I had a well-trained mind with manners so refined
I could trigger de rigueur and stop on a dime
The culture factory at the academy
Canonized all the lies they fed to me

I learned to unlearn all the rules I was taught
I started to melt in the melting pot

Since the day I tasted forbidden fruit
There is no substitute
Give me liberty or make a martyr of me

I can’t contain myself, it’s like I’m someone else
Since I’ve taken these sensations off the shelf
Now I’m a libertine going to extremes
In the fields and forests of my dreams

I piss on their icons and shit on their plays
Marat I am not but they treat me that way

Since the day I tasted forbidden fruit
There is no substitute
Give me liberty or make a martyr of me

Everything was copacetic with my new aesthetic
But they’ve thrown up a dragnet
Now I’m running down the gauntlet
Run, Run, Run, RUN, RUN!

My writings are branded a threat to the state
By body is bound and burned at the stake

Since the day I made forbidden fruit
There is no substitute
Give me liberty or make a martyr of me

Members of the Russian feminist punk rock group Pussy Riot were arrested in March 2012 and charged with hooliganism for their protest of Russian Orthodox Church leaders’ support of Vladimir Putin. Two of the women were convicted and sentenced to two years in prison. Photo: REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin