Minutes to Midnight

Midnight Oil

About Minutes to Midnight

Minutes to Midnight is the fourth track on the 1984 album Red Sails in the Sunset by Australian music group Midnight Oil. The song was written by band members Peter Garrett and Jim Moginie. The title and lyrics of the song allude to the Doomsday Clock, a symbolic timepiece published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which represents the proximity of nuclear war (or more generally "catastrophic destruction"), designated as "midnight". Nuclear confrontation was pertinent at the time of this song, the clock having regressed to a mere "three minutes to midnight" in 1984 from some 12 minutes in the preceding decade. This was the closest to midnight the clock had reached since the overt testing of H-Bombs by the US and Soviet Union in 1953. This setting was surpassed only recently, after the inauguration of American president Donald Trump in January 2017, when the clock was set at two-and-a-half minutes to midnight. The lyrics warn of escalation in the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union ("ICBMs, SS-20s / they lie so dormant, they got so many"), and allude to both H. G. Wells and heralded Australian racehorse Phar Lap. 


3:07

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Everybody say god is a good man
Ah, clock on the world
Driving a dump truck up to the sun
A sigh in the human heart

I look at the clock on the wall
It says three minutes to midnight
Faith is blind when we're so near
Phar Lap floating in a jar
Seas full of submarines, A.W.A.C.'s like flies
Truth gets harder to define
Talking in tongues
But the dancer's hand grips the rail
And fingers will blister on the 88's
Hope drains out of the side of the page

But ear's can't hear
What eyes don't see
And you can't see me

Everybody say God is a good man
Everybody say 1,2,3
Set up those gunsights in H.G. Wells backyard
I.C.B.M's, S.S.20's they lie so dormant they got so many
Remember your childhood
Remember the journey
Hope is what you say and do

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Midnight Oil

Midnight Oil (also known informally as "The Oils" to fans), were an Australian alternative rock band from Sydney originally performing as Farm from 1972 with drummer Rob Hirst, bass guitarist Andrew James and keyboard player/lead guitarist Jim Moginie. While vocalist Peter Garrett was studying at Australian National University in Canberra, he answered an advertisement for a spot in Farm, and by 1975 the band was touring the east coast. By late 1976, Garrett moved to Sydney to complete his law degree, and Farm changed its name to Midnight Oil by drawing the name out of a hat. more »

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Written by: JAMES MOGINIE, MARTIN ROTSEY, PETER GARRETT, PETER GIFFORD, ROBERT HIRST

Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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    "Minutes to Midnight Lyrics." Lyrics.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/33888886/Midnight+Oil/Minutes+to+Midnight>.

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