///*****/// [Intro] No map admits the road through a plague-era town square before dawn, Yet boot and heartbeat mark a stubborn time. The dark has learned the language of command, But not the word that makes a free soul kneel. [Verse 1] The gate is barred with promises and rifles, The herald reads surrender from a scroll. I see the ink run black beneath his fingers, But no decree can requisition soul. We wore our losses underneath our armor, We learned to breathe where hope was rationed thin. Now every footstep magnifies the answer: The walls are strong, but stronger hearts begin. [Pre-Chorus] Hear the low strings start their thunder, See the watchfires answer red. We are more than fear and hunger, We are all the words unsaid. [Chorus] Swing the hangman’s lantern high! Let the hammering heavens hear our cry. Swing the hangman’s lantern high! We were born to stand, not wait to die. Through the smoke, through the wound, through the night that calls us liars, We will carry living iron, we will carry living fires. Swing the hangman’s lantern high! Raise the truth until it cuts across the sky. [Verse 2] They promised peace, but sent us masked judges feeding power with superstition. They dressed the oldest hunger up as law. I watched the faithful trade away their names, Then in the ruin I uncovered a lantern swinging from the empty gallows; No jeweled relic, only proof made bright. It held the warmth of everyone who fell, And showed my empty hands what they must fight. [Chorus] Swing the hangman’s lantern high! We were born to stand, not wait to die. Through the smoke and through the wound, carry the living fire. Swing the hangman’s lantern high! Raise the truth across the sky. [Bridge] If I return alone, remember this: my final breath will expose every coward behind the mask. No monument can breathe for those it buries, No sacred word can make a falsehood clean. The future is not granted by the mighty; It starts wherever ordinary hearts convene. [Guitar Solo - a wicked fast solo with diminished runs, dive-bomb accents and a sudden stop before the last chorus] [Rhythm guitars hold the central motif while bass and drums widen the battlefield.] [Verse 3] This is the tale of a condemned witch turning the scaffold into a place of rebellion. The weak became a wall around each other, The lost became a road across the rain. We learned that hope is neither soft nor silent, It bites the hand that feeds the world despair. It lifts the fallen standard from the gutter, And makes a kingdom out of those who care. [Final Chorus] Swing the hangman’s lantern high! Let the last horizon answer to our cry. Swing the hangman’s lantern high! We have learned the dark can bleed and empires die. Through the smoke, through the wound, through the years that tried to break us, We are neither owned nor ended; every scar will remake us. Swing the hangman’s lantern high! Raise the truth until it cuts across the sky.
