///*****/// [Intro] (Aggressive stop-start riff, siren, crowd booing on cue at the word curfew) They gave us a curfew tonight. How do we feel about that? [Verse 1] There's a man with a clipboard and a badge behind the stage Says we've got eleven minutes and he's pointing at a page There's a councilman in section nine who came to write us up He's got a decibel meter and a very careful clock In seventy-nine they banned us from a town in Tennessee Said the music was corrupting all the youth in the county So four thousand kids showed up at a barn outside of town And we played until the sun came up and no one shut us down [Pre-Chorus] You can legislate a building, you can regulate a sound But you have never made a law that kept a young heart down [Chorus] We are louder than the law! Louder than the men who make the rules Louder than the law! Louder than they ever thought we could Turn it up until the windows start to crack This is ours and you can never take it back We are louder than the law! [Verse 2] They came for the blues, they came for the swing They came for the long hair and everything Every generation gets a preacher and a pen Telling decent people that the kids are wrong again And every generation, every single time, they lose Because you cannot arrest a feeling, you can only spread the news So councilman, I see you, and I want you to be sure This next one is dedicated absolutely to you [Pre-Chorus] You can legislate a building, you can regulate a sound But you have never made a law that kept a young heart down [Chorus] We are louder than the law! Louder than the men who make the rules Louder than the law! Louder than they ever thought we could Turn it up until the windows start to crack This is ours and you can never take it back We are louder than the law! [Guitar Solo] (Snarling, punk-edged, aggressive downstrokes into a screaming climb) [Crowd Chant] Louder! (Louder!) Louder! (Louder!) LOUDER! (LOUDER!) Turn everything up! [Breakdown] Sound man! Every fader! All the way to the top! Let 'em fine us! Go! [Bridge] My father hated Elvis and his father hated jazz And I will probably hate whatever comes after this But I hope I have the decency to shut my mouth and smile And let the next one have their turn to make the old world wild [Final Chorus] We are louder than the law! Louder than the men who make the rules Louder than the law! Louder than they ever thought we could Turn it up until the windows start to crack This is ours and you can never take it back We are louder than the law! Louder than the law tonight! [Verse 3] They shut us down in Memphis and they cut us off in Spain They pulled the plug in Sheffield in the middle of a chord And every time the same exact thing occurred The crowd just kept on singing with no power and no band Better than we ever played it and entirely without us So go ahead and pull the plug, I dare you [Outro] (Feedback howling, guitars screaming, crowd roaring defiantly) Send us the bill. We'll frame it.
