MIDNIGHT OIL - Who Can Stand In The Way lyrics

rate me

Well oh well I feel I'm in decay

John Laws is on the air again

It's heavy traffic, jacarandas, eye in the sky and foot on ground

I see a million sand speck'd ants in mortal combat hand to hand

And I feel that I

Yes I feel that I

Seem to live this life long distance

gaze at the things surround me

People rolling in and out

Those circles and tides confound me

And there's just one thing

Yes there's just one thing

Who can stand in the way

When there's a dollar to be made?

I was hanging round off Dobroyd Point

When the first fleet chain sailed in

Looked into the clearest blue

The scurvy smell, the convicts cry

And we just carried on,

Yes we just carried on

Now choppers strafe the supermarket sky

and people wonder why

Chopping down tons of trees

Got seas of print not a soul can read say

Why do I drown you build brick boxes

One by one now they block my sun

But it's metal on metal

It's the dance of TV

If Christ were here he'd camera check

He'd cry so loud the planes would stop

He'd cry so loud the earth would shake

And men would fall in tinsel town

There's just one thing

Yes there's just one thing...

Who can stand in the way

When there's a dollar to be made?

Precious moments, precious few

When that dollar's more than me and you

It's the joy of forgetting,

Such a joy to forget

But we killed all our firstborn

And we slashed and we burned

And we sold off the paddocks

And we raped and we gouged

On the wings of a six-pack

Will we ever learn?

* (Monologue that ends the song . . . )

When the spinifex hit Sydney

it was the last thing we expected

When the desert reached Gladesville we tried to tame it

And when the emus grazed at Pyrmont it suddenly dawned on us all

Finally the world was silent and the door was shut.

(Moginie/Garrett)

Thanks to Marcus Hayward for these lyrics

Thanks to tech98 for correcting these lyrics