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Pussy Riot Release New Song 'Putin Lights Up the Fires,' Lyrics Ask for 18 Years in Jail (Audio)

11:01 AM PDT 8/17/2012 by Jordan Zakarin

With three members of the Russian punk band sentenced to prison on Friday, the group ratchets up its political dissent.

Pussy Riot incarcerated - H 2012
Getty Images

Pussy Riot is not going down quietly.

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The punk outfit released on Friday a new single called "Putin Lights Up the Fires," a response to three members of the band being found guilty of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" for an anti-Vladimir Putin performance at a church in February.

Their original performance, at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, asked the Virgin Mary to protect the Russian people from President Putin (read the lyrics to "Virgin Mary, Put Putin Away" here). Their conviction and two-year sentence has galvanized protestors around the world, and the new song serves as an instant rallying cry for those pushing back against the sentence.

The three convicted band members, Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, gave defiant closing statements last week.

Read THR's translation of the lyrics below:

The state time in prison

The more arrests - the less happiness
And every arrest - with the love of a sexist
We swinging our cheeks,  chests and tumies
 
But we can not be released out of the box
officers overthrew the better and grander
 
Putin ignites the fires of revolution
He was bored and frightened people in silence
Whatever punishment he had - that rotten ash,
With no time in many years - the reason for pollution
 
Chorus.
 
The country is going, the country goes to the streets with audacity
The country is going, the country is going to say goodbye to the regime,
The country is going, the country is a wedge of feminists
And Putin is going,  Putin is going, leave cattle
 
Arrested  May 6th, the whole city
7 years not enough for us - give us 18
The ban for yelling, slandering, and walking,
Go take the old Lukashenko's wife
 
Chorus.
 
The country is going, the country  going to the streets with audacity
The country is going, the country is going to say goodbye to the regime,
The country is going, the country is a wedge of feminists
And Putin is going, Putin is  going to say goodbye, cattle."
 
 
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