Voices In The Wall

They wrote the rules before we woke

Built the cage and sold the key

Drew the lines across the map

And said that this is what is free

Put our names in all their ledgers

Put our backs against their wheel

Told us silence was a virtue

Told us suffering was the deal

But you can't bury what is living

You can't silence what is true

Every voice they tried to swallow

Just grew louder as it grew

We are the voices in the wall

We were here before the fall

Every name they tried to erase

Still echoes round this place

Still echoes round this place

They never could contain us all

We are the voices in the wall

See them standing in their towers

Counting everything they own

While the children learn their hunger

And the mothers grieve alone

Every system built to keep us

Looking down instead of out

But the ones who have the least

Are always last to run from doubt

Emancipate your own mind first

Before you break the outer chain

Every truth they tried to drown

Will always rise again

How long

How long must we carry this weight

How long

Before the powerful answer too late

We won't wait

We won't break

We won't fold

This story

Was never

Theirs to be told

There is something in the people

That no prison can contain

Call it spirit, call it fire

Call it standing in the rain

Every generation carries

What the one before began

Every chain they put upon us

Built a stronger kind of man

So don't mourn for what was taken

Don't bow down to what remains

Pick the song up where they left it

And sing it through the pain

We are the voices in the wall

We were here before the fall

Every name they tried to erase

Still echoes round this place

Still echoes round this place

They never could contain us all

We are the voices in the wall

We are the voices in the wall

We were just waiting for the fall