1973 Dawn featuring Tony Orlando: Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Ole Oak Tree

And here's something else that's always puzzled me - "I'm comin' home, I've done my time" schmoozes Tony, but "done my time"? Are we to assume he's been banged up for crimes unspecified? I know there are interpretations that suggest he's back from a war or the army, but the lyrics go on to say "I'm really still in prison, and my love, she holds the key" so that seems pretty cut and dried. And what it does in its cutting and drying is give the song an uneasy ambiguity over whether we should be rooting for the returnee or not. If he'd been fitted up A Team style for a crime he didn't commit then fair enough, but if he's been sent down for sexual assault ("three long years" sounds about right) then you kind of hope the woman has long since packed her bags and cleared out.

Not that Tony Orlando or Dawn were ever troubled by such moral niceties - 'Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Old Oak Tree' is supper club fodder to the max. And it's fodder driven by a nauseatingly irritating Hammond organ with side order of cheese that never plays one note where ten will do. The backing vocalists chirp in and out like an echo while Tony....Tony is as professional as ever in his lead vocal with his voice injecting the same level of interest at the start when he's dreading seeing no ribbons on the tree as he is at the corn filled finish when he sees there's a hundred on there. The tune may be memorable, but then so is syphilis and I'd hazard a guess that 'Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Old Oak Tree' is one of the songs playing over the tannoy in Hell's reception when they're processing the new arrivals. Just to give a taste of what's to come.