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Redneck Wonderland - Track By Track

(Original article online here)

1. Redneck Wonderland

"Redneck Wonderland" was the last song to come up on the record, even though it bears the title, and for me it was the track that the album was waiting for. It really sums up a lot of the stuff we're saying on the other songs, but more directly. It's quite clear what it's about. It's about the great place that we live, Australia, but it's also about the current political climate which is determined to send us back to a darker, more sinister period in Australia's history. We're resisting that course, as are most Australians, but there is a vocal minority who are determined to divide, and perhaps rule, Australia.

It's not in our nature to remain quiet under this sort of onslaught, and in many ways it reminds us of the period when we started off under the Fraser government at the time. There's something about these coalition and conservative governments in Australia which provokes Midnight Oil's best work. I think it's to do with an anger and frustration, and today is no different. Particularly now that the Wik Bill, the Amendments to the Native Title Bill which gave room for negotiation between pastoralists and miners and Aborigines, our native peoples, it looks like that right to negotiation is about to go down the gurgler. So all the more reason to have a song like "Redneck Wonderland" out on the airwaves.
- Rob Hirst

2. Concrete

This version of "Concrete", the second track on the Redneck Wonderland album, is the second time we had a go at it. We recorded it with Magoo and then went and did the 20,000 Watt RSL collection record. That took quite a while, because we wanted that record to come from the band and not the company. We took a long time over track selection and one thing led to another and then we did some live shows. And when we'd do the live shows, "Concrete" suddenly took on a new dimension. It became tougher and harder and faster and I think part of that was reading the morning papers as well. In the interim, "the rednecks started roaring", as the line goes in "White Skin Black Heart", and as we got angrier every day we took it out on stage every night.

So "Concrete" became a much wilder version and when he heard the original again after the space of four or five months we realised that we had to re-record it, and I'm really glad we did, because it's one of the toughest, concerted efforts by the band I think in many years. It reminds me of the anger and frustration that came out on a record like "10 to 1", all those years ago in London with Nick Launay. And it's probably the toughest record that Warne Livesey and the band have collectively done. I think it's a really successful track and putting it No. 2 on the record really sorts out the people that are going to go the distance on the album. Because there is some more melodic stuff later, but to put it number 2 it's like, okay, this is what this record is about.
- Rob Hirst

3. Cemetery In My Mind

"Cemetery In My Mind" is another song that we've had a few goes at. We played it for about six or seven months before Christmas last year and basically we had a very strong chorus, but maybe the rest of the song needed to come up a bit, and that's the message we got from people that heard it. They said, "Oh, you've got half a great song here", so we went away for a long time and we agonised over this track. Some songs come up really quickly, as in the case of "Redneck Wonderland", but others, like "Cemetery In My Mind", took ages to get together. I came in with the bridge part "tomorrow is better than yesterday" which changed the song, so it then had a pre-chorus as well as a chorus and then we had a lot of different versions for a verse.

It was a bit like moving a jigsaw puzzle around, oh this bit works with that, or Scrabble, like what have we got here, what's the final thing, is this the strongest we can do, because we knew we had something really strong, but we knew also that it hadn't reached its potential.

So finally once again with Warne Livesey producing we came up with a song which, although it took about a year to get together, I think it was worth the wait. I mean even in the mix it was difficult. We had to mix it about three times until we got the right combination, but it's a fairly pivotal track for the record so it was worth getting right.
- Rob Hirst

4. Comfortable Place on The Couch

Actually "Comfortable Place on the Couch" now seems really apt because John Howard, our beloved Prime Minister, promised us a comfortable place on the couch, he promised us a more comfortable society under the coalition. In actual fact I think the band and a whole lot of people out there now actually find it a very uncomfortable society and many members of the Australian community are actually fearful for the first time. Many minority groups, Aboriginal people, are frustrated that they haven't been able to push through the reforms that even five years ago seemed possible. So I guess that song is about a hardly disguised anger about the apathy that has overtaken the land and the inertia that's coming from the leaders where it should be strong leadership taking us into the last couple of years of this century.
- Rob Hirst

5. Safety Chain Blues

"Safety Chain Blues" is one of those songs which started off as a simple guitar, bass, drums and vocal song. We decided that we'd add the strings that you hear later on and orchestrate it. We had a couple of goes at that as well. I think the string arrangement now is one of the highlights on the record. I think it's really added to the song.
- Rob Hirst

6. Return To Sender

Return to Sender" is a song by Jim. It appeared first of all on a series of demo songs that Jim had done in his own studio. I immediately liked it, I thought it was a standout and perhaps it could have been easily on the last studio record "Breathe", but for one reason or another it wasn't, and it's probably good because we actually got quite a groovy version of this.

