Beds Are Burning

Australian band Midnight Oil scored a number of Top 40 hits in their home country, but they hit the Top 40 in the United States on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart just once.  Exactly 25 years ago, that hit, “Beds Are Burning,” peaked at number 17.

While “Beds Are Burning” marked their only Top 40 single on the Hot 100, the band would also chart later that year with their follow-up, “The Dead Heart,” which peaked at number 53.  They would also chart in 1990 with “Blue Sky Mine,” which peaked at number 47 as the first single from their next album.

After Midnight Oil disbanded in 2002, front man Peter Garrett was elected to Australia’s House of Representatives as a member of Australia’s Labor Party.  He has been serving in Australian government ever since, though he recently announced that he will be retiring at the end of his current term.