Blue Sky Mining


Blue Sky Mine / Stars Of Warburton / Bedlam Bridge / Forgotten Years / Mountains Of Burma / King of the Mountain / River Runs Red / Shakers and Movers / One Country / Antarctica
Lyrics Index Media The Dead Heart

Blue Sky Mine

Hey, hey-hey hey
There'll be food on the table tonight
Hey, hey, hey hey
There'll be pay in your pocket tonight

My gut is wrenched out it is crunched up and broken
A life that is led is no more than a token
Who'll strike the flint upon the stone and tell me why
If I yell out at night there's a reply of bruised silence
The screen is no comfort I can't speak my sentence
They blew the lights at heaven's gate and I don't know why

But if I work all day at the blue sky mine
(There'll be food on the table tonight)
Still I walk up and down on the blue sky mine
(There'll be pay in your pocket tonight)

The candy store paupers lie to the share holders
They're crossing their fingers they pay the truth makers
The balance sheet is breaking up the sky
So I'm caught at the junction still waiting for medicine
The sweat of my brow keeps on feeding the engine
Hope the crumbs in my pocket can keep me for another night
And if the blue sky mining company won't come to my rescue
If the sugar refining company won't save me
Who's gonna save me?

But if I work all day...

And some have sailed from a distant shore
And the company takes what the company wants
And nothing's as precious, as a hole in the ground

Who's gonna save me?
I pray that sense and reason brings us in
Who's gonna save me?
We've got nothing to fear

In the end the rain comes down
Washes clean, the streets of a blue sky town

(Midnight Oil)

Stars of Warburton

I, I was, I was shaken down in a toy town He, He's out there You know it's Kennedy's shadow from White Cross to Michigan ATM's, are in the air, oh yeah machines they are spinning out everywhere The speaker is speaking Can you hear the sound The listener is listening as he hits the ground The medium or the message but there's no one around I couldn't believe I couldn't believe the stars of Warburton were waiting for me We were dancing, we were dancing on the plain We're looking through the window didn't see any buffalo there We got our pipe dreams, they went up in smoke dreams Burn it clean in the climate control, of your hypermark malls Don't wanna talk about Elvis Presley Don't wanna see his white shoes walking around And around and around over here The press baron's acting up the mainframes are down Newspapers crawling around on the ground The medium or the message still there's no one around I couldn't believe I couldn't believe the stars of Warburton were waiting for me Over the hills and mountains we go, so far, so far away For the ring of the axe on the ironbark, for the smell of the wallaby stew From the golden reefs to the sandstone cliffs Came the sheep of the Mallee plain The wind blew the soil to the Orient, we'll be shouting to the skies again I couldn't believe I couldn't believe the stars of Warburton were waiting for me I couldn't believe I couldn't believe the stars of Warburton were living in me Raining down on me, were washing down on me (Moginie/Garrett)

Bedlam Bridge

In this city with no footpath there's a building with no people There is crime and gun decisions There's a street of heat and hawkers, there's a house of hope drifters There's a gang that shoots then listens There's a place that knows no poverty, a town without pollution There's a soul with good intentions There are canyons full of movie stars, churches made of metal There are mountains made of muscle We have leaders who are anxious, we have captains not courageous Captains tumbling into madness But there's a main who makes no enemies, a body never breathless No ambition ever hopeless Up on bedlam bridge somebody is waiting Up on bedlam bridge I'm shot to heaven Oh, up on bedalm bridge, waiting In these locked and shackled neighbourhoods, bridge and tunnel diplomats See the golden ghetto's creeper Crazy flags from history, songs for the White House gangsters Guns for hellgate railway sleepers But there's a main who makes no enemies, a body never breathless No ambition ever hopeless So how stands the city on this winters night? The city on the hill or so they said The snow is falling down around the armoury The city's closing in around my head Up on bedlam bridge... Drive, won't you drive the engines harder, drive Drive, won't you turn the engines over, drive (Hirst)