Once again we had a couple of cracks at it. We recorded it last year and ended up using a drum looping version and the main keyboard line was an organ rather than the electric piano that we ended up with. So it's taken on a few changes. I'm particularly happy with it because I spent quite a long time getting the right groove for it, because I had to overlay real drums onto something that was already recorded, and sometimes this is a bit difficult because you're in a bit of a different frame of mind. I mean this was months after the original recording, but we finally got it and Bones Hillman then came in and did the bass line. So it was done in a weird sort of way. I mean not the correct school of producing at all. It was all back to front, but often that makes for some good versions of stuff that we wouldn't have come up with.

So I think it's my favourite track. Also it's positioned on the record after about five or six really strong songs, so it's actually quite a relief when it comes up. And we can play it live - I don't know how we're going to calm down enough to play it, but we'll see how we go.
- Rob Hirst

7. Blot

"Blot" is about the ghost of Alan Bond and Christopher Skase and whoever's featuring in Who Weekly this week and will have disappeared next week, but believes that they're invincible because someone took their photo or paid them money for telling their story."
- Peter Garrett

"It suggests in one of the lines that we never thought there would be a real Citizen Kane after the movie came out in the 40s or 50s or whenever it was. But there is now, and there's a lot of them.
- Jim Moginie

8. The Great Gibber Plain

The original "Great Gibber Plain" was an acoustic version based on one of Jim's songs. It took a long time to work out whether we should keep it in the acoustic version, a la Diesel and Dust, those campfire songs, or try to do something a little bit different with it. So now it's almost like a song in two halves.

You've got the acoustic section and then you've got the crimson turning into gold second half which has got all those great sounds, it's got that glock counter-theme and some really interesting guitars and stuff going on in the background and I think it's a good melody. In a way it harks back to some stuff that the band's done before and is immediately recognisable as such, but at the same time because it's got the Magoo touch and the Warne Livesey touch as well, it's slightly different, so we've actually taken it a bit further down the track than we would normally have. Once again it took a long time to get it together, but it's also a nice relief when you hear "Gibber Plain" because those acoustics are so fresh after all the loud drumming and guitars, it's a relief.
- Rob Hirst

9. Seeing Is Believing

"Seeing is believing" is what is it that makes you pause when you get out and go somewhere. When you look around and you see something going on and you think, well this is happening in real life. When you see it on telly it's not real at all, but when you see it in real life it is. But what is it that you're seeing and what is it about it that gets up your back, or even makes you laugh? I mean it's a funky dance song with back scratching words.
- Peter Garrett

10. White Skin Black Heart

"White Skin Black Heart" really is about where Australia's conscience is at and whether people are committing themselves to the idea that when you cut us, we all bleed and our blood's the same, and what's the business saying that someone on the other side of the room is your enemy because they look different to you or because they arrived six months later than you did.

And I guess in some ways it's us, just getting in a studio and turning everything up as loud as we can and just saying "Hey, some people out there have really got it wrong, and just remember history, baby".
- Peter Garrett

11. What Goes On

"What Goes On" is a song that we had a few versions of. Actually the one that appeared on the "20,000 Watt RSL" album actually starts the collection. It was maybe the third go that the band had had with that song. I mean fundamentally it's the same, with the same set of lyrics. I guess it's a cry from the heart about waste, whether that be teenage waste or human waste of any kind, and a sense of not knowing the big picture. A sense of frustration, and maybe that's a particularly Australian thing that we are away from the major power bases of the world and feel like we're constantly being left in the dark or we're the last to know.
- Rob Hirst

12. Drop In The Ocean

The style that we recorded it in was fairly innocent, it wasn't a particularly polished performance but it summed up the spirit of it. It's really about, again, that whole thing of you've got all these problems that are happening and people who are actually torn and they have to compromise and they have to make all sorts of deals to get through, but at the end of the day, it's all just a drop in the ocean.
- Jim Moginie

From Sony Music Australia, by Sony Music Australia

(Note: this article has not been approved for reproduction.)