[Intro — low, close, dangerous calm] No. I do not want to kill anyone. How disappointing, I know. I want something far more difficult: I want you to become yourself. [Verse 1] I have heard the little speeches with their polished iron teeth. All the clever men explaining who must bleed beneath. They speak of force as if it were wisdom. They speak of fear as law. They call the wound a strategy, then ask us to applaud. No. I refuse the ancient theatre. I refuse the noble lie. I was not born to sharpen hunger and call it getting by. [Pre-Chorus] Give me no flag for your emptiness. Give me no hymn for your knife. I am not here to bless your anger. I am here to ask for life. [Chorus — loud, furious, melodic] I don’t want to kill anyone. I want the hands to find their work. I want the mind to find its weather. I want the heart to stop being hurt. I want a craft. I want a calling. I want bread, and light, and skill. I want each soul to serve the living — not the grave, not the throne, not the kill. [Verse 2] Let the builder build a doorway. Let the singer find a song. Let the broken learn the language where they still belong. Let the teacher light a window. Let the doctor hold the line. Let the farmer feed the morning. Let the thinker trouble time. Let the lonely find a table. Let the furious find a page. Let the young be more than targets for our inherited rage. And let the work be useful, not a cage with cleaner walls. Let it answer human hunger without devouring us all. [Pre-Chorus] Reasonable bread. Reasonable shelter. Reasonable rest at night. And one unreasonable human freedom: to bring one’s gift to light. [Chorus — louder] I don’t want to kill anyone. I want the hands to find their work. I want the mind to find its weather. I want the heart to stop being hurt. I want a craft. I want a calling. I want bread, and light, and skill. I want each soul to serve the living — not the grave, not the throne, not the kill. [Bridge — spoken-sung, rising into anger] Listen. It is easy to destroy a man and call it power. Any beast can break a bone. Any fool can burn a flower. But can you build a room where someone frightened becomes brave? Can you make a life that does not need another life as slave? Can you stand before your own hunger and say: enough. Can you look at another human being and not turn him into stuff? That is the harder revolution. [Verse 3] I do not want your perfect enemies. I do not want your sacred rage. I do not want a better prison or a kinder-looking cage. I want the wasted to be needed. I want the gifted to begin. I want the ashamed to find a doorway where the light comes in. I want the work that heals the worker. I want the tool that does not lie. I want a world where useful hands do not forget the sky. So keep your drums of slaughter. Keep your righteous little thrill. I have chosen one wild madness: to help and not to kill. [Final Chorus — full, fierce, uplifting] I don’t want to kill anyone. I want the hands to find their work. I want the mind to find its weather. I want the heart to stop being hurt. I want a craft. I want a calling. I want bread, and light, and skill. I want each soul to serve the living — not the grave, not the throne, not the kill. I don’t want to kill anyone. I want the lost to come alive. I want the human inside the animal to open both its eyes. [Outro — low, close] No. I do not want to kill anyone. How disappointing, I know. I want something far more difficult: I want us to become human.
