Talk In Circles - Bedlam Bridge

I find Bedlam Bridge among the most intriguing Oils songs. Here's some analysis from me, and some things I wonder about...

"In a city with no footpaths" - maybe a reference to the way cars seem to have taken over and dominate the landscape of modern cities. I don't know of any cities that really have no footpaths though. Or maybe saying it's too dangerous to actually walk on the footpaths because there's so much crime, and therefore there might as well not be any footpaths.

"There's a building with no people" - an abandoned building in a run-down area of town.

"There is crime and gun decisions" - further examples of societal decay like the previous 2 lines. But "decisions" is an odd word choice. The most likely meaning, I think, is that personal conflicts are decided by gun battles. Any other ideas, anyone?

"There's a street of heat and hawkers" - hawkers are another sign of societal decay because they are often people who can't get good jobs. "Heat" is a bit odd. Maybe the Oils are referring to a particular city in a hot climate, but then why would one of the streets be especially noted for its heat? Another possibility is that heat = guns, as in "packing heat." Hmmm...

"There's a house of hope and drifters" - sounds like a homeless shelter, full of hopeful volunteers and drifters without homes.

"There's a gang that shoots then listens" - the obvious possibility here is an actual gang of criminals. But it could also refer to a police department or even an army. Any group of people with guns and little regard for either finesse or human life.

"But there's a place that knows no poverty, a town without pollution" - heaven is the most obvious answer. Christians refer to it as a city sometimes. One other possibility is that this line refers to some remote part of the earth, where the wilderness is intact and not polluted and people live in traditional villages in which every member of the tribe is taken care of, so there's no poverty. I prefer the heaven interpretation though.

"There's a soul with good intentions" - just one soul with good intentions? That's a very bleak line. If this song is interpreted with a Christian meaning, then the soul with good intentions must be Jesus. But I'm surprised at the implication that there are no humans with good intentions. In my view there are plenty of people with good intentions but they have problems carrying them out a lot. This line seems much more negative than most Oils lyrics.

"There are canyons full of movie stars" - sounds like a vague America reference: Hollywood and the Grand Canyon strangely combined. Perhaps this line refers to the way American culture/commercialism is so revered, looked up to, throughout the world. The lack of a clear separation between this and the lines about heaven (though this line is NOT about heaven) suggests an association in people's minds between America and heaven, which links back to what I was saying in the previous sentence. Just look for a little Australian kid in a Chicago Bulls jersey to see what I mean. (At least the last time I was in Oz, those things were ubiquitous.)

"Churches made of metal" - an association between religion and whatever metal is meant to symbolize. I imagine metal could mean a lot of things, but it makes me think of heavy industry, which leads mentally to pollution and big business. So the image is of Christianity corrupted in/by modern society. The images of corruption and decay continue-- see the first few lines.

"There are mountains made of muscle" - I don't think I get this line. Muscle could refer to meat, an industry which isn't all good for the environment and which makes plenty of money for some people. Perhaps "mountains made of muscle" is a way of describing high concentrations of power, such as those found in countries that have big armies and lots of rich people, e.g. USA. (Hmm, I see this is turning into an anti-USA interpretation as well as a religious one.) Muscle might be a reference to worldly, temporal power as opposed to spiritual, Godly power, which cannot be collected into mountains for only a few to possess.

"We have leaders who are anxious" - because the world we live in is unstable, and conflict could break out pretty much anytime anywhere. Examples: the LA riots, violent crime in general, the Holy Land, the former Soviet Union. Or perhaps the leaders are anxious because their opponents might dig out their secrets and oust them. Examples: Nixon, and possibly Clinton before much longer.

"We have captains not courageous" - well, the people running the US armed forces don't have the courage to accept openly gay people into the military, or to put women in combat, or to take necessary action to stamp out the sexual harassment of women that apparently pervades the US military today. But these issues weren't seen as being so important back when BSM came out, so I'm not sure what the Oils are referring to here. Maybe the reference isn't to military leaders but to leaders in general-- in which case it's quite obvious that many of them have little or no courage.

"Captains tumbling into madness" - some would say war is madness. And if captains doesn't just mean military leaders, many things that go on in modern society are pretty insane. Also, power corrupts, and perhaps makes you lose some of your humanity or sanity. Maybe the line refers to Reagan, who was probably senile by the end of his presidential term.

"But there's a man who makes no enemies" - Jesus did have enemies, that's why he was crucified. And he made enemies too, sometimes-- for example, I believe he physically threw some Pharisees out of their temple. So if this is a Jesus reference it doesn't really work, does it?

