They're not kicking in the doors, they're just changing all the locks They're not burning all the books, they're just redesigning the blocks Of text until the meaning's gone, until the truth is blurred Until the revolution is a misremembered word The evil's not a monster, it's a memo and a pen In the hands of tired, smiling, ordinary men Who draft a thousand pages of a scripture of subtraction A quiet, slow, and legislative, terminal transaction It's a gospel of nostalgia for a time that never was And it justifies the cruelty with a paragraph and clause They're turning back the clock, not with a bang, but with a tick A quiet little poison that is designed to make you sick 'Cause the devil's in the details, and the devil's in the fine print In the footnote of the law that's got a malevolent glint They're not stealing your whole future, just the parts that let you choose It's the slow and steady victory of those who love to see you lose Yeah, the devil's in the details, the comma and the date The bureaucratic patience of a well-constructed hate. They're not building any prisons, they're just making smaller cages By redacting all the hope from history's most sacred pages They are experts in the art of making freedom look like sin And makin' you believe the walls are there to keep the danger from within They will tell you it's for safety, they will tell you it's for grace While they're engineering the extinction of a time and of a place Where a person could be complicated, messy, and alive Now the only thing they ask of you is that you quietly survive It's a gospel of nostalgia for a time that never was And it justifies the cruelty with a paragraph and clause They're turning back the clock, not with a bang, but with a tick A quiet little poison that is designed to make you sick 'Cause the devil's in the details, and the devil's in the fine print In the footnote of the law that's got a malevolent glint They're not stealing your whole future, just the parts that let you choose It's the slow and steady victory of those who love to see you lose Yeah, the devil's in the details, the comma and the date The bureaucratic patience of a well-constructed hate. So read it all twice over, every single word they write The darkness is not coming in the middle of the night It's arriving in the daytime, with a lawsuit and a smile And it's asking for your patience, just for a little while. 'Cause the devil's in the details, and the devil's in the fine print In the footnote of the law that's got a malevolent glint They're not stealing your whole future, just the parts that let you choose It's the slow and steady victory of those who love to see you lose Yeah, the devil's in the details, the comma and the date The bureaucratic patience of a well-constructed hate.more