"Hands Held High" lyrics

Turn my mic up louder I got to say something
Lightweights step it aside when we come in

Feel it in your chest the syllables get pumping
People on the street they panic and start running

Words on loose leaf sheet complete coming
I jump in my mind and summon the rhyme, I'm dumping

Healing the blind I promise to let the sun in
Sick of the dark ways we march to the drumming

Jump when they tell us that they wanna see jumping
Fuck that I wanna see some fists pumping

Risk something, take back what's yours
Say something that you know they might attack you for

Cause I'm sick of being treated like I have before
Like it's stupid standing for what I'm standing for

Like this war's really just a different brand of war
Like it doesn't cater to rich and abandon poor

Like they understand you in the back of the jet
When you can't put gas in your tank

And these fuckers are laughing their way to the bank and cashing the cheque
Asking you to have compassion and have some respect

For a leader so nervous in an obvious way
Stuttering and mumbling for nightly news to replay

And the rest of the world watching at the end of the day
In their living room laughing like "What did he say?"

Amen [5x]

In my living room watching but I am not laughing
Cause when it gets tense I know what might happen

The world is cold, the bold men take action
Have to react or get blown into fractions

Ten years old it's something to see
Another kid my age drugged under a jeep

Taken and bound and found later under a tree
I wonder if he had thought the next one could be me

Do you see the soldiers they're out today?
They brush the dust from bullet-proof vests away

It's ironic at times like this you pray
But a bomb blew the mosque up yesterday

There's bombs on the buses, bikes, roads
Inside your market, your shops, your clothes

My dad: he's got a lot of fear I know
But enough pride inside not to let that show

My brother had a book, he would hold with pride
A little red cover with a broken spine

On the back he hand-wrote a quote inside,
"When the rich wage war it's the poor who die."

Meanwhile, the leader just talks away
Stuttering and mumbling for nightly news to replay

And the rest of the world watching at the end of the day
Both scared and angry like "What did he say?"

Amen [6x]

[6x]
(Amen) With hands held high into a sky so blue
(Amen) As the ocean opens up to swallow you