[Intro — close, calm, almost polite] They tell me: “Life is unfair.” Usually with the tone of someone closing a file. I disagree. [Verse 1] Yes, I have seen the crooked scales. I know the strong can buy the rules. I know good people lose sometimes, and clever people serve the fools. I know a child can draw the short straw before learning how to read. I know kindness is no armour. I know power is not need. You need not show me one more corpse, one more prison, one more lie. I am not blind. I am not innocent. I simply ask: why? [Pre-Chorus] And who decided that because a thing exists, it therefore must be true? Who profits when injustice is described as something nothing can undo? [Chorus — hard, wide] I disagree. Do not call surrender wisdom. Do not call cruelty gravity. Do not tell me “that is life” as if life signed the decree. I disagree. The world may be unfair. That does not make unfairness right. A wound is not a law of nature just because it hurts tonight. [Verse 2] There will be very educated people happy to explain that I am wrong. They will bring statistics, history, and arguments three centuries long. Excellent. Bring chairs. Bring coffee. Bring the footnotes. Bring the graphs. I will listen. I am not frightened of intelligence or facts. But somewhere between description and surrender there is space. And I refuse to call a failure the natural order of the race. [Pre-Chorus] If something has a history, it can have another one. The fact that darkness came before us does not legislate the sun. [Chorus] I disagree. Do not call surrender wisdom. Do not call cruelty gravity. Do not tell me “that is life” as if life signed the decree. I disagree. The world may be unfair. That does not make unfairness right. A wound is not a law of nature just because it hurts tonight. [Bridge — stripped, almost no rhythm] And yes. You can kill me. That is possible. Human beings have demonstrated considerable talent for that. But listen carefully. If you kill me, you have not proved that you were right. You have proved that you were able to kill me. Those are different propositions. Please do not confuse them. [Break — rhythm returns, one line at a time] Power is not proof. Victory is not truth. Survival is not innocence. Defeat is not consent. And repetition does not turn a lie into a law. [Verse 3] Perhaps I am absurdly stubborn. Good. There are worse ways to be. Someone must remain annoyed when chains are called necessity. Someone has to ask who benefits when hope is made naive. Who becomes more comfortable when everybody learns to leave the world exactly as they found it? No. I will not. Not politely. Not today. [Final Chorus — shouted, but melodic] I DISAGREE. Do not call surrender wisdom. Do not call injustice fate. Do not build a locked conclusion and then praise the strength of the gate. I DISAGREE. Yes, the world contains the cruel, the blind, the thief. But “this is how the world has been” is not the same as “This is how the world must be.” I disagree. And if that makes me foolish— fine. I would rather risk the question than make peace with the line. The world may be unfair. Then there is work to do. That is all your famous sentence ever proved to me. [Outro — low, dry, absolutely calm] “Life is unfair.” Perhaps. But that is a description. Not an instruction. And certainly not an excuse. I disagree.
