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Blue Sky Mining musings

Can a hard rocking protest song make you cry? It can if it's done by Midnight Oil. Driving in through a pouring rain this morning, I dug out my old copy of "Blue Sky Mining" to give it a listen and possibly put some tracks on my MP3 player. I have always loved the title track, but today was the first time I seemed to listened to how well crafted the song is constructed. It opens with just a guitar and gradually builds as each band member joins along. Then, it erupts with so much passion and anger, I was close to tears. It's not just the relevant lyrics (written back in 1990), but the beautiful harmonies, and the fact that each instrument plays a different role in the song. Both guitars are playing variations on lead guitar which reminds me of the kind song structure Pearl Jam often uses. In fact, the song "Forgotten Years" off the same Midnight Oil album would be a great song for P Jam to cover. And Peter Garrett performs with such conviction that anything he sings couldn't ring as false. This is one of the overlooked gems of the early alternative rock era. For some reason, the band fell through the cracks when the big MOVEMENT came to be. That's too bad, because we could use more bands like them today. With all of the crap going on in the world, we need more popular artists to speak up and rally the youth (and youthful) of the world.

Aloha

Comments

Sean Andrews said…
could you please tell me the structure of blue sky mine eg the verses of the song, bridge, where the instrumentals are etc
5:47 PM
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