Friday September 11, 2020 “Timothy” The Buoys
It’s frivolous Friday but don’t read this before breakfast.
“If you like pina coladas’ you will really be surprised that "Timothy" was also written by Rupert Holmes and perhaps even more surprised that the theme of it is cannibalism...yes that’s right Timothy gets eaten in this jaunty little pop gem. Sorry if that ruined your surprise at the end of the song.
Struggling 20 year old songwriter Rupert Holmes was desperately trying to make it in the music business and was working on projects like creating high school choral arrangements of Santana's “Oye Como Va” or marching band arrangements for “Jingle Bell Rock”, no seriously he was doing that.
He would of course go on to a remarkable career writing and recording the also kind of dark “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)”, creating an Emmy award winning TV series Remember WENN, writing novels and several plays including the Mystery of Edwin Drood, which would win five Tonys.
But back to “Timothy” which was written with the expectation that it might get banned and therefore achieve some notoriety. When radio station program directors listened to the song, probably not very carefully at first, they heard an upbeat pop tune, liked it and added it to their lists. Then the calls started, not negative ones, but asking for them to replay it. So they listened and, yes it got banned.
But the calls kept coming asking for the tune and it gradually crept into the top 20. There were of course many markets that never played it because of the content, New York was one of those so you probably don’t know this song if you are a New Yorker.
Stay safe and well...and the Buoys went the way of Timothy. No they didn’t get eaten but no one has gotten around to finding out where they are either.
