Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree or in jail, would be welcomed home on their return. In October 1971, newspaper columnist Pete Hamill wrote a piece for the "New York Post" called "Going Home". In it, he told a variant of the story, in which college students on a bus trip to the beaches of Fort Lauderdale make friends with an ex-convict who is watching for a yellow handkerchief on a roadside oak in Brunswick, Georgia. Hamill claimed to have heard this story in oral tradition. In June 1972, nine months later, "Reader's Digest" reprinted "Going Home". Also in June 1972, ABC-TV aired a dramatized version
Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree four weeks in April 1973, number one on the Australian charts for seven weeks from May to July 1973 and number one on the New Zealand charts for ten weeks from June to August 1973. It was the top-selling single in 1973 in both the US and UK. In 2008, "Billboard" ranked the song as the 37th biggest song of all time in its issue celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Hot 100. The song is told from the point of view of someone who has "done his time" but is uncertain if he will be welcomed home. He writes