Midnight Oil: Diesel and Dust (1987)

Uno de los discos de mi adolescencia mejor recordados es Diesel and Dust del grupo australiano Midnight Oil. Recuerdo que me lo grabaron en una cinta de cassette, en la otra cara estaba el grupo granadino 091, y no podía dejar de escucharlo. Quizás sea porque lo disfruté en el mismo año de su publicación y eso me permitió seguir a la banda en los años siguientes, algo que no pude hacer con otros grupos clásicos y fundamentales en mi vida.  Diesel y Dust es un disco imprescindible.

En España sonaron mucho en aquella época, aunque evidentemente llevaban ya muchos años de rodaje, pues se formaron en la primera mitad de la década de 1970 a partir de la banda de rock progresivo Farm. En 1972 se reunieron en una primera formación Rob Hirst (batería y voces), Andrew "Bear" James (bajo) y Jim Moginie (guitarra, teclados y voz), a los que en 1975 se unió la voz y personalidad de Peter Garrett y Martin Rotsey (guitarra). El bajista Andrew James abandonó la formación en 1980 y fue sustituido por Peter Gifford que sólo estuvo hasta 1986, posteriormente se hizo cargo del bajo Bones Hillman.

Prácticamente desde sus primeros trabajos se advertía el fuerte compromiso políticos con sus letras cargadas de denuncia frente a problemas medioambientales y su actitud antibelicista. En el trabajo que nos ocupa se exigía la devolución de sus tierras al pueblo aborigen australiano Pintupi que fue expulsado de ellas en los años 30. Incluso actuaron en escenarios naturales, ante cielos estrellados y a la luz de fogatas. Como dijo Garrett: "Nos impactó más tocar ante 300 nativos que frente a 30.000 personas en Nueva York.." El primer single fue The Dead Heart.

We don't serve your country

don't serve your king

Know your custom don't speak your tongue

White man came took everyone

We don't serve your country

Don't serve your king

White man listen to the songs we sing

White man came took everything

We carry in our hearts the true country

And that cannot be stolen

We follow in the steps of our ancestry

And that cannot be broken

We don't serve your country

We don't serve your king

Know your custom don't speak your tongue

White man came took everyone

We don't need protection

don't need your hand

Keep your promise on where we stand

We will listen we'll understand

We carry in our hearts the true country

And that cannot be stolen

We follow in the steps of our ancestry

And that cannot be broken

We carry in our hearts the true country

And that cannot be stolen

We follow in the steps of our ancestry

And that cannot be broken

Mining companies, pastoral companies

Uranium companies

Collected companies

Got more right than people

Got more say than people

Forty thousand years can make a difference to the state of things

The dead heart lives here

Aunque la canción más recordada y emblemática fue Beds are Burning, inspirada en el ruido que hacían las ruedas de sus coches en las pistas de barro existentes en las regiones que visitaron durante una gira de 1985 para las comunidades aborígenes australianas.

Out where the river broke

The blood wood and the desert oak

Holden wrecks and boiling diesels

Steam in forty five degrees

The time has come

To say fair's fair

To pay the rent

To pay our share

The time has come 

A fact's a fact

It belongs to them

Let's give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning

How do we sleep while our beds are burning

How can we dance when our earth is turning

How do we sleep while our beds are burning

The time has come

To say fair's fair

To pay the rent, now

To pay our share

Four wheels scare the cockatoos

From Kintore East to Yuendemu

The western desert lives and breathes

In forty five degrees

The time has come

To say fair's fair

To pay the rent

To pay our share

The time has come 

A fact's a fact

It belongs to them

Let's give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning

How do we sleep while our beds are burning

How can we dance when our earth is turning

How do we sleep while our beds are burning

The time has come

To say fair's fair

To pay the rent, now

To pay our share

The time has come 

A fact's a fact

It belongs to them

We're gonna give it back

How can we dance when our earth is turning

How do we sleep while our beds are burning

Otra canción que me encanta y que sigue haciendo mención a la cultura aborigen australiana es Bullroarer, en español bramadera, que son unos instrumentos de madera aún usados por ancestrales tribus en algunas ceremonias religiosas o de iniciación.