"A body never breathless" - Jesus was resurrected. I guess that makes his body never breathless, i.e. never dead. And I can't think of anyone else who was resurrected. So this line almost has to be Jesus, despite the conflict I pointed out in the previous line.

"No ambition ever hopeless" - Jesus again? Well, he was an aspect of an omnipotent God. So it kind of makes sense. Anyone can have hope, though, no matter what their ambitions may be, so this one isn't definitely Jesus.

"Up on Bedlam Bridge somebody is waiting" - Bedlam was the name of an insane asylum in Britain, in the 19th century I think. So a place called Bedlam Bridge might be full of people acting crazy. Or is there an actual place called Bedlam Bridge? Perhaps a British PW'er might know. As for who would be waiting on the bridge, and what they might be waiting for, I have no idea. I mean, I am really stumped. I could say Jesus again, but I have no real evidence for doing so.

"Up on Bedlam Bridge I'm shot to heaven" - the use of the word heaven adds credence to my heaven-related interpretation of some earlier lines. "Shot to heaven" probably means shot, killed, and went to heaven. Why someone got shot on this bridge, I don't know. Perhaps random violence related to societal breakdown?

"Up on Bedlam Bridge, I'm waiting" - if the person got "shot to heaven" why's he waiting on the bridge still? I don't know.

"In these locked and shackled neighbourhoods" - perhaps a well-defended, nice suburb full of deadbolts and security systems. Either that or a prison.

"In these locked and shackled neighbourhoods, bridge and tunnel diplomats see the golden ghetto's creeper" - the first two lines of this tercet have been fully discussed. Golden ghetto, I think, refers to the fact that people make a lot of money out of ghettos. There's landlords who let out the run-down buildings to tenants and don't bother with maintenance; record industry executives who make millions from 'gangsta' rap, in theory a ghetto product; people who get rich sell booze, drugs, and guns; and entrepreneurs who buy ghetto land dirt cheap, push the original inhabitants out, "gentrify" the buildings, and rent apartments to yuppies. Ghettos do keep on creeping, the same way suburban sprawl keeps creeping. The exodus of the middle classes from urban areas to suburbs leaves ghetto areas in their wake. The "bridge and tunnel diplomats" who govern us see the creeping ghettos and don't try to solve the problem.

"Crazy flags from history" - referring to history to remind us that the worldly problems of bad government and societal decay are not new; there have been wars and struggles and tyrannical rulers throughout history.

"Songs for the White House gangsters" - White House gangsters refers to the ruling class of politicians in general. In light of the previous lines about bridge and tunnel diplomats, I'd say this line is partly about how disconnected from most people's reality the ruling politicians are. The "songs" could be the words of people telling them what they want to hear -- pollsters and speechwriters and campaign strategists. Or perhaps "songs" is a reference to the mainstream music industry, which tends to ignore society's problems, which is probably pleasing to the politicians. Music that disconnects people from reality in fact serves the politicians because those who don't realise how much is wrong are unlikely to make trouble. Having "songs" and "gangsters" in the same line leads my mind to 'gangsta' rap in particular; this form of music may deal with a kind of harsh reality, but it often just glorifies the 'gangsta' scene, further removing its listeners from reality. Also, 'gangsta' rap is never about how to constructively change things or actually get out of the ghetto. So it serves the ruling politicians.

"Guns for hellgate railway sleepers" - a difficult line. Railway sleepers at face value is the wooden beams underneath the rails in train tracks. But perhaps it refers to homeless people who sleep in such places as train stations, the areas near train tracks, in cars of freight trains, or in the yards where trains are repaired and coupled to one another. Guns for these people just indicates the ease of getting a gun these days, as well as the need for protection that many people feel--which is why many guns are bought. I guess a homeless guy without a safe place to sleep at night might want a gun more than most people. Hellgate, I think, is used as an adjective to describe the people referred to as "railway sleepers." It might mean their lives now are almost as bad as being in hell. Or maybe it means they're close to dying and going to hell. I prefer the former interpretation since I don't believe in a hell.

"So how stands the city on this winter night?" - this line moves the song from a general, imprecise view of time to looking at a particular night-- one happening RIGHT NOW. It's the night when you stop and look around you, and realise just how terrible the place you're living in really is. A winter night, of course, just exacerbates the problems of the city: the snow creates traffic jams, and the cold freezes homeless people to death. Everyone's inside, huddled around their furnaces and not interacting with one another. The sense of community found on a warm day when people's doors and windows are sometimes open is completely gone as everyone hurries to get inside their own little separate space. If the question is seen as meaning "how is the city doing?" then it's kind of a sarcastic question whose answer is completely obvious since we've just been listening to line after line of decay and violence. Perhaps the question means "how does the city stand?" i.e. why hasn't it collapsed yet? There's no particular answer for why it hasn't; the implication is that it soon will collapse. That of course leads to the thought of an apocalypse, and the "man who makes no enemies" (Jesus?) taking some people to the "place that knows no poverty" (heaven?).

