Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Related with the topic about Australia and the Prime Minister John Howard refusing to apologize Indigenous People because the stolen generations issue, I've found something interesting.


Midnight Oil, the band that we listened in the last class, has a worldwide hit single called Beds are Burning, which according with Wikipedia is a song "about giving native Australian lands back to the Pintupi, who were among the very last people to come in from the desert". It was the No. 1 song in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa in 1988. It's also the third Best Australian Song of all time, according the Australasian Performing Right Association, and one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.


Why am I sharing this song with you? Well, because I'm boring and insomniac this song was performed in the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics as a form to apologize to Indigenous People and criticize Howard's decission, showing a "SORRY" in their clothes. John Howard was present in the ceremony.


Here's the presentation video. And the lyrics are below it.









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


Did you like the song? Yes? No? Why? What do you think about this presentation?

Greetings!

4 comments:

  1. very interesting!, I´ve heard this song before but i never thought that behind this song it would be a message so important as this band try to do in favour to this problem, that is not only in australia, it´s also our problem with mapuches and other Indigenous and in some way they are people who is trying to do something too, as camila moreno and other new singers.
    about this presentation i like the way they show their thinking, just with one word that says everything like is "sorry", and not screaming and protesting against the minister or other responsibles, i think it´s a very pacific way to show what they dislike.

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  2. Another info about the song:

    John Howard has said this song is his favourite... Quoting Miss Carmona... "My goodness!!"

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  3. Thanks for sharing that info. ;) quite interesting! i liked the songs' lyrics very much ; the music not at all. :P great contribution!

    some details: "related TO the topic", "according TO Wikipedia"
    be careful with the prepositions ;)

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