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Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy<\/p>\n
Ringo Starr<\/a> likely has few regrets, but it\u2019s hard to envisage him not being haunted by the dismissal of one of the decade\u2019s biggest hits.<\/p>\n The fact is, 1973 was a mammoth year for the former Beatle drummer. Riding high off the \u2018It Don\u2019t Come Easy\u2019 and \u2018Back Off Boogaloo\u2019 singles, his third LP managed to shoot to number two on the US album charts while his burgeoning acting gig was paying off with the acclaimed turn in that year\u2019s That\u2019ll Be the Day. His solo career and Hollywood hustle looked all but certain to continue to stratospherically rise.<\/p>\n It helped having all the former Beatles lend their lyrical hands to the drummer. Throughout Ringo, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and George Harrison all pepper the record\u2019s songwriting credits, with Harrison, in particular, co-writing the US number one smash \u2019Photograph\u2019. With that in mind, Starr was in seriously good company and not lacking for a hit cooked up by his old Fab Four bandmates.<\/p>\n So, it was easy for his people to so blithely pass on a future chart-topper, as they didn\u2019t foresee a time when the hits could dry up. The seeds of Ringo\u2019s rejection were sown by an article in the New York Post and a later Reader\u2019s Digest reprint concerning a busload of college students on their way to Fort Lauderdale who then befriend a convict who\u2019s on the lookout for a yellow handkerchief on a roadside oak in Georgia\u2019s Brunswick.<\/p>\n Chiming with the old custom of women wearing yellow ribbons illustrating their husbands\u2019 service in the US Army, songwriter L Russell Brown convinced his creative partner Irwin Levine to draft \u2018Tie a Yellow Ribbon \u2018Round the Ole Oak Tree\u2019, a jaunty pop number concerning a convict released from prison and looking out for that yellow ribbon illustrating his lover\u2019s embrace of his return.<\/p>\n It reportedly took less than 15 minutes to write, but it was even quicker for Brown\u2019s hit hopeful to be kicked out of Apple Records<\/a>. By all accounts, the label\u2019s New York A&R man, Al Steckler, called \u2018Tie a Yellow Ribbon \u2018Round the Ole Oak Tree\u2019 \u201cridiculous\u201d and even said, \u201cnever show this song to anybody again\u201d.<\/p>\n A tough break considering how much of a Beatles fan Brown was. Eventually, \u2018Tie a Yellow Ribbon \u2018Round the Ole Oak Tree\u2019 was gifted to the confusingly named Tony Orlando and Dawn trio and released in February 1973, where it topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks. Brown and Levine would also pen The Partridge Family\u2019s top 20 \u2018I Woke Up In Love This Morning\u2019.<\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/strong><\/p>\n Still, despite it becoming a monster hit, it does make sense, in the grand scheme of things, why the single was given the boot by team Ringo; the song is an airy and breezy slice of pop fluff that wouldn\u2019t look out of place on a Brotherhood of Man album.<\/p>\n Strangely, years later, \u2018Tie a Yellow Ribbon \u2018Round the Ole Oak Tree\u2019 would form a weird proximity to Fab Four lore when the song inspired the Philippines\u2019 Liberal Party\u2019s yellow colour branding, which ousted the Marcos regime in 1986 that had hounded The Beatles 20 years prior on their ill-fated show in Manila<\/a>. Had Starr cut the tune and had the same effect on the country\u2019s democratic insurgents, the old Beatles drummer could have flexed the ultimate last laugh.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Beatles Newsletter<\/p>\n