| When I was young it all seemed like a game
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| Living here brought no sense of shame
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| But now I’m older I’ve come to understand
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| Once we had houses
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| Once we had land
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| They rained down bullets on us as our homes collapsed
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| We lay beneath the rubble terrified
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| Hoping. |
| Dare we dream?
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| We gave up waiting
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| For us, to dream is still a dream
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| When I woke up, the house was broken stones
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| We suddenly had nothing
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| And nothing’s changed
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| We live, eight people, in this overcrowded heat
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| Factory-farmed animals living in our own sweat
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| Living like this is all my baby brother ever knew
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| The world does nothing. |
| What can we do?
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| We will kick the ball
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| We will skip the rope
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| We will play outside. |
| Be careful
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| We will paint and draw. |
| We will say our prayers
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| Outside the pitiless sun bleaches the broken streets
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| The darkness drops in the evening like an iron door
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| The men play cards under torchlight
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| The women stay inside
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| Hell can erupt in a moment day or night
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| You ask for trouble if you stray too close to the wall
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| My father died. |
| feeding the birds
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| Mum goes in front of me to check for soldiers
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| For every hot-head stone ten come back
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| For every hot-head stone a hundred come back
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| For every rocket fired the drones come back
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| For thirteen years the roads have all been closed
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| We’re isolated. |
| We’re denied medical supplies
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| Fuel and work are scarce. |
| They build houses on our farms
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| The old men weep. |
| The young men take up arms
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| We’re packed like chickens in this town of block cement
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| I get headache from the diesel. |
| When it rains, the sewers too
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| I had no idea what martyrdom meant
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| Until my older brother. |
| my older brother
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| I’m sorry. |
| I can’t continue
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| You sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind, it is said
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| When people know they have no future
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| Can we blame them if we cannot tame them?
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| And when their hopes and dreams are broken
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| And they feel they might as well be dead
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| As they go, will we forgive them
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| If they take us with them?
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| Stay close
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| Stay home
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| Stay calm
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| Have faith
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| With the love of our family we can rise above anything
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| Someday surely someone must help us
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| With the love of our family we can rise above anything
|
| Someday surely someone must help us
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| Even now we will go to school
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| Even now we will dream to dream
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| Someday surely someone must help us
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| Nothing’s ever simple — that’s for sure
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| There are grieving mothers on both sides of the wire
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| And everyone deserves a chance to feel the future just might be bright
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| But any way you look at it — whichever point of view
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| For us to have to live like this
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| It just ain’t right
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| It just ain’t right
|
| It just ain’t right
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| We all want peace and freedom that’s for sure
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| But peace won’t come from standing on our necks
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| Everyone deserves a chance to feel the future just might be bright
|
| But any way you look at this — whichever point of view
|
| For us to have to live like this
|
| It just ain’t right
|
| It just ain’t right
|
| It just ain’t right
|
| It’s like a nightmare rose up slouching towards Bethlehem
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| Like a nightmare rose up from this small strip of land
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| Slouching towards Bethlehem
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| It’s like a nightmare rose up from this small strip of land
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| Slouching towards Bethlehem
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| Stay close
|
| Stay home
|
| Have faith
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| I can’t know what twist of history did this to me
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| It’s like a nightmare
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| With the love of our family
|
| We can rise above anything
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| Some day surely someone must help us… |