Blue Sky Mine - Remastered

The song refers to the Wittenoom asbestos mine in Western Australia where blue asbestos was mined between 1947 and 1966. The once-thriving town is now a virtual ghost town. Shops are boarded up, the two schools are closed, the local cinema is derelict. In their ignorance, the original settlers used asbestos in gardens, school yards and roads. Wittenoom is without doubt Australia's greatest industrial disaster and it is estimated that 25% of the 20,000 men who mined asbestos there will die from related diseases.

The music came out of an idea Jim Moginie (the band's guitarist/keyboardist) had when he was 15, but the song went through a huge transition in the studio. The album's producer, Warne Livesey, told Blurt Magazine: "That song actually started out as a different song. After we had started the song it felt a little lacking and I came up with the idea of giving it more of a Motown feel. We started working on the Vox organ riff and then Martin [Rotsey, guitarist] came up with the echo guitar part and the guys wrote a new chorus inspired by that. It was a more convoluted process but it worked out well."

In the midst of their Blue Sky Mining tour, Midnight Oil stopped in New York City to stage a protest outside the Exxon Oil building in Manhattan to hold the company accountable for the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill that occurred in Alaska the year before. During the eight-song set - including "Blue Sky Mine" and a cover of John Lennon's "Instant Karma" - Oils vocalist Peter Garrett stated, "We can't treat the world like a garbage dump, and there's more to life than profit and loss."