Joan Baez, David Harris - Life Is Sacred lyrics

The fact is that I'll spend three
Years of time in jail
The fact is that that's very small

The fact is that you and I live
In the midst of a society
Which does much more than send people to jail

We live in a society that's become synonymous
Not simply with sending people to jail
And not simply with starving people
All around the world
Not simply with the most
Devastating tools of destruction
That mankind has ever known
Not simply with the pillaging and
Rape of an entire landscape
We live in a society that
Beyond all those things
Has become synonymous with death it'self
Which is why I myself
And many people like me
Are going to spend a lot more
Than simply three years in prison
Not because we simply violate the law
There are thousands upon thousands
Of law violations
The question is not simply law
There's a much more basic
Principle that's been violated

Beyond all things
The life of a man is that man
And beyond all other things
Every man has an indigenous right
To live, and to exercise life
If there is one thing I'll leave behind
It's a very simple statement
That I'll close with

Which is that there's no direction
To go but forward there's no place to run
There's no place to hide
There's only one way that you
And I will get out
There's only one way that you and I will
See the things we want to see
And that's to build them
And that may be a painful process
That may be a process in
Which any number of people
Expend any amount of energy
That may be a process where you and I
Will have to endure any number of things
That don't seem to us to be pleasant

But it must be done it must be done
For a very simple reason
The simple reason is that life is sacred