The Resistance

The song is an obvious description of government vs. anarchy. When Stephen talks about paper tigers, he is speaking about people who look "tough" on the outside with their vast array of rules and regulations but in reality are powerless to disciple their people into an orderly community and generate fellowship. Hence, the only way to generate order is by disorder-anarchy- and once this kind of dominance is gone the right group of people can come together for a good purpose and fellowship a central ideal that will provide "guards for future security" as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. It is this core group of people, I believe, that must run a government so that the others who don't won't ruin everything and become paper tigers, bringing about a full circle and a "world begins exactly how it ends" as referenced by Angels and Ariwaves' "Heaven."

I think this song has sort of a double meaning. The way he says that "walls should fall" it really sounds like he could be talking about spiritual warfare. The Resistance are the Christians that band together as God's army.

I think that it has 2 meanings. One being Goverment vs The people and the second one is a spiritual warfare. The Spiritual warfare is the most obvious because Stephen says in one of the verses we are the change (the christians aka The Resistance) and in the last part it says mankind will feel inspired when we set your walls to fire. saying that more people will change their lives from our testimony and everything we do. It also says there's no stopping us now. Thats what i think personally

i am quite surprised there aren't more comments on this song

it's lovely

in the vein of anarchy, "molotov of words" is probably a reference to Molotov, a Russian political leader who came up with the Molotov Plan, a plan designed to provide aid to rebuild the countries in Eastern Europe. However, the aid was clearly politicized, and was intended to give the USSR a greater stake of power in E. Europe. Hence the "speeches are maligned" because there are never really any pure intentions of dictatorships like the USSR.

but of course, there could be many other interpretations. it was just interesting to see how anberlin managed to weave in Molotov so seamlessly. quite amazing, they are. can't wait to watch them live.

I think that most of the comments have pretty valid views but i have another thought... i was actually studing the protestant reformation for an english lit test when this song came on my itunes playlist.... and i think it kinda fits.

i think hes talking about the protestant reformation and how the catholic church (paper tigers, Your speeches are malingered, etc) couldnt stop it (got a riot on your hands, verse 2) The moltov of words could have been luthers 95 thesis. and finally the last little bit about ignite and watch us burn could be a reference to the many protestants who were burned at the stake for there faith (see bloody mary in history) and the bit talking about us setting the walls on fire could be a ref to protestants and catholic wars (english revolution and 30 year war)

Stephen is all about human rights/human trafficing awareness. "Paper tiger" is a literal translation of a chinese phrase (check wikipedia); this makes me think of china of course (they have human rights problems). To me this song is about people rising up against their oppressive government..or an oppressive group. The "voice for the voiceless" lyric really stirs images of human trafficing in my mind. Stephen has a non-profit called Faceless Int. that addresses the issue of human trafficing, so this isn't too far fetched.

"Silent alarms are ringing Sounds of revolt draw near A new united front That you will come to fear We will hold together To become the change Voice for the voiceless With every common man engaged"

In the chorus it says "You've got a riot of your hands"

"You crash with your sin" sounds more to me like "You crash where you stand."

"Don't live to make demands" is "Too late to make a stand."

And the fifth and last lines of the chorus need to be switched to "You've got a riot on your hands."

"All new united front that you will come to fear" fills in the ?????.

The last line is "We set your walls to fire."

Those aren't the only mistakes. I could tell a lot of the other lyrics posted are wrong, but couldn't tell what the right ones were to correct them.

But of the song... it is freaking amazing!!

****Too late to make demands for the second one... my bad. Wasn't thinking.