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
