Lower Your Weapon

We’re stuck here together, we don’t have a choice
If you lower your weapon I will lower my voice
And maybe we can think about what makes us the same
And let’s not get hung up on my face or my name
Or the circumstance that brought my people to here
Or the books I have read or the demons I fear

Now all that I know is mostly things I have heard
And I’ve come to repeat them like some old mockingbird
Now the contrary voices, they don’t make any sense
So I don’t trust the speaker and I refute evidence
That denies the opinions I’ve learned to repeat
And my rage at this heresy put my boots on the street
Where I proudly declare that I’d sooner be dead
Than embrace this philosophy that I’ve never read
‘Cause it’s something I’ve grown up always saying I hated
It’s a rationale beautifully uncomplicated
But then maybe my enemy is just one more mockingbird
Devoutly repeating this truth that they’ve heard

So let’s come together and sing a new song
But first let’s concede we were probably wrong
To be digging our heels in, proclaiming the word
Of the half-conversation that we actually heard
And that maybe there’s merit in the things we don’t know
And that your path may not be the best way to go
And I won’t get my way and that’s how it should be
And your good ideas will temper the bad ones in me
‘Cause the truth is most likely some place in between
And not shining immaculate at either extreme
As to rule by one scripture with hands over ears
Would suggest we’ve learned nothing these past thousand years

So if somebody tells you that they’ve got it worked out
And they know all the answers and there can be no doubt
And they don’t need to compromise and will not discuss
If their reasoning’s sound and their logic robust
Well I don’t know a lot but I know that they’re wrong
That’s just one mockingbird replicating one song
It may not be easy but it’s time to take pause
Maybe you can sing my song and I promise
I’ll learn to sing yours