Forgotten Years

Few of the sins of the father, are visited upon the son Hearts have been hard, our hands have been clenched in a fist too long Our sons will never be soldiers, our daughters will never need guns These are the yrs between These are the yrs that were hard fought and won Contracts torn at the edges, old signatures stained with tears Seasons of war and peace, these should not be forgotten yaers Still it aches like tetanus, it reeks of politics How many dreams remain? This is a feeling too strong to contain The hardest years, the darkest yrs, the roarin' yrs, the fallen yrs These should not be forgotten yrs The hardest yrs, the wildest yrs, the desperate and divided yrs We will remember, these should not be forgotten yrs Our shoreline was never invaded, our country was never in flames This is the calm we breathe, this is a feeling too strong to contain Still it aches like tetanus, it reeks of politics Signatures stained with tears, who can remember We've got to remember The hardest... Forsaking aching breaking yrs, the time and tested heartbreak yrs These should not be forgotten yrs The blinded yrs, the binded yrs, the desperate and divided yrs These should not be forgotten yrs, remember (Hirst/Moginie)

Mountains of Burma

The tucker box is empty now, the heart of Kelly's country cleared The gangers on the southern line, like the steam trains have disappeared Pelicans glide, miracles up in the sky We vote for the government, with axes in his eyes Mountains of Burma, the road to Mandalay In the mountains of Burma, light years away, mountains of Burma Will the sons of Solidarity, still march on May Day And will the sisters of the seventies, still fight for equal pay There's no on eon the Reeperbahn, no more blankets handed out for land We feed an economy, that's got blood on it's hands Mountains of Burma... Pack your bags full of guns and ammunition Bills fall due for the industrial revolution Scorch the earth till the earth surrenders Soldiers of armies, storm empty fields In a traveller's trance, on the way to the high frontier Sleepwalkers stumble, cable cars run aground Imaginary enemies, form high above the clouds In the Mountains of Burma... (Hirst)

King of the Mountain

Walking through the high dry grass, pushing my way through slow Yellow belly black snake, sleeping on a red rock Waiting for the stranger to go Sugar train stops at the crossing, cane cockies cursing below Bad storm coming, better run to the top of the mountain Mountain in the shadow of light, rain in the valley below Well you can say you're Peter, say you're Paul Don't put me up on your bedroom wall, call me the king of the mountain Blacksmith fires up the bellows, cane cutters burning the load Workers of the world, run to the top of the mountain Mountain in the... I can't take my hands from my face, there are some things we can't replace Mountain in the... Over liquid tarmac wastelands of cactus and heat Down cobblestone alleyways of washing day sheets Up ghost prairie mountains of sunset and space Down the road at a familiar place, across the wilderness Out further than the bush I will follow you (Hirst/Moginie)

River Runs Red

So you cut all the tall trees down, you poisoned the sky and the sea You've taken what's good from the ground But you've left precious little for me You remember the flood and the fall, we remember the light on the hill There should be enough for us all, but the dollar is driving us still River runs red, black rain falls, dust in my hand River runs red, black rain falls, on my bleeding land So we came and we conquered and found Riches of commons and kings Who strangled and wrestled the ground But they never put back anything Now I'm trapped like a dog in a cage Wherever the truth is pursued It must be the curse of the age What's taken is never renewed (Hirst/Moginie)

Shakers and Movers

Won't you come on down the line, away from barren ground The harlot and the autocrat, are they driving you further down The season's rhymes, they anchor me, against the raging tide Take you to the last wild place, skin and the stars they embrace A caveman could a saint become, on a hospital ward on the Somme We can dive into distant amoebas, our wings could melt in the sun I can shake, I can move, but I live can't without your love I can break, Over you, but I live without your love Our poet Henry Lawson, he named them, the lay'em out brigade Here they come, there they go, oh great god of development Don't really know you yet Coastline hosed down washed away, economics now there's nothing left Tomorrow's child takes concrete footsteps And theyll drink champagne or be damned And the storm is breaking now, yes the storm is crashing down (Moginie/Garrett)

One Country

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 don't call, me, the tune, I will walk away Who want's to please everyone, who says it all can be done Still sit up on that fence, no-one I've heard of yet Don't call me baby, don't talk in maybes Don't 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 So don't... (One country one, country one country) 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 (Moginie/Garrett)

Antartica

I'm a snow plough, I must now plow on, I'm a snow plough, I'm a settlers son I'm a storm cloud, rain myself all over the place I'm a storm cloud, gonna wipe that smile right off your face There must be one place left in the world Where the mountains meet the sea There must be one place left in the world Where the water's real and clean I'm a landslide, I'm a downhill run, I'm a landslide, open season's just begun There must be one place left in the world Where the skin says it can breathe There gotta be one place left in the world It's a solitude of distance and relief There gotta be one place left in the world I'm a short fuse, I'm a slow blues I'm a landslide humming, I'm a downhill running There must be one place left in the world, where we can be (Moginie/Hirst/Rotsey/Garrett)