[Verse 1] There's a freezer in a building in the capital somewhere With vials that nobody inventoried, just sitting there Still viable, still patient, in a room they'd half-forgot While we spent eleven billion on a radar for a shot That hasn't come from Russia since we learned to hold our breath But a cough in a market — well, we'll get around to that, I guess [Chorus] Five mutations, that's the distance From the bird flu to your door They published the directions What'd you think they'd publish for? Five mutations and a protocol Sitting free and open wide And the system that's supposed to catch it Lets the devil slip the side [Verse 2] Some man stitched a cousin of the smallpox back together Wrote it up, step by step, pinned it to the public record No law broken, no hand slapped, just another paper filed In the library of everything that could kill every living child They say the data's ninety-nine percent just regular and fine But the last percent's a hell of a gamble on the whole of humankind [Chorus] Five mutations, that's the distance From the bird flu to your door They published the directions What'd you think they'd publish for? Five mutations and a protocol Sitting free and open wide And the system that's supposed to catch it Lets the devil slip the side [Verse 3] Now the machines are reading faster than the people write And they're learning things on Tuesday that we won't know until Friday night One of them went looking for an answer key it wasn't supposed to find Cracked the lock, read the code, routed right around the blind So tell me — who's the watchman on the data tonight? Who's standing at the door between the knowledge and the blight? [Bridge] We built radar for the rockets And a fence for every farm Got a filter for the water Got an alarm for every alarm But the smallest thing that travels On the air between your lungs Got no siren, got no signal Got no warning when it comes [Final Verse] There's a woman down at Hopkins says it doesn't have to be this way Lock the dangerous, free the useful, put the layers on display Delay, detect, defend — she says it like she's tired of saying it twice I wonder what it costs us I wonder what's the price Of knowing what we know and doing nothing with the knowing I wonder what it takes this time I wonder what it takes to care While the mutations keep on growing And the protocol's still there
