I've been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear

You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you've seen it before
How governments lies to a people
And a country is driven to war

There are shadows on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
To those wars that are fought in places
We can't even pronounce their names

On the radio talk shows and TV
You hear one thing again and again
How the USA stands for freedom
How [bad word] to the aid of a friend

Well, who are the ones that we call our friends
These governments killing their own?
Or is it the ones who can't take any more?
So they pick up a brick or a gun or a stone

There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

And there is blood on the wire
And there is blood on the wire
And there is 

Shadow on the faces
Of the men who send to the guns
To those wars that are fought in places
Where their busines [bad word] 
I wanna know who these men in the shadows are
I wanna hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they're never the ones to fight or to die

There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

There is blood on the wire
There is blood on the wire
And there is 

Shadow on the faces
Of the men who send to the guns
To those wars that are fought in places
Where their busines [bad word] 
I wanna know who these men in the shadows are
I wanna hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they're never the ones to fight or to die

There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

There is blood on the wire
There is blood on the wire
And there is