Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree

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Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Ole Oak Tree' was a popular song by Dawn featuring Tony Orlando.

Written by Irwin Levine and L. Russell Brown and produced by Hank Medress and David Appell, "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Around The Ole Oak Tree" was a massive worldwide hit in 1973 for Dawn featuring Tony Orlando.

It reached number one on both the UK and US charts for four weeks in April 1973.

[edit] Background to song

The symbol of a yellow ribbon became widely known in civilian life in the 1970s as a reminder of an absent loved one, either in the military or in jail that they would be welcome home on their return.

From the Library of Congress:

In October of 1971, newspaper columnist Pete Hamill wrote a piece for the New York Post called "Going Home." In it, college students on a bus trip to the beaches of Fort Lauderdale make friends with an ex-convict who is watching for a yellow handkerchief on a roadside oak. Hamill claimed to have heard this story in oral tradition.

In June of 1972, nine months later, Reader's Digest reprinted "Going Home." Also in June 1972, ABC-TV aired a dramatized version of it in which James Earl Jones played the role of the returning ex-con. A month-and-a-half after that, Irwin Levine and L. Russell Brown registered for copyright a song they called "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree." The authors said they heard the story while serving in the military. Pete Hamill was not convinced and filed suit for infringement.

One factor that may have influenced Hamill's decision to do so was that, in May 1973, "Tie A Yellow Ribbon" sold 3 million records in three weeks. When the dust settled, BMI calculated that radio stations had played it 3 million times--seventeen continuous years of airplay. Hammill dropped his suit after folklorists working for Levine and Brown turned up archival versions of the story that had been collected before "Going Home" had been written. [1]

In 2006, a widely circulated viral video featured the Asylum Street Spankers doing a satirical parody of the song, "Stick Magnetic Ribbons on Your SUV," which mocked the popular yellow ribbon car magnets intended to show support for American soldiers in the Iraq War.

Preceded by: "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" by Vicki Lawrence	Billboard Hot 100 number one single April 21 — May 12, 1973	Succeeded by: "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" by Stevie Wonder
Preceded by: "The Twelfth of Never" by Donny Osmond	UK number one single April 15, 1973	Succeeded by: "See My Baby Jive" by Wizzard