I WILL NOT OBEY - transcribed from the performance at the
Haymarket Monument Forest Lawn Cemetery Forest Park, IL
by Utah Philips.
November 1986
... the habit of reasoned disobedience.
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The new ruling party is holding the Aces
The rest of the cards are all missing faces
I'm sorry, I can't know you today
What can one say?
I will not obey.
Give us your sons, give us your daughters
No one is safe or immune from the slaughter
How indifference makes them rage
What can one say?
I will not obey.
National Guard or freedom fighters
All houses belong to cigarette lighters
But who hides in the smoke?
What can one say?
I will not obey.
Better, perhaps, to perish outside of the bunkers
Where our Generals hide
I turn away and spit
What can one say
I will not obey.
Give us the minds of your children to learn
The substance of books of which
We have not burned
But can they see the sky for rain?
What can one say?
I will not obey.
Soon all tyrants will feel our impatience
We choose to make our own combinations
I was always willing to agree
What can one say?
I will not obey.
The essence of contract is agreement
Not coercion or obedience
And agreement is sacred.
What can one say?
I will not obey.
There are so few wars of peoples' liberation
The people have so seldom risen
Only the armed faction
Listen, the armed faction lies
They recreate the State through their action
When the People rise
It is not they
But the State which dies
I sing this song for the prisoners release
Most of all now for the new State police
You see the guns have changed hands. Again.
What can one say?
I will not obey.
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