The Buoys - Timothy (1971)

Formed in 1970, this group found one-hit wonder success in a song written by Rupert Holmes that they released in 1971 (heard below). They went on to have minimal success in 1972 with “Give Up Your Guns” before disbanding. Holmes went on to write and record the largely successful “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” in 1979.

Originally written to be recorded by The Glass Prism, this song was intentionally written to get banned. If you’ve never heard it before, I won’t ruin the reason it was censored, but you can be assured that its content is rather mild by today’s standards. Unfortunately for The Glass Prism, they were under contract to RCA and Holmes had to go with his second choice, this group, to record the song. It reached number seventeen on the Billboard Hot 100.



The Buoys - Timothy (1971)

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Lyrics:

Trapped in a mine what had caved in
And everyone knows the only ones left
Were Joe and me and Tim
When they broke through to pull us free
The only ones left to tell the tale
Was Joe and me

Timothy, Timothy
Where on Earth did you go?
Timothy, Timothy
God why don't I know?

Hungry as hell- no food to eat
And Joe said that he would sell his soul
For just a piece of meat
Water enough to drink for two
And Joe said to me, "I'll take a swig”
“And then there's some for you"

Timothy, Timothy
Joe was looking at you
Timothy, Timothy
God what did we do?

I must have blacked out just ‘round then
'Cause the very next thing that I could see
Was the light of the day again
My stomach was full as it could be
And nobody ever got around
To finding Timothy

Timothy, Timothy
Where on Earth did you go?
Timothy, Timothy
God why don't I know?

Timothy…