The Melodians - Rivers of Babylon

From the Album that Brought Reggae to the World

1. This is as close to church as I get. My spirituality represents itself best when I play the What’s Going On and The Harder They Come albums, the latter of which served up authentic Reggae to the world at large. It’s the album on which The Melodians’ Rivers of Babylon appears. Despite the looming presence of Jimmy Cliff, Toots & The Maytals, and Desmond Dekker, this is the soul enchanter for me, the groove and beat carrying me away from my own lamentation of the world at large. I’m an ethnic Jew and an avowed atheist who is most compelled by Christian gospel by way of Motown and Rastafarian Reggae. If you can grasp those contradictions then please, give me a shout and explain it to me. I’m still a little confused. The song requires some unlocking too, and nothing is as appealing to me as a gripping mystery. What could possibly be more enticing than a locked door? The song opens with the refrain, a bold move, to be sure.

   By the rivers of Babylon
   Where he sat down
   And there he wept
   When he remember Zion

   'Cause di wicked carried us away captivity
   Require from us a song
   How can we sing King Alpha's song in a strange land?

   This comes to us from Psalm 137:1 of the Tanakh, the foundational Judaic text. This is, on paper, a lament of Jews living in exile following the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. Then we get an adaptation of Psalm 19:14.

   So, let the words of our mouth
   And di meditation of our heart
   Be acceptable in Thy sight

   Let us take up our lockpicks. In the Rastafarian context, “Babylon” is any political system that is unjust, oppressive, or both and is commonly used to describe Western society, because… well, yeah. Unjust and oppressive. Nailed it. “Zion” in the Rastafarian tradition is Africa, and what we have is two borrowed verses to describe the Black African diaspora living as exiles in Western society having been taken from their home in Zion. You can see how this would go over many peoples’ heads.

2. Calls for Black liberation aren’t well received in present Western society, and they damn sure weren’t in Jamaica in 1972. Rastafarians regularly identify as belonging to the Twelve Tribes of Israel (What up, Levites!), so Black Jews in Western culture struggling for freedom and social justice just upped the degree of difficulty to an absurd level. That said, Reggae is a potent, peaceful, and powerful weapon rooted deeply in revolution, albeit a revolution with an amazing rhythm section and good weed. George Clinton and Funkadelic would address this six years later with the outrageously funky idea that we could all be one nation locked in a groove, but Western imperialism and capitalism weren’t ready. Imperialists and capitalists still aren’t. There’s no control or money in one world on equal footing peacefully grooving. We don’t have enough role models for that anyway. It’s unreasonable to be unhappy when listening to Rivers of Babylon. Despite the wicked carrying the band to captivity, they still hang in gorgeous melodies urging us to sing a song of freedom, uniting as brothers and sisters, chanting down Babylon, and offering good smoke rather than gunfire as a negotiation tactic. Seems reasonable to me.

3. This is about Israel, Palestine, and Hamas, except it’s not. Many people reading this have taken to social media in an attempt to “raise awareness,” whatever in the red Hell that means, about Palestine and Israel. In truth, it’s an exercise in empathy satiation, wherein one feels so deeply they’ve made a conscious choice to exhaust themselves about the matter du jour. Invariably there will be something about how exhausted they are, but that same exhaustion is of their own making. I find it unreasonable and unbecoming, but that’s beside the point. Whatever side you’re on, you’re right. If you think I’m full of shit, you’re right. If you think I’d rather listen to The Melodians’ Rivers of Babylon and feel hopeful, you’re wholeheartedly correct. It’s better than the alternative. If it’s the alternative you want, then take a trip to Gaza and discover for yourself. I’ve had more than my share of conflict. I’ll be here with good smoke and my copy of The Harder They Come.