Rivers of Babylon


"Rivers of Babylon" is a Rastafari song written and recorded by Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton of the Jamaican reggae group The Melodians in 1970. The lyrics are adapted from the texts of Psalms 19 and 137 in the Hebrew Bible. The Melodians' original version of the song appeared on the soundtrack album for the 1972 movie The Harder They Come, which made it internationally known.
The song was re-popularised in Europe by the 1978 Boney M. cover version, which was awarded a platinum disc and is one of the top-ten all-time best-selling singles in the UK. The B-side of the single, "Brown Girl in the Ring", also became a hit.

Background

Biblical psalms

The song is based on the Biblical Psalm 137:1-4, a hymn expressing the lamentations of the Jewish people in exile following the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC: Previously the Kingdom of Judah, after being united under Kings David and Solomon, had been split in two, with the Kingdom of Israel in the north, conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BC which caused the dispersion of 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel. The southern Kingdom of Judah, home of the tribe of Judah and part of the tribe of Levi, was free from foreign domination until the Babylonian conquest to which Rivers of Babylon refers.
The namesake rivers of Babylon are the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The song also has words from :
It is one of a few pop songs whose lyrics come directly from the Bible. The melody bears a strong resemblance to "How Dry I Am".

Rastafari

In the Rastafarian faith, the term "Babylon" is used for any governmental system which is either oppressive or unjust. In Jamaica, Rastafarians also use "Babylon" to refer to the police, often seen as a source of oppression because they arrest members for the use of marijuana. Therefore, "By the rivers of Babylon" refers to living in a repressive society and the longing for freedom, just like the Israelites in captivity. Rastafarians also identify themselves as belonging to the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The original version specifically refers to Rastafarian belief in Haile Selassie, by changing references to "the Lord" in the Biblical text to "Far-I" and "King Alpha". Both terms refer to Selassie. In addition, the term "the wicked" replaces the neutral "they" of Psalm 137 in the line "they that carried us away captive required of us a song...". According to David Stowe,
Brent Dowe, the lead singer of the Melodians, told Kenneth Bilby that he had adapted Psalm 137 to the new reggae style because he wanted to increase the public's consciousness of the growing Rastafarian movement and its calls for black liberation and social justice. Like the Afro-Protestant Revival services, traditional Rastafarian worship often included psalm singing and hymn singing, and Rastas typically modified the words to fit their own spiritual conceptions; Psalm 137 was among their sacred chants.

Melodians version

After its release in 1970, the song quickly became well known in Jamaica. According to Brent Dowe, the song was initially banned by the Jamaican government because "its overt Rastafarian references were considered subversive and potentially inflammatory". Leslie Kong, the group's producer, attacked the government for banning a song with words taken almost entirely from the Bible, stating that the Psalms had been "sung by Jamaican Christians since time immemorial". The government lifted the ban. After that, it took only three weeks to become a number-one hit in the Jamaican charts.
It reached an international audience thanks to the soundtrack album of the 1972 film The Harder They Come, which is credited with having "brought reggae to the world". The song was later used in the 1999 Nicolas Cage movie Bringing Out the Dead and the 2010 Philip Seymour Hoffman film Jack Goes Boating.
An early reggae classic, "Rivers of Babylon" was remixed in 1970 in typical Jamaican dub fashion. One variation of the recording became "Sound of Babylon", another reggae classic featuring DJ/rapper Samuel The First, one of the Jamaican deejays who pioneered rap as early as the 1950s. "Sound of Babylon" includes several samples of the Melodians' original vocal as well as overdubbed mystical Rastafarian comments by Samuel The First. His version can be found on the 1988 CD Jamaican Deejay Music 1969-1973 – Keep On Coming Through the Door….

