Irwin Levine and Larry Brown began
writing songs together in 1970. They had 17 hits in just three years,
including the overwhelming success of this happy melody about an ex-convict
coming home to his love. The song was one of the most performed tunes of
1973 and the first song in the history of BMI ( Broadcast Music, Inc.,
an American performing rights society ) to be played more than a million
times on the air in less than a year. In all, there have been more than 400
separate recorded versions of Tie a Yellow Ribbon
—
one of the biggest was by Country artist Johnny Carver and another by Tony
Orlando and Dawn, who made it into a hugely successful hit.
( notes from "The
Incomparable Como" Readers Digest UK
compilation 1975 )