I just wanna swim with the fish in the sea
And I want faith to heal so that I can be clean

Americas great now
If you dont talk back
You hide your face
Crawl in rubble and smile and scorn
At that snail-paced creature
Going up and down walls

Celebrate, I just want to celebrate
Im not going to sell my soul to him
When you look right in

Midnight oil is an activistic band from Australia which gave us great accusing songs concerning ecological and socio-political aspects about racism and exploitation of indigenous people in Australia. We present here some songs from their masterpiece Diesel and Dust.

You can hear some songs in youtube:


Beds are burning

Dead Heart

Dreamworld

warakurna