{"id":116,"date":"2013-01-28T18:13:28","date_gmt":"2013-01-28T07:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thebentlegs.com\/?p=116"},"modified":"2013-01-28T18:44:25","modified_gmt":"2013-01-28T07:44:25","slug":"nude-ned-explains-protest-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thebentlegs.com\/index.php\/nude-ned-explains-protest-song\/","title":{"rendered":"Nude Ned explains “Protest Song”"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Protest Song’ was written because I’m a Midnight Oil<\/a> fan.\"Nude<\/a> Detractors always said they played too much ‘complaint rock’, but Rob Hirst<\/a> always retorted that it was better than ‘compliant rock’. Sadly, Aussies prefer compliance to complaining.<\/p>\n

The song began with a meandering chord progression. In my head I imagined the first word sounding like “Oh”. If you listen to the song you’ll notice that the song starts with the word “So”. And that’s how the song started…<\/p>\n

One of my songwriting heroes<\/a> released a song called “Wings to Work<\/a>” and I was impressed by how the music was so simple and repetitive but built up with each verse adding something, the song slowly building to a rousing ending. And… I was sick of trying to find catchy choruses.<\/p>\n

From these threads the rest of the song grew. I wrote the verses in order. The lyrics were born out of a frustration with politicians and shock jocks. I had a feeling that they were always talking about issues I either didn’t care about, or if I did, they weren’t asking the questions I wanted to here or talking about what I wanted… and sometimes I didn’t even know what I wanted to talk about any more. They’d stolen my words!<\/p>\n

The song was played originally on acoustic guitar but as it was jammed and demo-ed I imagined more and more singers joining in with multiple harmonies.<\/p>\n

Whilst practicing the song Niall came up with a cool descending bass line between the 2nd and 3rd verses and later on Anna sang the lovely high harmony both of which really pushed the song along.<\/p>\n

Paying homage to another Midnight Oil song, “Hercules<\/a>” and also to the Paul Kelly Classic “From Little Things Big Things Grow<\/a>” we banged out a long instrumental powerhouse at the end. And that is why the song is 7 minutes long!<\/p>\n

EXTRA: The line “pushed that sedan” was morphed from another Midnight Oil lyric. Brownie points to anyone who can get it. The song<\/a> is off Head Injuries.<\/p>\n

ACTION: Listen to the full length song with Rob’s amazing drum work and extra guitar solo (iTunes,<\/a> CD Baby<\/a> or Amazon<\/a>) or stream\/download<\/a> the Radio-Edit for free below.<\/p>\n