Our second Throwback Weekend song comes from the week of April 21, 1973, when Dawn and Tony Orlando reached the top spot of the Hot 100 with ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree.’

Released the month before the U.S. pulled its last troops out of Vietnam, this song hit a nerve not just in America but all over the world. It topped the charts in eight countries, selling millions of copies worldwide. In the states it was the top-charting single not just of this week but for all of 1973.

That kind of success led to arguments over the song’s ownership. It was written by Irwin Levine and L. Russell Brown, which nobody disputes, but questions were raised about the tune’s origins.

Journalist Pete Hamill had written an article in the New York Post two years earlier titled ‘Going Home.’ It described an ex-con returning home from prison, befriending a bus full of beach-bound college students, and telling them about the sign he hoped to see from his wife. The bus erupts in cheers when they see dozens of yellow ribbons tied around the oak tree.

That short story, a fictionalized version of a tale Hamill had heard in a bar, was adapted into a 1972 ABC TV movie starring James Earl Jones. Years later, it would also be the basis of a 2008 film titled The Yellow Handkerchief.

Brown says he read Hamill’s article and asked Levine to write a song about it, which they did. Hamill challenged their copyright in court but dropped the case after folklorists dug up versions of the story dating back to the 1950s.

This was the second of three #1 singles by Tony Orlando and Dawn. The first was 1970’s ‘Knock Three Times,’ released as Dawn, and the third was ‘He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You),’ released as Tony Orlando and Dawn.