The Martyr
"I am content to die for my beliefs
So cut off my head and make me a martyr!
The people will always remember it"
"No, they will forget"
A man who walks with God can walk anywhere
Hence I fear nothing
The point of guerilla war is not to succeed
It's always been just to
Make the enemy bleed
Deprivin' the soldiers of the peace
Of mind that they need
Bullets are hard to telegraph when
They bob and they weave
The only way a guerilla war can ever be over
Is when the occupation can't
Afford more soldiers
Until they have to draft the last
Of you into the service
And you refuse because you
Don't see the purpose
The only way to counter the
Insurgents that are well-equipped
Is to paint the people fightin'
For freedom as "terrorists"
Then find a faction
Lookin' for foreign investment
Install them in power and
Murder any objections
You can't stop a revolution from breathin'
So to beat 'em
They offer people the illusion of freedom
But when you're done dreamin' and
Wake up tortured for treason
Then you can see them
Hidin' behind the god they believe in
Deep in the trenches, in the heart of a war
That's the place a martyr is born
(Motherfucker, it's on)
During the night before the start of the dawn
That's the place a martyr is born
(Motherfucker, it's on)
When gunshots are raining in the
Heart of a storm
That's the place a martyr is born
(Motherfucker, it's on)
Guerilla war when the army is gone
That's the place a martyr is born
(Motherfucker, it's on)
The purpose of life is a life with a purpose
So I'd rather die for a cause than
Live a life that is worthless
I don't need the circus or
The day of national observance
I need you to think for you
And stop bein' a servant
Pawns only move a square in the
Game that they're used in
And realize it too late
Like the shooting of Huey Newton
Or Patrice Lumumba and Salvador Allende
Slaughtered by the power hungry branches
Of their own gente
Ghandi wasn't killed by Pakistani nationals
He was assassinated by a Hindu radical
And Che Guevara, rebel to a US continent
Was sold to the CIA by Bolivian communists
Wasn’t Yitzhak Rabin murdered by a Zionist?
And Anwar Sadat a victim
Of the same violence?
Malcolm X was seen as a threat to the FBI
But to blast ‘em they used
Muslims from the NOI
Even the 35th President of the Republic
Was murdered by factions of
His own government so now that it’s proven
That a soldier of revolution
Or head of an empire
Disguised in a constitution
Can not escape the
Retribution or manipulation
Of the self-appointed rulers of
The planet's corporations
So I'ma need every generation to
Put your hands up
‘Cause you can only get ‘em off
Your back when you stand up
Deep in the trenches, in the heart of a war
That's the place a martyr is born
(Motherfucker, it's on)
During the night before the start of the dawn
That's the place a martyr is born
(Motherfucker, it's on)
When gunshots are raining in the
Heart of a storm
That's the place a martyr is born
(Motherfucker, it's on)
Guerilla war when the army is gone
That's the place a martyr is born
(Motherfucker, it's on)
I was a man blessed by God
To survive some of the worst circumstances
I had many things: a beautiful
Woman I loved, a home, money
And I gave it all up to bleed and to die free
Sometimes I look back on that life
And I wonder what it would've been like
And in moments of weakness I
Think about trading it
Then I snap the fuck out of it
And I get back to my reality
And I realize that I'm in the heart of a war
And that's the place a martyr is born