Rivers of Babylon

Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton of the Jamaican reggae group the Melodians wrote and recorded "Rivers of Babylon" in 1970, adapting its lyrics from Psalms 19 and 137 of the Hebrew Bible. Psalm 137 laments the exile of the Jewish people after the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC, while Psalm 19 contributes the line about the words of the mouth and the meditation of the heart. Dowe said he adapted the psalm to a reggae style to raise awareness of the growing Rastafarian movement and its calls for black liberation and social justice. In the original version, references to "the Lord" became "Far-I" and "King Alpha", both names for Haile Selassie.

The song became a number-one hit in Jamaica within three weeks of release, despite an initial ban by the Jamaican government, which considered its Rastafarian references subversive. Producer Leslie Kong attacked the ban, pointing out that the words came almost entirely from the Bible. The Melodians' version then reached an international audience through the soundtrack of the 1972 film The Harder They Come.

In 1978 the Germany-based disco group Boney M. covered the song, and their single spent five weeks at number one in the UK, where it sold over two million copies. The Rastafarian language was excised for that version, with "King Alpha's song" changed back to "the Lord's song". The B-side, "Brown Girl in the Ring", later reached number two in its own right after radio stations flipped the single.