Rivers of Babylon
|
Chart positions Explanation of the data |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Singles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rivers of Babylon is a song made famous by the German disco group Boney M. in 1978, which originally came from the Rocksteady group Melodians in 1970 and is based on texts from the Old Testament of the Bible . For a long time the title was one of the best-selling productions in the German music industry .
History of origin
The original comes from the Melodians, who presented the song in a rocksteady version. The band members Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton were guided in their composition by the content of Psalm 137 ( Psalm 137.1–9 EU ) as well as from Psalm 19.15 EU . The melody is pentatonic with a small difference .
In late 1969, reggae producer Leslie Kong assembled the Melodians, consisting of Brent Dowe, Tony Brevett, Trevor McNaughton and Renford Cogle, at Studio One in Kingston , Jamaica . Supplemented by the deliberately weakened guitar playing by Ernest Ranglin and the percussion work by Larry McDonald, they recorded the Rivers of Babylon / Babylon version (the B-side came from Beverley's All Stars). The registration of the copyright took place on December 31, 1969. Released on Summit # 8508 in November 1970, the record was only sold in Jamaica and Great Britain due to a lack of worldwide distribution partners . Summit was a sub-label of the British Trojan Records , but in England the Melodians could not sell their single Sweet Sensation , released in January 1970 (UK pop charts 41st).
Boney M.
Producer Frank Farian and his companion Hans-Jörg Mayer (who appeared under the pseudonym George Reyam ) had changed the song slightly and offered Boney M. Was published Rivers of Babylon ( Hansa 11999 AT) on 3 April 1978, as a double-A single with the song Brown Girl in the Ring . As early as April 17, 1978, the title hit the German charts, where it reached number one after one week and stayed there for 17 weeks until August 7, 1978. From May 13, 1978, it rose to number one in Great Britain for five weeks, which is also the case in Switzerland, Austria, France, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Italy, Yugoslavia, Israel, Mexico, Australia , New Zealand, Kenya or South Africa could be occupied. Only in the USA did Boney M never make a breakthrough; their records took middle positions in the charts. One million records were sold in Germany, 500,000 in France and 1,985,000 in Great Britain, and around four million copies worldwide. On July 1, 1978, the Boney-M-LP Nightflight to Venus was released , which includes Rivers of Babylon .
Text basis
Psalm 137 is a lament that was written after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC. Gives expression to the longing of the Jews in exile. The psalm is of great importance in the history of Jewish music . The rivers of Babylon are the Euphrates and its tributaries and the Chabur River .
Taken as a whole reflects Psalm 137 both into after the abduction Babylonian exile arisen longing for Jerusalem, but also the hatred of the Babylonians, with sometimes very violent images and metaphors . The hateful last verses of the Psalm are left out in the Melodians song and in other settings.
The Old Testament describes in this psalm the enslavement of the Hebrews that followed the conquest of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC. The Melodians and other reggae performers used the terms “Babylon” or “Zion” as a metaphor to describe their own Caribbean living conditions. Biblical content has often been used in reggae songs (for example in Desmond Dekkers The Israelites ). The Rastas, on the other hand, often refer to the Old Testament. Babylon stands as a metaphor "for the godless occidental world and its culture, and even more specifically for those whom it concretely enforces - the police". Whore Babylon was already in historical times an allegory of overpowering opponents, there specifically on the world power Rome .
The quotes
The original text uses only three verses that actually come from the Psalm, but these are repeated several times.
“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down
Yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
When the wicked
Carried us away in captivity
Requiring from us a song
Now how shall we sing the lord's song in a strange land? "
German:
"Let the words of my mouth,
and the meditation of my heart,
be acceptable in thy sight,
here tonight."
German:
“May the words of my mouth please you;
what I consider in my heart is
before your eyes,
here this evening. "
Other versions
Other well-known interpretations come from The Busters , the Sublime group , Jimmy Cliff and Sinéad O'Connor , among others .
A Czech version by Karel Gott ("Tam kde kdysi byl babylon") dates back to 1977
In 1978 Bruce Low sang a German text with a different theme to the same melody. His single Die Legende von Babylon tells the biblical story of the Tower of Babel , the historical source of which is at least 1000 years before the Babylonian exile . The single reached number 6 in the German music charts .
In 1978 the British pop group The Barron Knights presented a parody of this song, and By the rivers of Babylon became There's a dentist in Birmingham . German parodies are Die Lende von Marion (Mike Krüger), Isch hab de Tripper vun de Marion as well as the Oktoberfest hit 2012 Mia ham a Fassl full of beer (Quertreiber).
Rivers of Babylon in the Melodians version is included in the soundtrack to the 1972 Jamaican movie The Harder They Come .
The North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY), the youth organization of the Union for Reformed Judaism in North America, has added this song to its official song directory; this means that the song can be used in place of a prayer.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
- ↑ Steve Barrow / Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide To Reggae , 2004, p. 107
- ↑ Michael de Koningh / Laurence Kane-Honeysett, Young Gifted And Black: The Story of Trojan Records , 2003, p. 229
- ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, p. 452
- ↑ Andreas Hepp, Kult-Medien-Macht: Cultural Studies und Medienanalyse , 2008, p. 381
- ↑ Lloyd Bradley, Bass Culture: Der Triumphzug des Reggae , 2003, p. 69