You may not know Tony Orlando, who sounds way more like a safari-suited ‘scaffolding contractor’ than a pop singer. Though it is fair to say you probably know his songs. His two most famous; ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree’ and ‘Knock Three Times’ are a part of the musical lexicon, to the point that you probably know the songs but not the man. There isn’t much to know about the man, really, except to say that he liked chicks to give him weird scavenger-hunt like clues on whether they were into him and was Selleck, Geraldo , Liberace and Rip Taylor before some of them were a thing.
My Man Tony.
But to the songs.
Hang A Purple Sock From The Nearest Stop-Sign, Equidistant From Your Home and Place Of Work. Indigo means you hate me.
The first, ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree’ is a tale of Tony singing to a woman and asking her to tie said ribbon around said tree if she likes him or if there is any future in whatever they have been doing.
Why he needs that exact signal remains a mystery. What if, like bananas a few years ago, there was a shortage of yellow ribbon? What if the unnamed woman lived in a pine forrest? What if Tony lived near no oaks or, worse, near many? Would he check every oak? More likely, they shared an oak, a special place as couples have.
This place was developed between them to be special, but did it avoid conversation and happen of circumstance? Are Tony Orlando and this mystery woman the star-crossed lovers of our time? Tonyo and Juliet….Their parents didn’t approve but love will always find a way. That way is, apparently, a mixed signal at best.
Was he testing her devotion? Hauling her out to Spotlight to get enough ribbon to sling around the trunk of an admitted ‘Ole’ oak tree, thick and all.
Moreover, is he so willing to give up on something potentially great because the ribbon is not there?
She has a kid and a full-time job and has to haul out early to tie something around a tree to appease Tony, who now sounds like a bit of a cunt.
Knock Three Times.
Knock Forty-Eight and One Half Times If I Am Being Over-Pedantic.
In similar fashion he is asking the, again, unnamed woman to engage in some sort of National Treasure shit.
‘Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me’
The three times makes sense. You want at least two knocks to make sure the first wasn’t a wayward screen door catching the top-step. You want the second to make sure it wasn’t the door swinging back. But three, its a nice number and no ‘bump in the night’ occurs with such frequency.
But proximity must be raised here. On the ceiling, really guy? If you are in the apartment above can’t you haggle some sort of face-to-face. Even if your hard-ass parents are Catholic (which it seems) and the girl in the apartment below is a backward Jew, surely you can arrange a short conversation.
And if you can’t, surely you can slip one of these under the door, like any civil 15 year old masturbation machine.
Not Included: Will You Ruin My Life by Living Yours?
But no, it has to be some sort of complicated concentration-camp escape code. The medium of delivery is crucial to Tony Orlando and has been since he heard that first fart hooked to a takeaway coffee cup hooked to a long piece of twine with a coffee cup on the other end. And his rejection has its own rules too…
‘Twice on the pipes, if the answer is no’
Like I say, I understood the three knocks, wood is all around us,. But the pipes? Surely once would suffice, or why not thrice on the pipes? Probably because it isn’t as solid lyrically.
If he wasn’t an old man I would issue a public warning against Tony Orlando for women. If not for his incredibly suspect name then for his neediness. Keep in mind this is the courtship phase, this is puppy-love, when shit should be as easy as it will ever be. And with Tony it will still be easy, so long as you submit to his paranoid code of letting him know you are into it.
NP.
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