I

Em                   B7                 C                  B7

 Burn not our books, leave the scrolls in their racks

             C                     D          Em              B7

 Even knowing their contents obscene

   Em                B7               C             B7

 I yearn that you look and control your attacks

             C  ->  Am G   -> Em  B7

 Making ashes and dust of  a   dead person's dreams

       C                Em               Am            D

 So listen please people, to the words that I sing

       C           Em            Am               B7

 before you return to your homes for the evening

         G                Bm               Am           Bm

 And please just desires, to keep happy and fed

                C               D                Em            B7

 But leave prophets or liars so they still can be read

         G                      Bm             C                Bm

 And please douse the fires, let's go home to our beds

                C            D                Em  B7 Em

 And let's focus on more pressing evils instead

II

                 Em              D                  C                   B7

When you burn up the words of an author who's dead 

            C                  D           Em               B7

Pages pressed in a different time 

           Em                    D               C                      B7

You deprive those yet born of the chance to have read 

C            D                        Em   B7 Em

Different thoughts from a different mind

             C                      D                        Em      B7   Em 

If those words posed a challenge to the Violent and strong 

                C             D                Em                 B7

then they lose any chance to ignite 

           Em                     D                       C                B7

Better deeds amongst those who might try to right wrongs 

                 C                  D                         Em   B7 Em

Our better lives for the wrong who might try to do right 

 III

          B7                                     Em

If our young can't aspire to stay sheltered and fed                  

               Am                        Em     

With the skills of a civilized mind

                Am                                           Em

Then our young may conspire, slay and plunder instead

              B7                                Em

Leaving learning and reason behind

           C                        D                    Em        B7   Em

We've learned ways to live with such freedom and ease         

                  C                   D            Em 

holding disease and starvation at bay

            Em                D               C               B7

but our ways must rely on such records as these

                   C                 D                   Em            B7 Em

And so our lives will get harder as we burn them away

I

  Burn not our books, leave the scrolls in their racks

  Even knowing their contents obscene

  I yearn that you look and control your attacks

  Heaving glowing coals on peoples' hard work and dreams

  So listen now please, precious moments I ask

  before you return to your mandated task

  And please douse the fires, and go home instead

  We'll take down the pyres, to save what can still be read

  And please just desires, to keep happy and fed

  And we'll clean up the mess in the morning

II

It may seem that recordings of partisan hacks

can preserve no great fuel for our minds

But their arguments will live so much longer, in fact

reocurring to hacks throughout time

If you know that some parts of our lives do not change

Despite the law of the land or the year

It Might help you decide when you try to arrange

To act with a purpose, not react in fear

So please

I

  Burn not our books, leave the scrolls in their racks

  Even knowing their contents obscene

  I yearn that you look and control your attacks

  Heaving glowing coals on paper printed with dreams

  So listen fair people, to you I must plead

  Ignore primal fears, and think of our needs

  We can put out these fires, start talking instead

  Sort the prophets from liars, at least in our heads

  And then we'll retire, and discuss while we're fed

  Using coals to cook beans and not books

II

If what you hate are the words that are scratched by the reed

Then you still have an option of peace

Don't censor or burn one lone madman's screed

Or his legend and fame will increase

If instead you can answer his scrawlings in turn

and produce a more reasoned retort

Then people will listen, and your ideas will have earned

A place in the schools and the courts [this needs all kinds of revision

III

Ideas are born well before the men they impel

to destroy or refine what they see

With me poor or well, abhor the men who compel

You to be as they want you to be

In your readings you may learn of people who claimed

to hold ethics and virtues most just

but they then needed neither to rob and to maim

they said that to be just, we must do what we must

I

  Burn not our books, leave the scrolls in their racks

  Even knowing their contents obscene

  I yearn that you look, and control your attacks

  Making ashes and dust of a dead poet's dreams

  So please drop your torch, and end me your ear

  I'm armed but with words, you have nothing to fear

  And try to inspire better thinking instead

  Building better desires from the words you have read

  And when you retire, and lay in your deathbed

  You'll have no regrets, in the end

 Chords in Em

I

  Em  B7  C  B7

  C   D   Em B7

  Em  B7  C  B7

  C - Am G-Em-B7

  C   Em  Am D

  C   Em  Am B7

  G   Bm  Am Bm

  Am  D   G  B7

  G   Bm  C  Bm

  C   D   Emb7Em

 II

  Em D C B7

  C  D Em B7

  Em D C B7

  C  D Em B7 Em

  C  D Em B7 Em

  C  D Em B7 Em

  Em D C B7

  C  D Em B7 Em

 III

  B7    Em

  Am    Em

  Am    Em

  B7    Em

  C         D   Emb7Em

  C         D   Em

  Em D C B7

  C  D Em B7