Surrender Under Protest - Drive-By Truckers

From the comfort zone of history

On the lips of trusted loved ones

To the lonely fragile minds of angry youths

No sooner was it over

Than the memory made it nobler

The selective means by which to point the view

Compelled but not defeated

Surrender under protest if you must

Compelled but not defeated

If it's all you can remember

Then it's been that way forever

And for six long generations it's been told

But among the fallen was tradition

That tradition was the mission

And that the wrongness of the sin was not the goal

Compelled but not defeated

Surrender under protest if you must

Compelled but not defeated

Does the color really matter

On the face you blame for failure

On the shamin' for a battle's losing cause

If the victims and aggressors

Just remain each others others

And the instigators never fight their own

Compelled but not defeated

Surrender under protest if you must

Compelled but not defeated

Surrender under protest if you must

Surrender under protest if you must