Don McLean - By the Waters of Babylon (audience sing-along) Live in Ireland, December 1975 

The Irish have a unique affinity for music. They appreciate the value of music in life My brother went to school in Maynooth for a year, and thoroughly enjoyed visiting his friends' homes, where often after supper, the young ones would pull out an instrument and entertain . He said they were quite good. He very much enjoyed that year.

The audience sounds like a choir! Truly beautiful ❣️

One of the best audience-involvement live songs I've ever heard. Gorgeous.

This performance with the audience gave me goose bumps. Maevelous.

We laid down and and wept for Thee, Zion! Beautiful 😍

Thanks for sharing this. In the winter of1974-75, my buddy and I, spending a year in Israel, performed this song for a full house at Kibbutz Regavim.

Ancient voices... Thank you.

A spiritual experience...

This man has an opera trained voice, his songwriting and singing, performing outstanding, and of course, all 'real music ' of the 70's... thank God, no auto tune cheaters here.

GOD'S presence was there!

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 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 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

Love this. Didn't know a Banjo could sound and impact like that.

Holy molly, that was magical, it's hard to believe my ears when I hear the public spot on like a profesional choir

Transcendental.

A powerful performance. Amazingly beautiful!

This is more than music.

This is a beautiful and quietly powerful video

Don McLean is an American of Scottish-Italian heritage. Pretty cool that he could write such a powerful folk song for the Jewish people.

Beautiful.💕💕💕

Thank you, this is so important today. ❤

Beautiful song based on Psalm 137 and the exile from Judea to Babylon in 586 BCE. Evokes the deep attachment and yearning of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland.

有如清泉一般美麗的一首歌❤❤❤❤❤

We remember.

Haunting....

Yıllardır eskimeyen eskitemediğim…

Rare stuff! Fantastic!

Chills down my spine, very nice stuff! Thanks for sharing!

For all of my people ,soldiers,sitizins,the captured and in remembrance of my jonathan

Beautiful!

Outstanding

thanks for putting this up…I don’t know how u sourced this man…the sound is just so deep

Goosebumps!

Beautiful! So reminiscent of Pete Seeger's skill with an audience.

That was beautiful!

Just beautifully simple

for Donald Draper

Where did this mega-rare clip come from ? Amazing

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 Amazing live trio version

Bring Them Home!

I love the two young guys at 4:36 that would be me. By the way, I have read that this song, or hymn if you will, was the first American written, sung and recorded in a hymnal. Whatever, it's old, and it was not sung in Europe. It really works well with a church congregation. Worship leaders should do more of this kind of activity song. It requires that the congregation respond. That is what I think the Bible when it says that we should "speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs and making melody in our hearts.

Wonderful!!!!

magical...

Thank you so much! This treasure greatly assists and deepens into prayer, my lamentation over the fascistization of my country - the (dis)United States of America - and of other parts of the world, including Brazil. I have by no means given up the fight for democracy, but cruelty is surely having its day. This song helps me move through it, so as not to get stuck.

Brano stupendo ! Esecuzione da brividi 🥰

Mad men✨

My heart is with the people of Israel. Love to them. GOD PROTECT THE HOSTAGES PLEASE.

Thank you so much

A canon 🥰

This is on a record somewhere where it will always play...

Huge Thank.... every year I open ...13.8.2024 9 th Hebrew month name Av

Whitney was correct. Both renditions of this song touch my heart.

Beautiful. 😢 It came to my awareness through Mad Men. I weep for Palestine too.

So beautiful! 😢 Oh, God of Israel your people cry out to You, for you alone are the almighty King of Kings and the only Lord of Lords.

Psalm 137... עַ֥ל נַהֲר֨וֹת ׀ בָּבֶ֗ל שָׁ֣ם יָ֭שַׁבְנוּ גַּם־בָּכִ֑ינוּ בְּ֝זׇכְרֵ֗נוּ אֶת־צִיּֽוֹן׃ By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yea, we wept, When we remembered Zion.

💔

also very interesting melodies for the Psalm of King David (was it psalm nr 134 ? or 137 ? )

Yes! Well done! Long live Israel!

This reminds me of the song “Holy Mountain” by System of a Down

A group called Lamb did a great version of this song😔

Don Banjovi! (His joke, not mine!)

channeling Don Draper................

To all the people of Ukraine...

They're smoking in the audience!

I was very softly singing this song to myself when a man who identified with the Black Panthers terrorist group suddenly hit me against the left side of my skull extremely hard. I was too shocked to think clearly on what to do 😢

Don draper

Ооо

They are all going in hell looks like to mr.take it away man...I love this song for eternity....like in revelation 19:20-21... maybe they don't understand what im saying to them but oneday it will all come true

If you really want to understand what Zionism is then listen closely to this song and its haunting lyrics. It is a longing without equal to return to the homeland of the Jewish people following their expulsion after the fall of their lands at the hands of the Babylonian Empire. Now homeless in ancient Babylon the Jewish people sat and wept, and wept, and wept by the waters of Babylon for all that they had lost. And from this point, thousands of years ago, they repeated a prayer over the millennia, a vow to return to Jerusalem as a united people: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill, May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy. Remember, O LORD, against the sons of Edom the day of Jerusalem's fall, those who said: 'Tear it down!'" But few people, as evidenced by some of the comments in this section, understand what Don McClean's song is really about. Over the decades the Arab-Muslim world have made a mockery out of Zionism and have convinced the world that it is something to be derided. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Zionism is not about conquest, it is rather a longing for the ancestral homeland of the Jews after more than two thousand years of wandering this earth as a people, denied their homeland and paying the price for not having one. McClean's song opens the heart more than any I have ever heard.