The great F. Scott Fitzgerald must have visited this psalm — “By the rivers of Babylon” — once or twice. It’s about being a poor artist among the beautiful and damned on this side of paradise.
Like the psalmist, Scott knew how it felt to dance around the rich and powerful crowd of his day. He used his talent to make himself part of the Lost Generation, like Zelda, Gertrude and Ernest.
But unlike the Ancient Hebrew psalmist, who would not play and sing for his Babylonian captors, Scott churned out the words and “razed” not Babylon around him, but instead destroyed himself.