Midnight Oil: Kissing no bum, tugging no forelock
They had a global hit with a song about returning land to the colonised, but their political activism didn't end there. Midnight Oil have never pandered, but have listened and apologised.
Words: Peter Barrett
Australian writer Tim Winton summed up The Oils well: “It was almost too much to believe that rock music could be about anything but itself. Life on the road and the inconvenience of VD. Dicks and chicks. Finally someone was playing stuff that was musically idiosyncratic, fresh and strong. And authentic. Particular. Peculiar. True to a time and a place and pretty damn defiant about it. They kissed no bum and tugged no forelock.”
They cut their musical teeth around Sydney’s northern pubs, adopting an aggressive punk-rock sound and building up a fiercely loyal fan base. Lead vocalist Peter Garrett spoke of the experience: “Halfway through your set, two large, drunk truck drivers decide to have a fight. They’re beating each other up and careening towards the corner where the band is set up. Meanwhile, everyone else is going, ‘Turn it down, I’m trying to watch TV.’ Try to contemplate that as an environment to play music in every night for three years.”
Their music was unusual for its political activism: nuclear disarmament, workers’ and Aboriginal rights, consumerism, criticising major corporations for environmental abuse. Apart from one or two radio channels, they struggled to get airplay. But they stuck to their principles. Garrett: “The strategy was simple. Play to the people where they lived, get the music lodged within their head. Never rip the audience off. Forget about pleasing the critics or pandering to the in crowd. Find those who shared the vision: road crew, staff and music-industry people who were fans, and play, play, play like hell hoping that you wouldn’t crash and burn.”
Prior to their 1987 breakthrough album, Diesel and Dust, they went on an Outback tour with indigenous groups, Warumpi Band and Gondwanaland, playing to remote Aboriginal communities and seeing for themselves the issues they faced. At one of the first gigs, the Warumpis closed to ecstatic applause. The Oils then launched into their set – and the audience quickly disappeared into the shadows. The band realised it was time to listen. “For six weeks on that tour, I was almost mute,” said Hirst. “You had to listen very carefully to the information that was being given to you by elders, who speak very quietly. We just needed to shut up and listen. And it came out on the music we recorded.”
Beds Are Burning was the single that gave them international acclaim: “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.” Garrett commented: “Who would have thought an Aboriginal land rights song would travel that far?”
Garrett served as President of the Australian Conservation Foundation (1989-93,98-04) and joined Greenpeace’s international board (1993-95). Midnight Oil played a private gig for 250 activists in Greenpeace’s Sydney warehouse before their 2017 world tour. Greenpeace Australia CEO, David Ritter, commented: “The songs of Midnight Oil never shy away from loss and grief, both personal and political. But there’s no defeatism or abandonment in any Oils track. The ethic of determination, whatever the odds, is a golden thread. Not much time, but time to try. They say it’s late, but you know it’s never too late. Sometimes you’re shaken to the core, but you don’t give in.”
Blue Sky Mining, the next record, was inspired by workers at the Wittenoom mines who contracted asbestos-related diseases (“blue” refers to blue asbestos): “But if I work all day on the blue sky mine/There’ll be food on the table tonight … And the company takes what the company wants/And nothing’s as precious as a hole in the ground.” That same year they played an impromptu gig in front of Exxon’s Manhattan HQ after the Exxon Valdez spilled 10 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Garrett: “What (they)’ve done is wrong and we invited people to join us. People poured out of office blocks into the street and essentially shut down the middle of New York.”
The Sydney 2000 Olympics provided another opportunity to speak truth to power. Then PM John Howard had refused to apologise to Indigenous Australians and members of the Stolen Generations. But he admitted Beds Are Burning was his favourite Oils song. The band performed the song at the closing ceremony with the word ‘Sorry’ printed on their clothing to highlight the issue to Howard, who was in the audience, along with one billion people watching on TV. Garrett mentioned later that their manager, Gary Morris, a Christian, had a vision that they should put this word on their clothing.
Like Morris, Garrett also had a Christian faith. However, Morris thrived on confrontation and was happy to take on record companies, promoters and the media. Any bad reviews and the journalist was automatically banned from future gigs. He was aggressive and brooked no opposition. Garrett was more thoughtful and nuanced in the way he lived out his beliefs.
The Church was the reason Garrett started singing: “St John’s up at Gordon, in Sydney’s north shore. The great Anglican hymns, Wesley and Britten. The Mass, in Latin, as well.” In 1980 Garrett visited San Salvador to pay his respects to Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was killed at a service by one of the government’s death squads for speaking out against corrupt leaders and their lack of care for the poor. Romero was someone he had long admired. Garrett maintains that he ‘re-embraced’ his faith in 1984. “It was a turning point in terms of becoming invigorated. I think you’ve got to get down on your knees and I think you’ve got to say, ‘I’m stuffing up’. And I think you’ve got to let out a few screams.”
“I haven’t chosen to make an issue of faith,” Garrett explained in 1998, “partly because it is capable of being misconstrued, both by mainstream media and religious and faith communities. Secondly, it is not a component of my public creative life. It is not a representation of what Midnight Oil is. If you have a belief system, you can very quickly find yourself as the archetypal representative of that belief system for the whole population of Australia. That’s not my job.”
Instead, he is simply “somebody who is walking as steadily as they can with an underpinning of the practising Christian faith towards what is hopefully a more meaningful and connected life.” For Garrett, Jesus is a compelling figure: “As far as the gospels are concerned the challenge is to get past the years of formulations, hair-splitting and pinpricking that goes on at a theological level and just be able to see the bold, very stark, very uncomplicated, but often mysterious power that is exerted by Jesus,” he says. “He was the transforming figure, and this capacity for transforming is something that is offered freely as a gift. The compelling thing about it is that it confronts all of us.”
However, he’s cautious of organised religion: “I’ll go occasionally. I’m a lover of ritual. The community of worship is something that I still feel quite at ease with. But much of the dogma and much of the proselytising makes me extremely uncomfortable. So I tend to find some kind of spiritual foundation in whatever I’m doing. It’s part of the personal compass.”
His recent cover of World Party’s God on My Side in February 2025 (part of his second solo album, The True North), was an intriguing choice. “It has nothing specifically to do with my own beliefs, but when I read an Episcopal minister saying, ‘Humans never behave more badly toward one another than when they believe they are protecting God,’ it reminded me of this song. Religious writings usually espouse love but, perversely, religious leaders often end up inciting hate,” Garrett remarked. “Love in action, truly supporting one another and being prepared to defend human rights and the planet is the only antidote to this madness.”
Do some Oil exploration by listening to this issue’s playlist on Spotify
A crude history of Oil
Formed in Sydney in 1972 by Rob Hirst (drums), Jim Moginie (guitar, keyboards) and Andrew James (bass), they enlisted Peter Garrett (vocals) the following year, called themselves Midnight Oil in 1976, and hired Martin Rotsey (guitar) a year later. In 1987 Bones Hillman became bass player until his death in 2020. In 2002, Garrett left for a career in politics. They re-formed in 2016, calling it a day in 2022.
Peter Barrett. Back in the day Peter was on the Greenbelt board and a trustee of Third Way magazine. After a hiatus, he’s begun writing about music again. His recent work on Kendrick Lamar and Arcade Fire has appeared in The Church Times. He’s just starting an MA in Christian Spirituality. His background is in marketing and AI.