Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree

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

It reached number one on both the US and UK charts for four weeks in April 1973 and number one on the Australian charts for seven weeks from May to July 1973. It was the top-selling single for the year 1973 in the US.

The song enjoyed duplicate success on country radio, as a cover version by Johnny Carver. Carver's rendition - titled simply "Yellow Ribbon" - was a top 10 on the Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles chart in June 1973.

The song had a fresh wave of popularity in 1981, in the wake of the Iranian hostage crisis.^[1]

[edit] Background

The origin of the idea of a yellow ribbon as a token of remembrance may have been the 19th century practice that some women allegedly had of wearing a yellow ribbon in their hair to signify their devotion to a husband or sweetheart serving in the U.S. Cavalry - the official color of the cavalry is yellow (worn on insignia, etc.), and the song "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," which later inspired the John Wayne movie of the same name, is a reference to this.

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 welcomed home on their return. In Singapore, an initiative by the Singapore Prison Service to generate social acceptance of ex-offenders is named the Yellow Ribbon Project, having drawn inspiration from the song's title.

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. Hamill 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.

In the second episode of Miami 7, the song is performed by the band on stage in tuxedos, only to be bashed by the audience to pay one of their own songs.

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 ribbon car magnets ^[2] intended to show support for American soldiers in the Iraq War.

[edit] References

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 17, 1973	Succeeded by "See My Baby Jive" by Wizzard
Preceded by "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack	Billboard Hot 100 Number one single of the year 1973	Succeeded by "The Way We Were" by Barbra Streisand