Boney M. version

"Rivers of Babylon" was covered in 1978 by Germany-based disco band Boney M., with a version that was released as a single. Boney M.'s release stayed at the no. 1 position in the UK for five weeks and was also the group's only significant US chart entry, peaking at no. 30 in the Pop charts. Boney M.'s version of the song remains one of the top ten all-time best-selling singles in the UK, where it is one of only seven songs to have sold over 2 million copies. In Canada, the song was a top 25 hit on the RPM magazine's Top 100 singles chart and reached no. 9 on the Adult Contemporary chart. The song also reached No. 1 on the South African Springbok chart, where it remained for a total of 11 weeks, making it the No. 1 song on that country's year end charts. The song was the first single from the band's equally successful 1978 album, Nightflight to Venus. Some controversy arose when the first single pressings only credited Frank Farian and Reyam of Boney M.; after an agreement with Dowe and McNaughton, these two were also credited on later pressings.
The Rastafarian language was excised from the lyrics for the Boney M. version. Although the group performed an early mix of the song on a German TV show and sang "How can we sing King Alpha's song" as in the Melodians version, it was changed to "the Lord's song", restoring the original, biblical words, in the versions that were to be released. To fit the meter, "O Far-I" became "here tonight" rather than the original, biblical "O Lord".

Different versions

Along with "Ma Baker", "Rivers of Babylon" helped establish what was to become a habit of Boney M. singles – namely that the original pressings featured an early version that was soon replaced by a more widely available mix.
The initial single mix of "Rivers of Babylon" is most notable for lead singer Liz Mitchell's ad-libs between the two verses. On subsequent single pressings, only the 'yeah's were retained. However, the full ad-libs re-emerged in the US-only 12" version.
The single mix differs from the album version by having Liz Mitchell singing all of the verse "Let the words of our mouth..." with Frank Farian; on the LP, Farian sings the first half of this as a solo part. Additionally, the single version edits out the instrumental passage before the last "humming" part and fades out a little later despite being slightly shorter overall.

"Brown Girl in the Ring"

The single's B-side, "Brown Girl in the Ring", was a traditional Caribbean nursery rhyme. When "Rivers of Babylon" had slipped to no. 20 in the UK charts, radio stations suddenly flipped the single, causing "Brown Girl in the Ring" to go all the way to no. 2 and become a hit in its own right. Early single pressings feature the full-length, 4:18 version, whose final chorus has a section that was later edited out. The single mix is also slightly different from the album version in that the latter features steel drums on the outro riff of the song, while the single mix doesn't.
"Brown Girl in the Ring" was also issued separately in Canada as an A-side in the summer of 1979. It reached no. 8 on the Canadian AC chart in July 1979, becoming the third Boney M. song to reach the top 10 on that chart after "Rivers of Babylon" and "Rasputin". On RPM's Top 100 singles chart, the song stalled at no. 79.
Liz Mitchell had previously recorded "Brown Girl in the Ring" in 1975 with the group Malcolm's Locks, which had her ex-boyfriend Malcolm Magaron as the lead singer. Arranger Peter Herbolzheimer accused Frank Farian of stealing his arrangement for the song. The court case ran for more than 20 years in Germany.

Charts and certifications

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Sales and certifications

1988 Remix

"Rivers of Babylon" / "Mary's Boy Child" / "Oh My Lord" was a 1988 remix single issued to launch the group's reunion. The double-A-side single contained new mixes of the band's two most successful single releases ever. Although the remix album from which both sides of the single were taken sold well, the single failed to chart.

Parody

The song was parodied by The Barron Knights in their UK comedy hit "A Taste of Aggro", in which the lyrics are changed to "There's a dentist in Birmingham, he fixed my crown / And as I slept, he filled my mouth with iron." The song was their biggest hit, reaching no. 3 in the UK charts.

Other notable versions

On 19 November 1978, a cover version with lyrics in Swedish, "Kommer du ihåg Babylon?", performed by Swedish dansband Schytts entered the first place on Svensktoppen where it stayed for 10 weeks.

In popular culture

On 30 September 1979, "Rivers of Babylon" was sung by an estimated crowd of 280,000 people attending the papal visit of John Paul II in Galway near Limerick, Ireland.
The song features prominently in the 2009 Kazakh film Tulpan.