Midnight Oil: The Dead Heart

Today's Saturday music selection returns to politics. What? XTC's "Mayor Of Simpleton"isn't political? No, it isn't.

"The Dead Heart" comes from Midnight Oil's brilliant Diesel and Dust, which like Graham Parker's equally superb Squeezing Out Sparks, was a near miss on the road to mass acceptance and reverence. But so was U2's The Unforgettable Fire, but they followed it up with The Joshua Tree, their ticket to superstardom.

Earlier this week I ripped California's attorney general Jerry Brown, who is running for governor again. Last Saturday Brown, a Democrat, held a fundraiser at the home of Jodie Evans, a leader of the anti-military radical group Code Pink.

Brown, who has been a politician for almost his entire adult life, ran for president a few times, most recently in 1992. The year prior, "Governor Moonbeam" emotionally announced that run in Philadelphia, with these words:

We carry in our hearts the true country and that can't be stolen. We follow in the spirit of our ancestors and that cannot be broken.

Which is almost a word-for-word lift from "The Dead Heart."

We carry in our hearts the true country and that can't be stolen. We follow in the spirit of our ancestry and that cannot be broken.

A great song, and a great video. As for the plagiarism, it may have been accidental. Brown staffers said at the time he credited Midnight Oil in an information sheet.



Love the art, hate the artist. Whoah...that was harsh. Then again, maybe not. Mignight Oil's lead singer, Peter Garrett, quit the music business and entered politics. A big greenie even in the 1980s, he became Australia's Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. One of his projects was a home insulation foil, later derisively dubbed "midnight foil," which ignited 96 fires and caused four deaths.

Say what you will about Barack Obama's disgraced green jobs czar, Van Jones, but no one has died because of his radical politics. Garrett was demoted and midnight foil was shelved.

And to think my weekly musical feature is supposed to be a fun diversion. But we live in turbulent times.

But Garrett and his cowriters of "The Dead Heart" can put "Speech writer for Jerry Brown" on their résumés.

The flag in the video? It's the Australian Aborigine flag.

Move America Forward is calling for Brown to return the Code Pinko money he raised.

Related posts:

Code Pink blues

XTC: Mayor of Simpleton