The Judge
RAVES!
Date: 22/02/11
The Buoys - "Timothy" (1971)
I don't have this single actually in my collection, but I was grabbed by it the first time I heard it (I think it was in the days when The Dr Demento Show was still easily available online if you knew where to look).
Dating from 1971, the song was penned by Rupert Holmes (real name David Goldstein and born in Northwich, just about thirty miles from me) and recorded by the Pennsylvania-based prog band The Buoys.
The record gained wide airplay, and had reached #17 on the US charts, and would probably have gone much higher...
...except that people started asking awkward questions about the lyrics. The song tells of three trapped mineworkers; the narrator, Joe and Timothy. When they are finally rescued, only Joe and the narrator are left. So what happened to Timothy?
The executives of Scepter Records - scared of losing a good thing - put it about that, yes, Timothy had been eaten, but as he was a mule this was no big deal. Rupert Holmes, suitably incensed at having his plan to gain publicity for the group by putting out an eminently bannable song undermined (as it were), went public with the true meaning of the song - yes, it is about cannibalism. Radio stations all over the US immediately pulled the record from its playlists.
But note how deftly this record was smuggled in to the public consciousness; who could believe that a song was about someone being eaten when it had such a lively arrangement, complete with strings and brass?
Anyway, it's a toothsome little piece. And Rupert Holmes? He went on to write that song about Piņa Coladas. Bon appetit!
