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01)
Read
About It
- Joakim & Jennifer Lindblad
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"Looking
for salvation in a car headlight" Passion. When I think about the art that affects me the most, the one element that they all have in common with each other is passion. The artist or musician feels strongly about something, and also has the means to show us what that is. To wear their hearts on their sleeves for the world to examine. It might appear to be misguided, or it may be some viewpoint that I don't agree with, but that they're willing to take the intellectual, emotional, and sometimes spiritual risk to show it to us deserves some credit. Midnight Oil has this in spades. What initially got me interested was a B-side called 'Kosciuszko', which was of the flip side of that tragically unknown single 'Beds Are Burning'. I keyed it in by accident on a jukebox, and became hooked by the weird, fragile voice singing about places I've never been to before. A friend sat me down with a copy of 'Head Injuries', and I've never been the same since. The roughly edged music appealed to the punk in me, but it was really the lyrics that made me the true convert. For me, a poor USAer who could barely afford college, much less travel, these CD's presented me with a view of the world from the other side of the world, and that pure Australian-ness fascinated me. It felt like a great secret alternate universe that only a few of us privileged USAers were allowed to peek at. Then I really started to listen to their stories. Passion, true passion, is hard to find. Passion, above all else, requires emotions to feed on, and emotions can be very scary things to confront. Most people I know view the impassioned with a critical eye; they are impractical dreamers at best, basketcases at the worst. It is better to lead a life of inoffensive, unquestioning mediocrity - less chance of heartbreak that way. Just look at tomorrow as one more day of eating and sleeping, and you'll be all right. The impassioned, though, are the ones who keep us going in the first place. They're the ones who make the biggest dent. They're the ones who can express by proxy the emotions that we ourselves are afraid to let out. These are the people who, hopefully, will motivate and inspire us to rise above the level of intelligent ape to someone who can truly make a difference on this giant rock we live on. It's been said a million times how Midnight Oil are the champions of the 'little man', the working class, and the environment. How they're a great concert band. How they can 'sing like a church choir'. How there's a definite spiritual element in their music. All of those elements taken separately make a so-so band. All of those elements put together make a good band. What makes them a great band, what makes them a band that you want to hear again and again, what makes them a band that shakes you at the core is that they themselves truly believe what they're saying. When they play, you can tell that what they're singing about comes from the innermost core of their hearts, whether it's about the environment, the plight of those maligned by poverty and/or injustice, or their relationships with God, all delivered at 110% energy, top volume, and the subtly of a jackhammer on cement. All in the hopes that you are able to feel what they're feeling, on their level, to shake you to the core by showing you what else is out there. And maybe, just maybe, light the spark that will eventually prompt to reject the societally-programmed autopilot macro that has been running your life, and instead compel you look at the world through a different viewpoint, really making the effort to see what's really out there, instead of the worldview TV feeds you, and to act on what you see instead of accepting passivity as the only solution. Passion. And sometimes that passion moves us..... C-ko Linde - [email protected] |
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