No. 1 on the South African Springbok chart, where it remained for a total of 11 weeks, making it the No. 1 song on that country's year end charts. The song was the first single from the band's equally successful 1978 album, Nightflight to Venus. Some controversy arose when the first single pressings only credited Frank Farian and Reyam (aka Hans-Jörg Mayer) of Boney M.; after an agreement with Dowe and McNaughton, these two were also credited on later pressings. The Rastafarian language was excised from the lyrics for the Boney M. version. Although the group performed an early mix of the song on a German TV show and sang "How can we sing King Alpha's song" as in the Melodians version, it was changed to "the Lord's song", restoring the original, biblical words, in the versions that were to be released. To fit the meter, "O Far-I" became "here tonight" rather than the original, biblical "O Lord". Different versions Along with "Ma Baker", "Rivers of Babylon" helped establish what was to become a habit of Boney M. singles – namely that the original pressings featured an early version that was soon replaced by a more widely available mix. The initial single mix of "Rivers of Babylon" is most notable for lead singer Liz Mitchell's ad-libs ("Dark tears of Babylon, you got to sing a song, sing a song of love, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah") between the two verses. On subsequent single pressings, only the 'yeah's were retained. However, the full ad-libs re-emerged in the US-only 12" version, and the original earlier fade-out point is kept in the album version. The single mix differs from the album version by having Liz Mitchell singing all of the verse "Let the words of our mouth ..." with Frank Farian; on the LP, Farian sings the first half of this as a solo part. Additionally, it edits out the instrumental passage before the last "humming" part and fades out a little later ("Oooooh, have the power... yeah yeah yeah yeah" can only be heard in full in the single mix) despite being slightly shorter overall. "Brown Girl in the Ring" The single's B-side, "Brown Girl in the Ring", was a traditional Caribbean nursery rhyme. When "Rivers of Babylon" had slipped to no. 20 in the UK charts, radio stations suddenly flipped the single, causing "Brown Girl in the Ring" to go all