Frank Turner

Lyrics

Once an honest man could go from sunrise to its set without encountering agents of his state or government. But a sorry cloud of tyranny has fallen across the land, brought on by the hollow men, who did not understand that for centuries our forefathers have fought and often died to keep themselves unto themselves, to fight the rising tide, and that if in the smallest battles we surrender to the state, we enter in a darkness whence we never shall escape. Watt Tyler led the people in 1381 to meet the king at Smithfield and issue this demand: that Winchester’s should be the only law across the land, the law of old King Alfred’s time, of free and honest men. Because the people then they understood what we have since forgot: that governments will only work for their
own benefit. And I’d rather stand up naked against the elements alone than give the hollow men the right to enter in my home. When they raise their hands up our lives to possess, to know our souls, to drag us down, we’ll resist. Stand up sons of liberty and fight for what you own. Stand up sons of liberty and fight, fight for your homes. So if ever a man should ask you for your business, or your name, tell him to go and fuck himself, tell his friends to do the same. Because a man who’d trade his liberty for a safe and dreamless sleep doesn’t deserve the both of them, and neither shall he keep.