# Midnight Oil's "Beds Are Burning" - why so popular? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 17, 2007, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402 "2007-05-17T02:37:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/1 "2007-05-17T02:37:12Z")
I’m not saying it’s a bad song. It’s catchy enough. But it came out in 1988 and I still hear it every week on the radio. There’s a lot a good pop songs that came out in the eighties that go years without being played. The band was a one-hit wonder. The song’s about reparations for Australian aborigines, hardly a subject near and dear to the hearts of the average American radio listener. So why has this song endured? ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/2 "2007-05-17T02:38:09Z")
Uh… a one-hit wonder? They had several hits and were quite politically active as well. I had two of their albums back in the 80s. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/3 "2007-05-17T02:39:04Z")
Midhight Oil’s hardly a one hit wonder IMHO. Check out the album _Blue Sky Mining_. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/4 "2007-05-17T02:44:40Z")
That was the prettiest record I ever had. It was on transparent blue vinyl. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/5 "2007-05-17T03:24:12Z")
Can’t explain it to you, but never mind the subject, that track just has that “something” that won’t let go. I recall that the very first time I heard it I said to myself, _“Self, I don’t know who this nor really understand it, but it rocks”_. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/6 "2007-05-17T03:34:40Z")
I think it’s just a catchy song. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me though: Something about boiling wrecks steaming at 45 degrees. I grew up in the United States of Farenheidt; nothing steamed at 45 degrees to my knoweldge. I actually just put together a 80s CD and put this song on it. And yeah, I agree they were pretty much a one-hit wonder, which is not to say they weren’t also politically active and a good band. But I just Wiki’d **Blue Sky Mining** and I don’t recognize a single song. I guess one-hit-wonderness depends on what you listened to and where you lived. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/7 "2007-05-17T03:46:04Z")
Really? Wow. Multiple songs from that album got radio and MTV play. My favorite was “Forgotten Years”. Oh and I mentioned the politically active thing because they did things that made them very visible… like giving a free outdoor concert outside some corporate building (I think? It was a long time ago, my memory’s not so great) in NYC as some sort of protest. ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/8 "2007-05-17T04:09:45Z")
[QUOTE=OpalCat] They had several hits and were quite politically active as well. [/QUOTE] Indeed. One of them, Peter Garrett, is now an opposition member of the Federal Parliament and the Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage and the Arts. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/9 "2007-05-17T04:12:50Z")
I remember when he first ran for office … what at the end of the 80s? ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/10 "2007-05-17T04:19:27Z")
[QUOTE=OpalCat] I remember when he first ran for office … what at the end of the 80s? [/QUOTE] Mid 1980s some time I think. He stood for the Senate in NSW for the Nuclear Disarmament Party, but wasn’t elected. He was elected to the House of Repreentatives as a Labor party member a few years ago. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/11 "2007-05-17T04:21:29Z")
Why? Because people keep brining it up and then it gets stuck in other peoples’ heads and then people request it on the radio just so they can hear the whole thing! grrrrrrrrrr!! (this has been stuck in my head ever since the thread was first posted. Thanks a lot!) ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/12 "2007-05-17T04:32:49Z")
The song resonates moderately well with Americans, I think. I somehow managed to even think that they were an American band for several years. I even rationalized “our shoreline was never invaded” from _The Forgotten Years_ to mean “in the last century, at least not significantly, and not the states themselves …” side note : **Blue Sky Mining** was the first album of modern music I spent my own money on. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/13 "2007-05-17T04:55:14Z")
Oh wow, an Oils thread on the Dope! I think the OP is lucky to hear BaB all the time… I hear it every now and then. The Oils had a great message and rocked like a motherfucker. Apparently in their early years playing in clubs the band would play with such fervor they’d pass out and need oxygen afterwards. BaB was a great song because of that bassline, the song’s topic of returning land to Aborigines, and Garrett’s dancing rivals Tim Booth and Michael Stipe, combined, in terms of “weird spasmodic White guy dancing.” It pretty much encapsulates the 80s, with the social message, superb guitar work, being danceable, and the allure of being a supposed “one-hit wonder.” Which they weren’t, of course. Rolling Stone named _Diesel and Dust_ the #13 spot of the 100 greatest album of the 1980s. BaB was the big hit off _Diesel and Dust,_ but I also saw “Dreamworld” on MTV in the 80s in fairly heavy rotation. As it’s been mentioned earlier, “Forgotten Years” got a lot of airplay, as did “King of the Mountain” with the footage from their impromptu concert on Wall Street protesting Exxon’s environmental disaster with the Valdiz. They have so many great songs that rock, but carry that awesome political message - “US Forces” “The Power and the Passion” (I remember this getting a lot of play on college radio as well) “Read About It” “Best of Both Worlds” I also think “Outbreak of Love” is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. Rob Hirst, the amazing drummer, is in a band called Ghostwriters with Martin Rotsey, one of the Oils’ awesome guitarists. You can hear their new song “Start the Day” at [MySpace](http://www.myspace.com/theghostwriters). Rob sang background on most Oils songs and lead on “When The Generals Talk” and “Kosciuszko,” so he’s got decent pipes. I saw the Oils when they toured for their last album, _Capricornia_, and it was one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen. Those guys ripped though their set like they were a bunch of teenagers, not forty-something men. If you don’t have it, go out and get their greatest hits album, _20,000 Watt R.S.L._ If you like guitar-driven indie rock this is your band! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/14 "2007-05-17T04:59:57Z")
