Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree

462. Odyssey – Use It Up and Wear It Out (1980)

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The Intro

Before they reached number 1, New York soul trio Odyssey were best known for Native New Yorker. But Use It Up and Wear It Out, which didn’t even chart in the US, was originally tucked away as a B-side, before it began igniting UK dancefloors.

Before

None of Odyssey were native New Yorkers. Before the group existed, there were The Lopez Sisters, from Stanford, Connecticut. Lead vocalist Lillian Lopez Collazo Jackson and elder sisters Louise Lopez and Carmen Lopez were raised there after being initially raised in the Virgin Islands.

The Lopez Sisters had been performing from a young age, and they headlined New Faces of 1968 at Carnegie Hall. They were spotted by an agent and booked to perform a European tour. When they returned five months later, Carmen left to get married. Lillian and Louise resolved to continue, but with a man on the team, so they hired Filipino bassist and singer Tony Reynolds.

As soul and disco act Odyssey, they signed with RCA Records in 1977 and worked with prolific producer and songwriter Sandy Linzer, who helped create many 60s pop tunes with Denny Randell and Bob Crewe. They recorded their eponymous debut LP and Native New Yorker became their debut single. The upbeat Native New Yorker had previously been an album track for Frankie Valli, but it was Odyssey’s version that became a hit. Though the single only peaked 21 in the US, it reached five in the UK. No further singles from the album charted, and Reynolds left the trio, to be replaced by Fayetteville, North Carolina native William ‘Bill’ McEachern.

Second LP Hollywood Party Tonight was released in 1978 but didn’t leave much of a mark, with no singles charting. Odyssey were beginning to look like one-hit wonders, who had arrived too late to ride the wave of disco. Third album Hang Together came out a year later, and the single Don’t Tell Me, Tell Her, was another failure. On the flip side was Use It Up and Wear It Out. Linzer co-wrote the track with L Russell Brown, who had co-written Knock Three Times and Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree.

Review

Use It Up and Wear It Out is an infectious combination of disco and salsa, which had been all the rage a few years previous when Saturday Night Fever was everywhere. But then came the ‘Disco Sucks’ movement. From an acid-fuelled club movement in the mid-70s, disco was now attempted by most mainstream artists, with varying degrees of success. So a backlash was inevitable. But the ‘Disco Sucks’ concept was ugly, often used as an excuse for homophobic, racist remarks. And it led to the ridiculous Disco Demolition Night, where records were blown up and a riot ensued between Major League Baseball games at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois on 12 July 1979.

‘Disco Sucks’ had sped up disco’s demise in the US, but not so much in the UK. So Use It Up and Wear It Out was welcomed here with open arms. And deservedly so, because although it’s not up there with classics of the genre, it’s good fun. The jerky, Latin groove gets under the skin, while Odyssey issue a call to arms to get up and dance. If the music’s right and the stars align, it’s true that dancing becomes everything, so the line ‘Ain’t nothin’ left in this whole world I care about’ is particularly effective. As is often the case with disco, the 12″ version is better because it’s easier for the rhythm to work its magic, although there’s not that much difference between this and the single edit. The keyboard sounds… well, yes, they’re a bit quirky and an acquired taste, but I enjoy them. Use It Up and Wear It Out may be a minor chart-topper, but it’s a decent one.

After

Capitalising on momentum, Odyssey followed up Use It Up and Wear It Out with If You’re Lookin’ for a Way Out, which peaked at six. The parent album’s title track fared less well, only making it to 36 in 1981. That same year came another album, I Got the Melody, which contained their version of Lamont Dozier’s classic Going Back to My Roots – and it soared to four.

Odyssey’s last charting single was Inside Out (three), the first track from 1982’s Happy Together. This was their final work for RCA, and Reynolds left, so the name proved more than a little ironic.

The Outro

Odyssey continue but the line-up has changed. For some time, the trio consisted of Lillian, her future husband Al Jackson and her son Steven Collazo. When his mother and step-father retired in 2003, Collazo took charge and hired twins Annis and Anne Peters for the 2011 album Legacy. They were replaced in 2013 by Jerdene Wilson and Romina Johnson, who had sang on Artful Dodger’s 2000 garage hit Movin’ Too Fast.

