Shoot First (Extended Version) Lyrics

On a table mountain above the clouds

Ancient voices echo, dew and green enshroud

A forgotten mystery

Far in the cosmos a language emerges

Lnging and fear in pulses and surges

Outliving time and memory

In the dark of the deep colors roll and glow

Life is born in a roiling inferno

Older than speech

You read the wind, cast an eye at the sky

Clouds form like spears, you don't care

What they might teach

If you want answers

To your questions

You'd better start asking and stop shooting

If you want answers

To your questions

You'd better start asking and stop shooting

If you shoot first

That's called murder

You're no cowboy

Just a coward

If you have no questions to life's mysteries

You're just a fool

Just a fool

You learned at the foot of the cold raging ocean

Sharpened the point of your white hot emotion

To pry loose some privilege

Reasonable doubt has reason at its core

Thinking from your gut you're someone else's whore

Or a sharp-toothed savage

The lore of your tribe says don't believe your eyes

Swaddle a fragile heart in warm, glowing lies

To ease your conscience

So you rage at those who can do a little math

A knowledge of history incurs your wrath

You mock its provenance

If you want answers

To your questions

You'd better start asking and stop shooting

If you want answers

To your questions

You'd better start asking and stop shooting

If you shoot first

That's called murder

You're no cowboy

Just a coward

If you have no questions to life's mysteries

You're just a fool

Just a fool

This fragile contrivance we worship as truth

Was naught but facts in the green of youth

Lost to nostalgia

From the toil of discovery you will refrain

Nothing quite aches like the stabbing pain

Of cracking an enigma

Ignore the scholars in their gleaming tower

Their callous mooing has no power

Your resolve to weaken

Socrates bends your ear, but you don't listen

Ahead lies a trail of tears, but your lip gloss glistens

Like a desperate beacon

If you want answers

To your questions

You'd better start asking and stop shooting

If you want answers

To your questions

You'd better start asking and stop shooting

If you shoot first

That's called murder

You're no cowboy

Just a coward

If you have no questions to life's mysteries

You're just a fool

Just a fool