Hallelujah, we can finally hear
It’s a miracle we feel anything at all
Things we planted on the worst days of the year
Grew to fingers that rip at the joy
And set our backs against the wall

Lay your weapons down
Lay your weapons down
There are no enemies in front of you

Hallelujah, we can finally see
How the bitterness was bruising on our skin
We didn’t notice that grace had run so thin
Till we’re falling apart and the cracks in our hearts let the truth sink in

(Jars of Clay) © 2009 Bridge Building / Pogostick Music (BMI). All rights for the world on behalf of Pogostick Music administered by Bridge Building.

Behind the Song:
DAN HASELTINE: “I was watching a show on the Sundance channel called Iconoclasts, where comedian Dave Chapelle was asking poet Maya Angelou about growing up in the civil rights movement -- and what it meant to her to have experienced the marginalization of who she was based on her color. Chapelle asked Angelou if it had made her angry. And Angelou said, “Absolutely.” But when it comes to anger, she said, you need to write it, and speak it, and dance it, and sing it, and paint it, and sculpt it. Because if you don’t, she warned, it becomes bitterness -- a cancer that eats away at your heart and soul and passion. So that's where ‘Weapons’ came from. It sounds like an anti-war song -- and maybe it is -- but not in the traditional context.”

CHARLIE LOWELL: “I love starting a record off with ‘There are no enemies in front of you.’ It’s sort of us saying -- to ourselves and to the listener -- “Let down your guard. Bring everything you have to this record and see where it takes you. See what happens.”