America / America / 1971
Donkey Jaw
urgent, incantatory, mournful
A short, chant-like protest song that borrows the language of exorcism to confront ecological destruction. The narrator repeatedly banishes a Satan-figure responsible for despoiling the earth, then asks an unanswered question about whether harm to children is what it will take for people to wake up.
environmental destruction religious allegory innocence and children as moral stakes collective failure to act exorcism/banishment ritual
Who's speaking
A collective or prophetic voice speaking directly to a personified evil force, while also addressing an unnamed public that refuses to understand; the speaker sounds less like an individual confessing feelings than a ritual leader performing a rebuke.
What happens
The song doesn't tell a story in a linear sense; it cycles through the same accusation and question, intensifying through repetition rather than development. It moves from direct address of the destructive force, to a wider indictment of public indifference, back to the direct address, and closes on the same unresolved question repeated twice, suggesting the problem remains unsolved by song's end.
How it's built
Built almost entirely from two couplets that alternate and repeat with only slight variation in wording. There's no clear chorus-verse distinction in the pop sense; instead the song functions like a liturgical chant, where repetition itself is the structural device and the final section just restates the central question twice for emphasis.
Section by section
Opening address
“get behind me Satan”
The song opens by casting whoever or whatever is damaging the earth as a biblical antagonist to be banished, immediately elevating an ecological complaint into something closer to spiritual warfare.
First questioning passage
The speaker pivots from direct confrontation to a bleaker observation about general public apathy, suggesting the real obstacle isn't a single villain but widespread failure to notice or care.
Central refrain
“does it take the children”
The recurring question implies that only harm to the most innocent and vulnerable might finally force people to reckon with the damage being done, a grim rhetorical escalation rather than a literal prediction.
Closing repetition
The song ends by doubling the same question without resolution, leaving the demand hanging unanswered, which reinforces the sense of an unresolved, ongoing crisis rather than a narrative conclusion.
Craft
- biblical allusion
- The opening address echoes the rebuke Jesus gives Satan in the Gospels, borrowing scriptural authority to frame environmental harm as a moral or even demonic failing rather than a neutral policy problem.
- apostrophe
- The song speaks directly to an absent, personified force of destruction, which lets the lyric dramatize abstract harm (pollution, exploitation of land) as an adversary that can be confronted and banished.
- anaphora
- The repeated rhetorical question about children recurs with minor variation, functioning like a refrain that accumulates weight each time it returns rather than advancing new information.
- personification
- The land is described as being violated, giving the environment a body and dignity that can be harmed, which sharpens the moral urgency of the complaint.
Reading it
The most persuasive reading treats this as an early-70s environmental protest song dressed in religious ritual language, using exorcism imagery to dramatize the destruction of the natural world and questioning what level of harm, especially to children, would be required to provoke real change. An alternative reading could extend "the children" and "ravishing the land" toward broader anxieties of the era, such as war or industrial exploitation, with the environmental reading being one facet of a more general lament about reckless adult behavior endangering the next generation. Given the brevity and plainness of the lyric, either reading is plausible and the song doesn't commit to a single specific target.
Context
I don't have reliable specific information about the writing or recording circumstances of this particular track beyond it appearing on America's 1971 self-titled debut album. The early 1970s context of rising environmental consciousness (following events like the first Earth Day in 1970) is a reasonable general backdrop, but I can't confirm any direct biographical or compositional details tied to this song.
Listen for
- How the repeated question is delivered -- whether rising in intensity or left flat and unresolved
- Any musical shift between the addressed-to-Satan lines and the addressed-to-the-public lines
- Whether the vocal arrangement (harmonies, layering) reinforces the chant-like, ritual quality of the repetition
- The lack of musical resolution at the end, mirroring the lyric's unanswered question
About America
America is a British–American rock band formed in 1970 by Dewey Bunnell, Dan Peek, and Gerry Beckley. The trio met as sons of US Air Force personnel stationed in London, where they began performing live.
1970 - present / United States
Full biography and catalogue