As soon as I saw the title, I knew exactly what this was about. I though to myself, "Lord of the Flies and the big orange American hog." My honors students just finished LOTF last week. Love the song and the baritone guitar. No subtlety in the last lines but directness is needed anyway.
Thanks Scott,
I'm pleased to know students are still dipping it that book.
I managed to get kids to deal with Watership Down, the Once series and a couple of indigenous based narratives but had trouble with the system press further than that. they were 10/11/12 year olds though - well actually some 9year olds when I did the WDown video study, (the day after 9/11 - they needed to express/let out some emotion as they were stunned/catatonic when they came to school after all the news & their parents being stupefied).
Yeah, I'd continued the less obvious position to finish the song but Terry wanted to rewrite the final two lines. I had written
"The beast radiates a darkness
That circumstances... "
Leaving it hanging as the drop happens about there and "circumstances" doesn't fix the narrative to a time or place.
I think you & Terry are correct though...it's a thing hat can & probably ought to be said clearly after all the skipping around.