"The city on the hill or so they said" - someone mentioned the "New Jerusalem," a reference that has no meaning to me, though I think Jerusalem is on a hill. Someone else thought the city on the hill could be Washington DC, which is not on a hill (I live near there). There is, however, Capitol Hill within DC, which is a neighbourhood around the Capitol building which is where Congress meets. Capitol Hill is a partly middle-class and partly lower-class neighbourhood. I don't think the "city on the hill" refers to a particular city, myself. Particularly in ancient times, it was a good idea to build cities on hills because they were more defensible from outside invaders. (Athens, for example.) So people say this city in the song is well-defended and situated on high, but it's falling apart from the inside rather than from any outside attacking force.

"The snow is falling down around the armoury" - see the line before last for my interpretation of the implications of snowfall. "Falling down" fits in with a general feeling of collapse that's being described. The armoury is a reminder that this collapsing society is a warlike one. Somehow the presence of the armoury seems like a routine, normal thing that isn't out of the ordinary--weapons and war and guns are a fact of life in this city, the armoury's as normal a place as the corner store or the courthouse.

"The city's closing in around my head" - pretty obvious. The city is making the singer feel trapped and threatened, surrounded by decay and violence with no apparent way out.

"Drive, drive the engines harder, drive, drive, won't you turn the engines over, drive...." - desperation as you try to get out of the collapsing city. No destination mentioned, the instinct is pure flight. But the driver is having trouble even getting his vehicle's engine to turn over-- along with everything else in this city, the car is neglected and doesn't work the way it should.

Tom Davies

Tom's interpretations are quite good, just a few points to add: - first two lines of the chorus refer to a speech Reagan or Bush made denoting America as "the light on the hill." Rob wanted to pick up on the absurdity of that statement and its stands in bleak contrast to poverty displayed in the film clip set near Brooklyn Bridge. "There's a soul with good intentions" once again displays that while there is despair all around, there is a glimmer of hope.

A little more on the city on the hill... After reading the comment by the person at the end of the Bedlam Bridge page, I remembered a Midnight Oil fan friend of mine long ago mentioning this being a reference to Ronald Reagan's farewell speech. I found a bit more on that, including where Reagan first said it, the part of the speech, and where he picked up the phrase.

After reading the excerpts, I'm sure that's what is being referred to. Note that he not only talks about this shining city on the hill and what it means, but asks "And how stands the city on this winter night?" -- a query as to how far they have come in the 8 years of his holding the office of President of the US. The city seems to be his hope that the US will become a beacon of light, hope, goodness, etc. I'll refrain from commenting on the results. :) Check it out: http://parallel.park.uga.edu/~arburke/texts/city.html (Also note that Reagan left office at the end of 1988, and Blue Sky Mining, according to the discography, was "Recorded in Sydney, 1989 at Rhino".)

Other things I've thought of about this song: "shot to heaven" -- note that an extremely common phrase (in American English, at least, noting that Midnight oil might not use it) is "shot to hell". Something which has been "shot to hell" usually has literally been shot up until it was destroyed (and presumably went to hell). "Shot to heaven" seems to be a play on this to me -- maybe he was busted up extremely badly (due to these world conditions he talks about), but went to heaven instead.

Incidentally, I think your analysis of the city closing in, etc, being the decay fits in well with the failure of the city on the hill.
Also, something about this song (besides the White House, etc) makes me feel like more of it than that one line is about Reagan -- but I really am not sure and have no evidence of this.
This is the first time I've thought about it in a while, but perhaps Reagan is the man who makes no enemies (doesn't seem likely), never breathless, no ambition hopeless, etc. But despite his best intentions for this city, society is collapsing, the government is overrun by gangsters, the streets are hellish, etc.
Churches made of metal, canyons full of movie stars, city with no footpaths, etc. strike me as images of this "shining" (metal?) city he wanted to build, gone terribly awry -- all glitz, media, gangs, and no substance or humanity. Similarly, "drive the engines harder" feels like a reference to the increasing lack of humanity in the world (US?).

Note that I was too young to really have an opinion on Reagan, so don't take this as me projecting my opinions on them. I can see even these things being taken as either positive or negative towards him (though definitely negative to society and maybe the US). I really have no idea what Midnight Oil thinks about any of this.

Jef Pearlman

My interpretation of "I'm shot to heaven" is that when the singer meets the man on the bridge (whom I presume is Christ) then he goes swiftly and directly to heaven.

Brian Jacobs