///*****/// [Intro] The first bell shivers over rain-black streets beneath dead radio towers, And every window hides a listening face. I taste the coming storm in copper air, I hear tomorrow dragging iron chains. [Verse 1] A stranger sells the safety found in silence, A soldier calls obedience a peace. Below the streets a buried engine hammers, Commanding every borrowed fear to cease. I touch the mark that brought me to this hour, I count the cost and do not turn away. The night may own the towers and the banners, It does not own the choice I make today. [Pre-Chorus] Let the warning drums awaken, Let the hidden doors unseal. What was whispered now is spoken, What was wounded now is steel. [Chorus] Raise the signal fires at midnight! Let the hammering heavens hear our cry. Raise the signal fires at midnight! 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. Raise the signal fires at midnight! Raise the truth until it cuts across the sky. [Verse 2] They promised peace, but sent us a faceless watcher broadcasting names through the static. They dressed the oldest hunger up as law. I watched the faithful trade away their names, Then in the ruin I uncovered a red signal fire on the highest roof; 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] Raise the signal fires at midnight! We were born to stand, not wait to die. Through the smoke and through the wound, carry the living fire. Raise the signal fires at midnight! Raise the truth across the sky. [Bridge] If I return alone, remember this: I will answer every lost voice before the night closes. 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 24-bar melodic guitar solo that begins with bent minor thirds, accelerates into alternate-picked runs, then resolves on a sustained high E] [Rhythm guitars hold the central motif while bass and drums widen the battlefield.] [Verse 3] This is the tale of an isolated traveler crossing a city that has forgotten dawn. 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] Raise the signal fires at midnight! Let the last horizon answer to our cry. Raise the signal fires at midnight! 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. Raise the signal fires at midnight! Raise the truth until it cuts across the sky.
