Don't want to live in a prison cell
Don't want to live in a smoking room
Independence just won't come to you
In the brief of a diplomat

Say your prayers for the future
Say your prayers for the past
It might be round the corner
It might be all we have
Say your prayers

Don't want to live with a compromise
Don't want to live with hypocrisy
Bureaucracy doesn't have to win
Breaks the cage of the beast within

Say your prayers in the boardroom
Say your prayers on the stairs
It might be catastrophic
It might be too damn bad
Say your prayers

I got the cure for compassion fatigue
Spend a week with the Timorese
Running scared from the military
You can share you can share your disease

Now we don't live with an absent master
We don't live on an island divided
Don't want my kids to grow up in shame
In a country with a different name
Had to throw them out, had to break the chains

I got the cure for compassion fatigue
Spend a week with the Timorese
Running scared from the military
I come to you with a plaintive plea