18: Don't Call Me Baby

18. "One Country" by Midnight Oil [Video: One Country.]

After my mission, I spent a year at BYU, then left to move to Pocatello to go to Idaho State University. I moved in with a good friend, but he soon left me for a younger woman. I moved into a place of my own for a few months, but then got an offer to roommate with an old acquaintance from my mission.

It wasn't too long after I moved in with Dean that Midnight Oil came out with their "Blue Sky Mining" album, their follow-up to their breakthrough "Diesel and Dust." (Both albums are great.) As roommates, Dean and I had some arrangements. I bought most of the food. He did almost all of the cooking. I did most of the dishes. (And then, eventually, he left me for a younger woman, too.)

I didn't like to do dishes. I would usually procrastinate. So, when I finally did get around to doing the dishes, there was a pretty big pile of them. To help me get through the doing of the dishes, I would usually put an album on and crank it. The album I chose more than any other (or at least the album I most associate with doing dishes in that basement apartment) was "Blue Sky Mining" by Midnight Oil.

"Blue Sky Mine" and "Forgotten Years" were the songs from that album that got some radio air time, and they are both excellent songs. But, for me, the standout song from the album was "One Country." It's a dynamic ballad. A few years ago I was talking to Dean, and somehow the group Midnight Oil came up. "Oh, they had that one song," he said, and I knew exactly which song he meant. (One of the few times someone talking about "that one song" by Midnight Oil wasn't referring to "Beds Are Burning.")

Look, they're almost even smiling!

"Blue Sky Mining," with "One Country" on it was released in February of 1990. In 1991, U2 came out  with their "Achtung Baby" album, which featured a song called "One." At the time, and to this day, I've thought that U2's "One" is just a bit too similar to Midnight Oil's far superior "One Country." Maybe it's just me.

I also think that U2's "Vertigo" has a guitar riff that is very similar to one from Midnight Oil's "Redneck Wonderland." Does U2 listen to Midnight Oil albums for inspiration? Probably not. But, who can say?

Who would win a fight between U2 and Midnight Oil? I have no doubt it would be Midnight Oil. Even if Peter Garret decided to be a pacifist and not fight, he would still probably knock Bono out with one of his inadvertent arm flails while singing.

"Who wants to please everyone?

  Who says it all can be done?

   Still sit upon that fence?

   No one I've heard of yet!"

"Don't call me baby. Don't talk in maybes."

COMING UP NEXT: Not the favorite song of Edgar Rice Burroughs.