Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Babylon-Don Mclean


By the waters,
The waters,
Of Babylon.

We lay down and wept,
And wept,
For thee Zion.

We remember,
Thee remember,
Thee remember,
Thee Zion.

This song is based off of Psalm 137 "Sorrow and Hope in Exile"

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.

There on the poplars
we hung our harps,

for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"

How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land?

It's a very tragic and eyrie scenario and this song, I think, does it justice. It has such a stunningly beautiful sound! This recording is of a live version, it isn't very often that the live version is better than the studio version but this is a remarkable exception. The performance was recorded in Manchester in 1979 and the audience are truly amazing singers! They bring alot of heart into the lyrics!!

2 comments:

Kit-Kat said...

This song makes me a appreciate s o much more what I just read in history a couple of weeks ago (about Babylonian Captivity)

Amy Dea said...

Very good. Dad and I have seen Don McLean twice in concert. It was so much fun. Nice selection Lenore!