SPECIES DECEASES
(1985)

Produced by Midnight Oil and Francois Kevorkian
Recorded at Paradise Studios
Engineered by David Price and Tom Colley

Progress*
Hercules*
Blossom and Blood
Pictures

*Music Sample Provided


PROGRESS
(Moginie/Garrett)

Say yes to real life ambition
Say yes to our hopes and our plans
Forget about your indecision
Let's get the beast off our land

A tree that can grow no longer
A beach that has got no sand
I would pay out a king's ransom
If we could just understand

Got your last meal filled up with pesticide
Hamburger chain third world infanticide
Got robot car your jobs will disappear
It's called the politics of a brand new year
Manhattanization is coming
Open your eyes if you dare
Carry us on to the crossroads
Come to your senses and care
16 million I can't hear you at all

Some say that's progress
I say that's cruel
You may be safe in your hemisphere
But there's so much junk in the stratosphere
We got our eyes on the firmament
Hands on the armaments
Heads full of arguments
And words for our monuments

I won't deny it can we survive
Some say that's progress I say that's cruel

 

HERCULES
Moginie/Garrett/Hirst)

My life is a valuable thing
I want to keep it that way
I won't cry

My life's such a valuable thing
Some things don't fade away
I don't mind
We give the best we can give
We won't forget we can't forgive
Keep us radioactive free

Strike a bell in Hiroshima park
You know that we can't see in the dark
We try & try & we try...

Who waits for the planes to come
When everybody's got you on the run
South Pacific carry on

It seems to me that what we're saying
Nobody wants to talk about
This is no time to be wondering why

I do the best I can do
The human jungle and the global zoo
I'll find my way it's a very special world

Why wait for the planes to come
When everybody's got us on the run
South Pacific carry on

Here comes the Hercules
Her comes the submarines
Sinking South Pacific dreams


BLOSSOM AND BLOOD
(Hirst/Moginie)

You the mothers who sent your sons
Wipe away your tears
For those who fought and those who fell
Become our sons as well.

You the warriors with your words
Throw away your spears
You talk of times of peace for all
And then prepare for war.
All the people with dreams, all mothers with sons
All people with dreams never woken at night by the sound of guns.
Like a child that's born on a moonless night
Like a child that's born, we parachute down to an unknown fight.

This city of blossom and blood
This city suffered more than it should
These sidewalk silhouettes not washed away, not washed away.

Whatever you've done, whatever you've done, whatever you've done.

There's a hope in the heart says never again.
Whatever you say, whatever you say, whatever you say
It's the price of peace to remember that day.


PICTURES
(Hirst/Moginie/Rotsey/Garrett/Gifford)

I just want to talk through paradise
I just want to see that clear clear ight
Don't want to be a member of a species that's deceasing
Keep on making those promises that they aren't keeping

Oh I was a talking to the people next door
Said they don't want to die in a nuclear war
Now we went walking down the old north road
We got a common cause we got a heavy heavy load

Watching pictures of the world
Watching pictures as they pass me by
Don't stop at that light
Don't go out at night
My artificial heart
Expensive spare parts

I've been a sailor on the sea I've been a flyer in the air
I've seen a whole lot of bleeding hearts out there
They don't talk so much I tell you they still care

They can't go on living like this they can't go on

Don't sit around in silence you don't need a licence
It's moving in a hurrythere's no need to worry
We're really going to change it the critical mass approaches
I can almost hear it

Species Deceases / Midnight Oil
Copyright © 1985 Midnight Oil
Music copyright © Sony Music Australia