The Info

Written by

Sandy Linzer & L Russell Brown

Producer

Sandy Linzer

Weeks at number 1

2 (26 July-8 August)

Trivia

Births

28 July: Rock climber Leo Houlding

Deaths

26 July: Theatre critic Kenneth Tynan 
28 July: Businessman Sir Cullum Welch
29 July: Nurse Eileen Skellern 
4 August: Actress Dorice Fordred
5 August: Composer Normal Fulton
6 August: Agriculturalist Leslie Hilton Brown
7 August: Socialist activist Lady Clare Annesley/Railway engineer Henry Everard/Children’s author Kathleen Fidler

Meanwhile…

26 July: Bow Wow Wow’s C30, C60, C90, Go – the first pop single to be released on cassette format –peaked at 34 in the charts.

29 July: Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher announced the introduction of Enterprise Zones. The new employment relief was targeted at areas in Britain which had been hardest hit by deindustrialisation and unemployment.


387. Brotherhood of Man – Save Your Kisses for Me (1976)

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The Intro

My, my – 70s record buyers really were partial to cheese, weren’t they? In the week a new band called the Sex Pistols performed at the 100 Club for the first time, family-friendly pop quartet Brotherhood of Man started a six-week stint at number 1 with Save Your Kisses for Me, which not only became the biggest seller of the year, it also won the Eurovision Song Contest.

Before

Brotherhood of Man originally sprung from the mind of songwriter and producer Tony Hiller. Formed in 1969, he intended on a revolving door of session singers and the first line-up featured Tony Burrows (later the singer on Edison Lighthouse’s Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)), John Goodison (who also wrote early material for Brotherhood of Man), Roger Greenaway (later the co-writer of The New Seekers’ I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)) and Sue Glover and Sunny Lee. As Sue and Sunny they were backing singers on Joe Cocker’s version of With a Little Help from My Friends.

Debut single Love One Another didn’t dent the charts but United We Stand (written by Goodison and Hiller) was a number 10 smash in 1970. Burrows left soon after and Where Are You Going to My Love, which peaked at 22, was their last hit in six years. Goodison left in early 1971 and was replaced by US singer Hal Atkinson, then Greenaway followed soon after and was replaced by Russell Stone. They split when their record label Deram dropped them in 1972.

Undeterred, Hiller decided to install another line-up. He opted for singers Martin Lee, Nicky Stevens and Lee Sheriden. Lee and Sheriden were already writers for Hiller but displayed singing abilities, and Stevens was a session singer and had been searching for solo stardom. Their first single was scheduled for the end of the year but when they found out David Cassidy was releasing his version, it was pulled. First two singles Happy Ever After and Our World of Love bombed in 1973. Soon after Sandra Stevens joined Brotherhood of Man. She had been a big-band singer and performed with Eve Graham of The New Seekers in the group The Nocturnes.

They signed to Pye offshoot Dawn and their first single for them, When Love Catches Up on You in 1974, didn’t chart. Bar some European success with Lady the same year and Kiss Me Kiss Your Baby in 1975, this incarnation of the group looked to be going the same way as the first. Hiller wanted to harness and maintain that success abroad and bring it on home, so entering the Eurovision Song Contest was the perfect solution.

Save Your Kisses for Me had been written by Sheriden back in 1974 originally. When presented to the others, they found the title a little clumsy and it was changed to Oceans of Love. Sheriden wasn’t best pleased and it was shelved but when it came to recording the album Love and Kisses from Brotherhood of Man, they needed one more track. Come recording day it was decided it would work better if Lee sang lead instead.

Review

Save Your Kisses for Me draws up immediate comparisons with Dawn’s Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree. Lightweight, slushy and catchy as hell. I prefer Brotherhood of Man, if I had to pick, because the chorus really gets under my skin. It’s impossible to hear without the image of the foursome standing in line doing that ridiculous dance, hands on waists, raising their feet. It’s certainly no Tiger Feet.

And then of course there’s the twist in the lyric, which makes any enjoyment of this song even more of a guilty pleasure. Throughout you’re given the impression Lee is splitting up with someone, and seemingly couldn’t give a fuck as he’s happy as can be. But then at the end, the killer blow, right after the final chorus: ‘Won’t you save them for me/Even though you’re only three.’

