A storm is approaching that's pulling us down keeping our backs turned, we leave ourselves bound creating the tempest we're trying to still often forgetting we write our own will CHORUS: The hammer strikes hard searching for vengeance the toll is high for a carried out sentence when the gavel descends your freedom ends and the cost of your choice like lightning descends All your life you've kept your motives concealed and now at last we find the reason revealed always trying to put your guilt on the shelf avoiding the term that you bring on yourself CHORUS Enter the shrink who will search to find reason say that who you are can change like the season try and talk your way out claiming life has been bad point the finger to mom and surely to dad It's been brought to my attention that the need for this detention is not for you to pay your due but for me to work and pay for you Confess what you've done deceive no one support what you show prove what you know Why don't you take what's coming? why don't you stop running? if this is what justice demands then the price is out of your hands When you try and lay blame where it doesn't belong all you see is a mirror though the sentence you bear fails to undo the wrong does it bring redemption nearer? Attorneys represent our country's slow descent sometimes it seems that their aim is to feed the corruption's flame So many alibis that hide too many lies that lead us from the truth so the courts become no use The gavel that lies in your hand is the power that rules the land the witness that lies at the stand is the coward the criminal planned Won't someone please, please tell me how we can let it slide so far won't someone please, please show me how we've reached the point where we are What's gone wrong, what's the cause? without enforcement what good are laws what good is time if it doesn't fit the crime what good are judges who aren't worth a dime The gavel that lies in your hand is the power that rules the land the witness that lies at the stand breaks the oath that was made with his hand We let ourselves be overrun when we fail to convict the guilty and the hammer's strike sets free those who plague society