The Alternative Number Ones: Midnight Oil’s “Forgotten Years”

In The Alternative Number Ones, I'm reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it's for members only. Thank you to everyone who's helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

For the first half of the 20th century, global geopolitics really fucked Australia. The country technically became independent from the British Empire in 1901, but it remained part of the Commonwealth of Nations. That meant Australian soldiers fighting in British wars, suffering and dying all the way across the world from their homes. During World War I, Australian troops went through unimaginable hell in Gallipoli and the Middle East. In a country of five million people, 60,000 soldiers died. Eric Bogle's classic 1971 folk song "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" depicts the Australian experience in Gallipoli in vivid, horrifying detail. The Pogues' version of that song really fucks me up.

Another 40,000 Australians died in World War II -- in North Africa, in Italy, in the Pacific Theater. Many faced starvation and disease in Japanese prison camps. Australian civilians never had to face anything like the London Blitz, but hundreds were killed in Japanese bombing runs and in one submarine attack on Sydney. Australian troops fought and died in Korea and Vietnam, too. None of these wars were theirs. Theoretically, Australia could've sat out all of these conflicts, safe in the knowledge that nobody would invade. But that's not how geopolitics work.