What?! Wait, don’t panic. Though it’s easy, considering the decade, to take a cheap shot and imagine Lee is yet another 70s pop star paedophile, he’s talking about his child! Very sweet – but way too sickly. The way it wraps up is horrible, and reminds me of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s Clair. Seeing it at number 1 week after week on repeats of Top of the Pops was bad enough, so I consider myself lucky I wasn’t around at the time.

After

Save Your Kisses for Me went to number 1 a fortnight before Eurovision. Brotherhood of Man were first up on that fateful night, 3 April at The Hague in the Netherlands. I was going to make a jokey link about the fact it’s where war crimes are judged so it seems appropriate but it doesn’t quite work.

To say it went well is an understatement. According to John Kennedy O’Connor’s The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History, it is the biggest selling single for a winning entry in the contest’s history. It also holds the record for the highest relative score under the voting system introduced in 1975 (which has been used in every contest since), with an average of 9.65 points per jury. Mindboggling.

The Outro

Brotherhood of Man would return to number 1 a year later with, ironically, a complete rip-off of the song that would finally topple Save Your Kisses For Me.

The Info

Written by

Tony Hiller, Lee Sheriden & Martin Lee

Producer

Tony Hiller

Weeks at number 1

6 (27 March-7 May) *BEST-SELLING SINGLE OF THE YEAR*

Trivia

Births

10 April: Actress Clare Buckfield
15 April: Olympic rower Steve Williams
18 April: Actor Sean Maguire

Deaths

22 April: Novelist Colin MacInnnes/Comedian Sid James (see below)
28 April: Novelist Richard Hughes
7 May: Writer Alison Uttley

Meanwhile…

5 April: Labour MPs voted Foreign Secretary James Callaghan as their new leader and the Prime Minister. He defeated Roy Jenkins and Michael Foot in the leadership contest. Callaghan had been endorsed by outgoing leader Harold Wilson.

9 April: Young Liberals president Peter Hain is cleared of stealing £490 from a branch of Barclays Bank.

26 April: Much-loved comedy actor and Carry On actor Sid James dies of a heart attack on stage at the Sunderland Empire Theatre while performing in The Mating Season. Many in the audience initially mistake it as being part of the show.

1 May: Second division team Southampton FC win their first major trophy in their 91-year history when a goal from Bobby Stokes gives them a surprise 1–0 win over Manchester United in the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium.

4 May: Liverpool FC win the Football League title for the ninth time with a 3–1 away win over relegated Wolverhampton Wanderers.

6 May: Local council elections produce disappointing results for the Labour Party, who win 15 seats and lose 829, compared to the Conservatives who win 1,044 new seats and lose 22. This setback comes despite the party enjoying a narrow lead in the opinion polls under new leader Callaghan.

329. Dawn (Featuring Tony Orlando) – Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree (1973)

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The Intro

These number 1s of the early-to-mid-70s seem to fall roughly into three categories. You have the teen pop idols like the Osmonds and David Cassidy, the glam rock movement for older teenage boys and girls and young adults, and then the really odd or bad, often old-fashioned easy listening-styled light entertainers, who must have been bought in their droves by older parents and grandparents. The difference between the three resulted in very disparate chart-toppers, and trawling through does at times make me miss the often wall-to-wall classics of the mid-60s.

So here’s another weird one, and the biggest of 1973, to boot. Two years after Dawn were at number 1 with Knock Three Times, here they were again, with singer Tony Orlando getting a credit this time around. Which is fair enough, considering Dawn were now him and backing singers Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent Wilson, settling on that line-up after the overwhelming sales of Knock Three Times required a stable act for live shows.

Before

Their first, eponymous album under their new name was released in 1971, and What Are You Doing Sunday was another big hit in the UK, reaching number three. Somehow 1972 passed with no chart entries, but they certainly made up for it with this track.

So what the hell is a song with a title like Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree all about? US songwriters Irwin Levine and L. Russell Brown were writing from the point of view of a convict whose sentence is up. He’s written to his woman and is wondering whether she wants him back or not after three years apart. If she does, he wants her to tie a yellow ribbon round a tree. Interestingly, they offered the song to Ringo Starr but Al Steckler of Apple Records found the idea ridiculous and told the duo they should be ashamed of themselves.

