TRIPWIRE - Elvis Costello, The Roots

Just because you don’t speak the language

Doesn’t mean that you can’t understand

Just because you don’t speak the language

Doesn’t mean that you can’t understand

The twist in the script of the insult

Scrawled on the back of your hand

Torn from the pages of scripture

Sprayed on the wall in the frays of a flag

Kisses forbidden on lips

And all of your fine clothes worn into rags

Tripwire, tripwire, tripwire, tripwire

There’s a tripwire

Tripwire, tripwire, tripwire

Don’t open the door ‘cos they’re coming

Don’t open the door ‘cos they’re here

Above there’s an ominous humming

Below there’s a murmur of prayer

Torn from the pages of scandal

Sprayed on a wall in the frays of the flag

Kisses forbidden on lips

And all of your fine clothes blown into rags

Tripwire, tripwire, tripwire, tripwire

There’s a tripwire

Tripwire, tripwire, tripwire

There’s a cross in the line there’s a circus

There’s a voice that you might overhear

There’s a lens making the picture perfect

They say you have nothing to fear

Torn from the pages of pamphlets

Thrown in the air like confetti in church

Far, far away there’s a target

And the sound of an army just starting to march

Tripwire, tripwire, tripwire, tripwire

There’s a tripwire

Tripwire, tripwire, tripwire

Just because I don’t read the language

Doesn’t mean that I’m blind to the threat

Though I thought there was more to forgiveness

Than all we conveniently forget

Torn from the pages of history

Repeated again and again and again

You’re either for or against us

And that is how the hatred begins

Tripwire, tripwire, tripwire, tripwire

There’s a tripwire

Tripwire, tripwire, tripwire