Mr Rudd has no intention of shifting Mr Garrett. Sources close to the Prime Minister say Mr Garrett has defended himself inside and outside the Parliament better than anybody anticipated.
A Midnight Oil hit advocating Aboriginal land rights in the '80s is being used in the noughties to mobilise nations to combat climate change.
The band's former frontman and now Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, helped write new lyrics to Beds Are Burning, as part of the celebrity-led initiative.
Yes, Bob Geldof is involved. So is Duran Duran. Nothing in music is sacred, not even a Midnight Oil song that helped to bring the idea of Aboriginal reconciliation to a new, more open-minded, less bigoted generation. The only consolation I suppose is that Bono isn't involved.
Well, not yet anyway.
The original Beds Are Burning lyrics....
''Out where the river broke/The blood wood and the desert oak/Holden wrecks and boiling diesels/Steam in 45 degrees''.
....have become :
''Down at the river bed/The earth is cracked and dry instead/Farms a failing, cities baking/Steam in 45 degrees.''
This :
"The time has come/A fact's a fact/It belongs to them/Let's give it back."
Has become this :
''The time has come/A fact's a fact/The heat is on/No turning back.''
"The Heat Is On"? Someone call Glenn Frey!
Garrett won't be singing on the rebake, and it will be given away online.
In a few years time, if global warming doesn't turn out to be the "clear, catastrophic threat" that Rupert Murdoch predicted, and the Earth turns more icy than melty, Midnight Oil could always rewrite the lyrics to Cold Cold Change.
Great fucking song. By the way, Cold Cold Change is now 30 years old.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
I Stand By The Lyrics That I Don't Believe In Anymore
Last weekend, Peter Garrett went some way towards repairing the damage he wrought upon die-hard Midnight Oil fans, when he entered Parliament and gave the impression that he didn't stand by the songs he'd sung and recorded with the Oils, and that he saw himself in the band as just a performer, nothing more.
During a press conference before the Sound Relief gig, the Minister for the Environment announced this disclaimer :
“I think that you can look at lyrics out of any songs and clearly, there are going to be lines there that pertain to any human situation. But the songs stand in their own right and in their own time.”
Wait a minute, he's still saying he doesn't believe in the lyrics he put his voice and his name to. Not anymore, anyway.
The Sound Relief gigs held in Sydney and Melbourne, which also saw performances by Jet, Kylie Minogue, Hoodoo Gurus, The Presets and WolfMother, amongst the dozens of acts, raised more than $5 million for the victims of the Victorian Fires.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
I Stand By The Lyrics That I Don't Believe In Anymore
Last weekend, Peter Garrett went some way towards repairing the damage he wrought upon die-hard Midnight Oil fans, when he entered Parliament and gave the impression that he didn't stand by the songs he'd sung and recorded with the Oils, and that he saw himself in the band as just a performer, nothing more.
During a press conference before the Sound Relief gig, the Minister for the Environment announced this disclaimer :
“I think that you can look at lyrics out of any songs and clearly, there are going to be lines there that pertain to any human situation. But the songs stand in their own right and in their own time.”
Wait a minute, he's still saying he doesn't believe in the lyrics he put his voice and his name to. Not anymore, anyway.
The Sound Relief gigs held in Sydney and Melbourne, which also saw performances by Jet, Kylie Minogue, Hoodoo Gurus, The Presets and WolfMother, amongst the dozens of acts, raised more than $5 million for the victims of the Victorian Fires.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Maybe He Could Mime The Words Instead?
Pundits and oppo-pols are having lots of fun imagining what songs are going to fill up the 20 minute set that Midnight Oil will play at the Bushfire Relief gig in March. Any Midnight Oil fan will know that there are dozens of songs, and some of their most famous, that the current Environment Minister won't want to be seen singing now he's a professional politician, and no longer apparently believes that nuclear energy, logging and the 'US' are evil incarnate.
Of course, The Chaser anticipated exactly this kind of quandry for Peter Garrett back in mid-2007.
But Midnight Oil will only be playing a 20 minute set, and the following Oils classic will cause Garrett no political headaches, plus it will fill a good chunk of the running time :
Even though Garrett's jerking-electric shock dance moves are seared into the national consciousness, it's still going to be a little strange to see a senior minister in the federal government rocking out onstage like that. It's a good cause, though, and it's pretty obvious Peter Garrett is hugely missing the addictive buzz of performing for an audience, in front of such a truly great band as the Oils.
My pick for the list, jokes about doing only instrumentals aside, will be some of the blasting, mostly politics-free songs off 1979's raucous Head Injuries album (Bus To Bondi for example), and the soaring anthem 'One Country', the lyrics of which follows :
Who'd like to change the world, who wants to shoot the curl Who gets to work for bread, who wants to get ahead Who hands out equal rights, who starts and ends that fight And not not rant and rave, or end up a slave Who can make hard won gains, fall like the summer rain Now every man must be, what his life can be
So dont call, me, the tune, I will walk away
Who wants to please everyone, who says it all can be done Still sit up on that fence, no-one Ive heard of yet Dont call me baby, dont talk in maybes Dont talk like has-beens, sing it like it should be Who laughs at the nagging doubt, lying on a neon shroud Just gotta touch someone, I want to be
Who wants to sit around, turn it up turn it down Only a man can be, what his life can be One vision, one people, one landmass, we are defenceless, we have a lifeline One ocean, one policy, seabed lies, one passion, one movement, one instant One difference, one lifetime, one understanding Transgression, redemption, one island, our placemat, one firmament One element, one moment, one fusion, yes and one time