> [@](#): > > Really? Wow. Multiple songs from that album got radio and MTV play. My favorite was “Forgotten Years”. No, actually “Forgotten Years” didn’t even make the Top 100 charts in the United States. “Blue Sky Mine” was the only song from _Blue Sky Mining_ to break the Top 100 and it only made it to #47. “Beds Are Burning”, their biggest US hit, peaked at #17 in the US. “Diesel and Dust” made it to #21, and “The Dead Heart” was #53. That’s it - they had four songs that ever made the Top 100 in the US and none made it higher than #17. Elvis Costello’s album _Spike_ came out around this same time. I love that album and I listen to it regularly. But I don’t kid myself that “Baby Plays Around” and “God’s Comic” and “Tramp the Dirt Down” were all hits. Besides, the point of my OP isn’t the success they had back in the eighties; it’s their continued success now. I’d be willing to bet a sizable sum that if you checked US radio play for any period in the last ten years, you’ll find that “Beds Are Burning” was played more often than all their other songs combined. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/15 "2007-05-17T05:08:39Z")
Yeah, but chart success is only one way of recognizing a band’s imprint. I hear Modern English’s “I Melt With You” weekly on the radio, almost always on the 80s retro show. That song didn’t chart in the U.S., and I think it did pretty poorly when it was re-released in the 90s. But it was a staple on MTV and college radio. MTV kids and college radio listeners are in their late 30s and 40s now, so a retro station would probably play songs like “Beds are Burning” because a lot of listeners remember the songs from 20 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/16 "2007-05-17T05:14:48Z")
[QUOTE=Hippy Hollow] I saw the Oils when they toured for their last album, _Capricornia_, and it was one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen. Those guys ripped though their set like they were a bunch of teenagers, not forty-something men. If you don’t have it, go out and get their greatest hits album, _20,000 Watt R.S.L._ If you like guitar-driven indie rock this is your band! [/QUOTE] I saw them on that tour, too (twice!), as well as on the _Diesel and Dust_ and _Blue Sky Mining_ tours (for the D&D tour, the opening acts were a Native American [playing traditional Native American music] musician and Yothu Yindi, an Australian aborigine group). Best live band I’ve ever seen, easily (and they wouldn’t even be in my top 20 bands going strictly by their recorded output, though I did like their albums) - it’s damn near impossible to take your eyes off Garrett and Hirst. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/17 "2007-05-17T05:17:10Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] No, actually “Forgotten Years” didn’t even make the Top 100 charts in the United States. “Blue Sky Mine” was the only song from _Blue Sky Mining_ to break the Top 100 and it only made it to #47. “Beds Are Burning”, their biggest US hit, peaked at #17 in the US. “Diesel and Dust” made it to #21, and “The Dead Heart” was #53. That’s it - they had four songs that ever made the Top 100 in the US and none made it higher than #17. [/QUOTE] Nitpick: “Diesel and Dust” was an album, not a single; if I’m reading your post correctly, I’m assuming you meant “Dreamworld”. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/18 "2007-05-17T05:22:46Z")
For the sake of comparison, [here](http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id225.htm) are the 100 biggest singles of 1988. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/19 "2007-05-17T05:24:40Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] . But I just Wiki’d **Blue Sky Mining** and I don’t recognize a single song. I guess one-hit-wonderness depends on what you listened to and where you lived. [/QUOTE] Blue Sky Mine is the only other song I remember. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2007, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402/20 "2007-05-17T05:30:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Nitpick: “Diesel and Dust” was an album, not a single; if I’m reading your post correctly, I’m assuming you meant “Dreamworld”. You’re right. I was getting my figures off a Midnight Oil website and I slipped up on the details. I was thinking _Diesel and Dust_ was both an album and the name of a song on that album and that the figures I was quoting were for the song. But as you pointed out, there was no such song. It was the album _Diesel and Dust_ which reached #21 in the US; the only song off that album to make the charts was “Beds Are Burning”. Which brings the band’s total number of songs that made the Top 100 down to three. Again, I want to emphasize I’m not knocking the band or the song. I like the song. I’m just trying to figure out why a song that wasn’t all that popular when it was released has somehow managed to hang on and get played so many times in the twenty years since. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-oils-beds-are-burning-why-so-popular/404402.md?page=2)