Tony Orlando & Dawn Songs - Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree Lyrics

Tony Orlando & Dawn - Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree

Tony Orlando & Dawn - Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Greatest Hits
Released: 1973

Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree Lyrics

Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree Song Chart

This was written by Irwin Levine and Larry Brown. It is based on the true story of a convict returning from jail.

Levine and Brown got the story from a 1971 article in The New York Post, and changed some of the details. It was really a white handkerchief around the tree, but they made it a yellow ribbon because it made for a better song.

A song of the same name was used in the 1949 John Wayne movie She Wore A Yellow Ribbon. This is probably where Levine and Brown got the idea for the yellow ribbon.

The yellow ribbon became a National symbol in 1980 when Americans put them on trees to remember the hostages being held in Iran. Ten years later, a group called Visual AIDS convinced people attending the Tony Awards to wear small red ribbons as a symbol of AIDS awareness. Soon, many causes produced ribbons with different colors to raise money and awareness. In 2004, the trend extended to rubber bracelets when cyclist and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong worked with Nike to promote yellow bracelets labeled "Livestrong" that raised money for cancer research.

Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent Wilson took the name "Dawn" from the daughter of their record company promotions man, Steve Wax. The song was a #1 hit in Australia in mid 1973, spending 26 weeks on the charts. (thanks, Graham - Windsor, Australia)