[INTRO]

They have a clean language for their dirty wars Words in suits over bodies in crossfire Learn their vocabulary — and you'll be complicit Keep yours — and you'll be justice Before they kill the people they kill the words Before they burn the land they burn the truth But I remember the weight of things I remember the weight of words

[VERSE 1 ]

They took the word war Washed it, pressed it, put it in the window They say surgical strike As if the bomb was wearing gloves They say collateral damage Instead of saying — the first name of that child They built a language without smell A dictionary for staring at horror Straight in the face — without seeing its color

[HOOK]

Call it by its name Say massacre — not operation Call it by its name Say genocide — not situation Call it by its name Say perpetrator — not the other nation Call it by its name Because the words we let die Are the first stones of forgetting And forgetting is the next time And the next time is already here

[BRIDGE ]

Tell me what you call A child searching for his mother under concrete Tell me what you call An entire family erased by a one-ton bomb Tell me what you call The great men of this world grown so small (silence) I'll tell you what I call it — UNACCEPTABLE INEXCUSABLE UNFORGETTABLE

[OUTRO ]

Clean war — that doesn't exist Acceptable death — that doesn't exist Never again — so say it like you mean it — Their name was —