I've seen Midnight Oil twice in concert and they were and remain excellent. I saw them in San Francisco when they were really popular and was so impressed by the wall of sound that they created. At a time when I seeing a lot of fantastic live shows they really stood out in a way that surprised me at the time. I saw them on their most recent tour and again, they were fantastic. 

So many negative comments below... I guess everyone's entitled to their opinion, but for the record: 1. Peter Garrett is not solely responsible for the politics and lyrics of the band. Guitarist Jim Moginie is the band member credited (alone or as co-writer) on every song on "Capricornia," while Garrett has songwriting credits on only a third of the songs (including this one). Drummer Martin Rotsey also writes quite a bit (and has written a book about the band on tour), and is quite articulate about the band's vision. Agree or disagree with them, but I think you have to respect a group that rocked out for a quarter of a century and stayed consistent in terms of personnel and messages while never standing still musically. And by the way, some of their lyrics are quite positive: "Forgotten Years," "Outbreak of Love," and "Golden Age" come to mind. 2. It's so intellectually lazy to slap a label on something you don't like rather than state your disagreement. Again, believe what you will, but instead of the label "leftist" or "socialist," maybe some of you could state which of the following ideas you disagree with (issues taken from a long time frame of Oils' songs): - nuclear weapons are dangerous - indigenous peoples were robbed by colonial powers - corporations should value human life above profit - industrialization and globalization may have negative impacts on some people - pollution poses a threat to the environment, and by extension, to our health and future - regardless of borders and ideologies, humans have a lot in common with each other - governments and corporations should be viewed critically rather than trusted blindly So, yeah, call me a liberal. You could counter that I over-simplified their views - I concede that I simplified them. But their lyrics are more artful than explicitly political, so I haven't simplified the lyrics by much. They're not detailed manifestoes. The songs just raise the issues. 3. Don't like his voice? Fine. I get so tired of that knock against good music. Who among us doesn't like some singer with a questionable voice? Dylan, Springsteen, Jagger, Vedder, Stipe, Cobain, Joplin... Tom Waits, Richard Butler, Billy Bragg, John Hiatt... You like or dislike based on more than the voice, no? 4. If you think their songs all sound alike, blame a lack exposure to their music. They've got the rock anthem down, sure, but also the danceable songs, the hard core industrial sound, the moody atmospheric piano and acoustic guitar, twangy psychedelic, the brass and woodwind ooom-pah instrumental, and the use of the didgeridoo (sp?) in a rock song... I would say that most of their albums have a distinctive character that can't be appreciated if you only know a few songs from different albums.

I have to disagree with Bill that these guys were ahead of times with the message in this song. The data-based confirmation of the decades-old human-caused climate change theory was first widely reported in the 1980s. By the 1990s, the news was there for anyone who wanted to bother to listen. Unfortunately, both left and right largely ignored the ever-increasing drum beat.

So many negative comments below... I guess everyone's entitled to their opinion, ... But their lyrics are more artful than explicitly political, so I haven't simplified the lyrics by much. They're not detailed manifestoes. The songs just raise the issues.

There is nothing I like about this song...

Or this band for that matter. 1 from me.