Midnight Oil

[Powderworks] It took the most powerful rock band in the world to save my soul.

Jim Macdonald jsmacdonaldjr@yahoo.com
Sat, 21 Sep 2002 16:42:13 -0700 (PDT)


Beth,

I agree with you totally.  Midnight Oil does have that transcendence about them. 
It's concrete all the same.  It is a transcendence rooted in their peculiarly
Australian experience, that touches us in our own localized experiences.  When I
hear a song like Warakurna, I think of the American West, for instance.

My worry is that I want somebody who writes about our local experiences and
transcends them.  Heck, I can't even have Neil Young, apparently.  A band like
Midnight Oil could do a lot of help, I think, making people aware of the atrocities
being done in Yellowstone National Park, but I worry a band like the Oils just can't
possibly want to do something so important to me.

But, short of them, who does?  Who can be our cultural poet?  Who can bring our
romantic places, our dreamy lands, into their proper significance?  Who can
transcend for us?  

I love Midnight Oil because I feel like I can touch Australia in a way that isn't
just kangaroos and boomerangs, and I feel they can touch my yearning for alternative
culture here.  But, who is there to draw attention?  Who can reach the soul of our
lands the way Midnight Oil reaches the soul of their lands?

Isn't there also a different America out there?  I don't mean in a nationalistic
sense; I mean in a transcendent sense.  Isn't there something in our lands and in
our native heritage that gives us enough wonder, enough curiosity, enough empathy,
that we want to reach out and embrace it and each other?

Beth, you're absolutely right.  I agree with you completely.  And, yet, Midnight Oil
is concrete in its universal themes.  They tie it to places, people, and events
close to their experience.  I wish I had someone who did the same for my concrete
experiences.  "Concrete, you don't free my soul."  True, but that's not my point.
I'm not looking for what frees my soul but for what I as a living being actually
embrace.

I just wonder if I sent them my writings whether they would embrace them.

Jim Macdonald
http://www.yellowstone-online.com 


--- Beth Curran <bcurran@columbus.rr.com> wrote:
> 
> Hey Jim & Rusty,
> 
> I don't really get your assessment of MO as an Australian band & that
> the US needs its own MO.  Yes, the specifics of their songs often deal
> with Australian issues, but the themes are transcendant.  They are truly
> a world band in that they bring attention to issues that the entire
> world faces.  They have their roots in Australia, but they serve us all.
> - Beth
> 
> 


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