Will Be a Witness

Go on and take your black marker, draw your lines across the page

and convince yourself that history is something you can cage.

Go on and pull the books down from the shelves for all to see;

you're the hero of a story that is written by decree.

You think the truth is something you can edit and command,

a disobedient subject that is getting out of hand.

So you silence all the artists and you censor every song,

and you tell us that you're making this republic pure and strong.

But you don't understand the power of a thing that is denied;

the only thing you're building is a place for truth to hide

and gather all its strength until it's ready to ignite

in the suffocating darkness of your artificial light.

'Cause every redacted word will be a witness to your crime,

a black and silent monument that will outlast your time.

Every book you burn is just a torch to light our way,

and every voice you try to silence has a million things to say.

Yeah, every redacted word will be a future prosecutor's proof,

the quiet, screaming evidence of your war against the truth.

We will write it on the bathroom stalls, we'll spray it on the walls;

we'll pass it in the whispers that echo in these halls.

You can't kill an idea, you can only make it strong;

you can't erase the memory of where it all went wrong.

Your empire of black ink is just a temporary stain,

and the truth is comin' for you like a cleansing, driving rain.

So hide behind your edits, hide behind your vicious lies;

we're the generation that is here to watch your kingdom die.

'Cause every redacted word will be a witness to your crime,

a black and silent monument that will outlast your time.

Every book you burn is just a torch to light our way,

and every voice you try to silence has a million things to say.

Yeah, every redacted word will be a future prosecutor's proof,

the quiet, screaming evidence of your war against the truth.