In the desert in the dry
Before the breaking of the rain
The temperature in the shade
Had reached a hundred and ten again

In the desert in the dry
On the overland telegraph line
Don't take the law into your own hands
Don't go looking for a fight

I've heard the bullroarers

In the desert in the dry
Sun sits so high
Long day's mile and the
Radio crackles and the bones bleached white

It's a knock-em-down storm
See the tin roof shake
Wild dog howls and the long grass
Whistles and the tall trees break

I've seen the wild horses
I've heard the bullroarers
I've seen the wild horses

Shifting sand and broken plans
Lead me on to my homeland

Es curioso que Gunbarrel Highway no pasó la censura en Estados Unidos y fue eliminada del disco en este país.

I'll give you something to write home about

And I'll take you somewhere, show you around

We burnt all the cars that laid down and died

We burnt all the trees to keep us alive

Sat 'round the fire, sang like a choir

With the ashes of civilisation in our eyes

I come alive, I read the signs on the Gunbarrel Highway

Far off a dull radio beats for the young uninvolved

The meaning's a football

A stick and a can and a Kakadu man

Will the speaker speak up or the talker talk down

The world is no oyster and here in this town

Shit falls like rain on a world that is brown

I come alive, I read the signs on the Gunbarrel Highway

I come alive, and the children will sing as the

satellite swings down that highway

Nothing could be longer than that corrugated road

No ever follows where the road trains go

And no where in the country do the dust storms blow so hard

So hard

I come alive, I read the signs on the Gunbarrel Highway

I hear the sound, it's the wheels as they drive

And the cultures collide on that highway

Ah, it's a hard day, the children will sing as the

Satellite swings down that highway

La banda se disolvió en 2002, cuando el carismático Peter Garrett decidió volcarse de lleno en la política. Ingresó en las filas del Partido Laborista Australiano, incluso en 2007 llegó a ser Ministro de Medio Ambiente, Patrimonio y Artes. Aunque lejos quedaron sus denuncias de juventud y ha sido duramente criticado por grupos ecologistas y verdes al apoyar proyectos que seguramente antes habría denunciado.

Ocasionalmente el grupo ha vuelto a reunirse para conciertos especiales, incluso se siguen editando discos recopilatorios de la mítica banda (el último de ellos este mismo año, llamado Essential Oils).

Terminamos con Warakurna, el nombre de otra comunidad aborigen del oeste de Australia, y precisamente el tema de donde se escogió de su letra el nombre del LP. Es una versión acústica grabada en 1993. Cualquier canción realmente serviría para cerrar esta entrada porque todas son imprescindibles.

There is enough

There is enough for everyone

There is enough, mmm

(There is enough)

In Redfern as there is in Alice

(There is enough)

This is not the Buckingham Palace

(There is enough)

This is the crown land

This is the brown land

This is not our land

Some folks live in water tanks

Some folks live in red brick flats

(There is enough)

Law is carved in granite

(There is enough)

It's been shaped by wind and rain

(There is enough)

White law could be wrong

(There is enough)

Black law must be strong

Warakurna, cars will roll

Don't drink by the water hole

Court fines on the shop front wall

Beat the grog and save your soul

Some people laugh, some never learn

This land must change or land must burn

Some people sleep, some people yearn

This land must change or land must burn

Diesel and dust is what we breathe

This land don't change and we don't leave

Some people live, some never die

This land don't change, this land must lie

Some people leave, always return

This land must change or land must burn

Warakurna, camels roam

Fires are warm and dogs are cold

Not since Lassiter was here

Black man's got a lot to fear

Some people laugh, some never learn

This land must change or land must burn

Some people leave, always return

This land must change or land must burn

This land must change or land must burn

This land must change or land must burn