Is this song meant as a sequel to Knock Three Times? Let’s not forget that it concerned a guy seemingly stalking a woman who lived below her, who’d asked her to knock on the ceiling if she liked him. Perhaps he freaked her out and has been to jail over the situation? The punchline is, after asking the bus driver to check for him, as he’s too scared, the whole bus cheers, as there’s a hundred ribbons. So, either all is forgiven, and his old flame really loves him/really likes tying ribbons, or the dirty bugger has sent multiple letters to multiple women!

Weird as the premise is, it does have historical precedent, and has taken on new meaning since. A song, ‘Round Her Neck She Wears a Yeller Ribbon dates back hundreds of years, and in the 19th century, women would wear them in their hair as a sign to their partners serving in the US Cavalry. John Wayne starred in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon in 1949. Arguments over the song’s origin nearly caused Levine and Brown to face a court battle, when newspaper columnist Peter Hamill claimed they stole the idea from an article he wrote for the New York Post in 1971, in which students met an ex-con who was waiting for a yellow ribbon to be tied to a tree for real. It was turned into a TV movie in 1972. The lawsuit was dropped when Levine and Brown could prove how far back the idea went.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dggAQk5peA

Review

It’s a very weird one, this. A happy, jolly ditty in which we’re meant to feel sympathetic towards a former prisoner, who may also be a serial shagger. Had they made him a solider, I might feel a bit more sympathy. Orlando’s performance is soulless. He doesn’t sound concerned in the slightest about this ribbon. Although, if he’s had a hundred women, I guess he thought the odds were in his favour he could look forward to more nookie. I’m hoping to never hear this again.

After

To say Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree was huge would be an understatement. It wasn’t just the UK that showed questionable taste – it was also number 1 in the US, Australia, Canada, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Norway… the list goes on.

Following their next top 20 hit, Say, Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose, the trio became known as Tony Orlando and Dawn. Their final top 40 entry was Who’s In the Strawberry Patch with Sally, also in 1973. But their popularity remained in the US, to the extent they even had their own variety show in 1974 called Tony Orlando and Dawn. He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You) was their second US number 1, in 1975, but their fortunes faded from then on.

In 1977, Dawn split. Orlando had issues with cocaine, obesity and depression, and he had recently lost his sister and close friend Freddie Prinze, who had committed suicide. Following a brief spell in an institution, he went solo and had a few hits before beginning a residency in Las Vegas and occasionally acting. Vincent and Hopkins also continued alone in showbiz, performing in concerts and making film and TV appearances respectively. The trio have reformed as Tony Orlando and Dawn several times.

The Outro

Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree has been covered by a multitude of artists, including Kay Starr, Dean Martin and even S Club 7. Connie Francis made an answer song in 1973 called The Answer (Should I Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree?). The original became popular in the wake of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1981, and again during the People Power Revolution of the Phillipines in the early-80s. Yellow ribbons became popular during the Hong Kong protests of 2014, with pro-democracy protestors tying yellow ribbons to street railings and using them on social media. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that this song subsequently became, surely, one of the most unlikely protest songs there’s ever been.

The Info

Written by

Irwin Levine & L. Russell Brown

Producers

Hank Medress & Dave Appell

Weeks at number 1

4 (21 April-18 May) *BEST-SELLING SINGLE OF THE YEAR*

Trivia

Births

26 April: Radio host Geoff Lloyd/Footballer Chris Perry
10 May: Scottish race car driver Dario Franchitti

Deaths

9 May: Singer Owen Brannigan
11 May: Cricketer Russell Everitt
14 May: Philosopher AC Ewing

Meanwhile…

28 April: Liverpool and Celtic were crowned football league champions in England and Scotland respectively.

1 May: 1.6 million workers went on strike over government pay restraints.

5 May: BBC Two aired the first edition of the landmark documentary series The Ascent of Man.

5 May: The FA Cup final stunned football fans when Sunderland AFC defeated Leeds United 1-0 at Wembley Stadium. It was the first time an FA Cup winning team had not contained a player to be capped at full international level, and the first postwar FA Cup to be won by a side outside the First Division.

10 May: Jeremy Thorpe’s Liberal Party took control of Liverpool council in the local council elections. 

15 May: Prime Minister Edward Heath coined the phrase ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’ to describe payments made by conglomerate Lonrho to Duncan Sandys through the tax haven of the Cayman Islands. Little did he know at the time how much further down that road his party would go.