Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning
Beds Are Burning is a 1987/1988 worldwide hit single by Australian rock band Midnight Oil, the first track from their album Diesel and Dust.
This song was the second from the album to be released as a single, and is among the band's best-known songs outside Australia.
It reached No. 1 in the New Zealand and South African charts, No. 2 in Canada, No. 3 in the Netherlands Top 40, No. 5 in the France Top 50, No. 6 in the United Kingdom charts, No. 11 in Ireland, No. 17 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, in Sweden and Denmark.
It is one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
It was named number 95 on VH1's 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 80s and number 97 by the Triple J Hottest 100 Of All Time in 2009.
In May 2001, Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) celebrated its 75th anniversary by naming the Best Australian Songs of all time, as decided by a 100 strong industry panel.
"Beds Are Burning" was declared third behind the Easybeats' "Friday on My Mind" and Daddy Cool's "Eagle Rock".
"Beds Are Burning" was declared third behind the Easybeats' "Friday on My Mind" and Daddy Cool's "Eagle Rock".
Meaning
Beds Are Burning is a political song about giving native Australian lands back to the Pintupi, who were among the very last people to come in from the desert. These 'last contact' people began moving from the Gibson Desert to settlements and missions in the 1930s. More were forcibly moved during the 1950s and 1960s to the Papunya settlement. In 1981 they left to return to their own country and established the Kintore community which is nestled in the picturesque Kintore Ranges, surrounded by Mulga and Spinifex country. It is a community with a population of about 400. Kintore and the town of Yuendumu are mentioned by name in the lyrics, as are vehicles produced by Holden. It's believed by some that the line, "How can we sleep while our beds are burning?", may also be a reference to singer Peter Garrett's mother's death in a house fire years earlier.
Midnight Oil performed the song in front of a world audience of millions at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Then Prime Minister John Howard had triggered controversy that year with his refusal to embrace symbolic reconciliation and apologise to Indigenous Australians and members of the stolen generations. But he had also claimed that the reconciliation-themed "Beds Are Burning" was his favorite Midnight Oil song.
The band played it dressed in black, with the word "Sorry" printed conspicuously all over their clothes, as a popular apology to indigenous people and to highlight the issue to Howard, who was in the audience as the ranking Olympic host.
The lyrics:
Out where the river broke
The blood wood 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 fair's 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
We're gonna give it back
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep while our beds are burning
Niciun comentariu:
Trimiteți un comentariu