Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree turned up archival versions of the story that had been collected before "Going Home" had been written. Levine and Brown first offered the song to Ringo Starr, but Al Steckler of Apple Records told them that they should be ashamed of the song and described it as "ridiculous". In April 1973, the recording by Dawn featuring Tony Orlando reached No. 1 in the "Billboard" Hot 100 (chart date 21 April 1973) in the US, and stayed at No. 1 for four weeks. "Tie A Yellow Ribbon" sold 3 million records in the US in three weeks. It also reached No.
Tony Orlando and Dawn (TV series) entirely, and by 1970 he was a retired demo singer. He began publishing music for April-Blackwood Music, a division of Columbia Records, instead. Then Orlando received "Candida", a song that other producers and singers had turned down. Orlando was not able to originally lend his name to the song, as he was working for April-Blackwood, and recording under his own name would be a professional conflict of interest. After an insistence by producer Hank Medress that he dub his voice over the male vocals on the original track, the single was released on Bell Records as being performed by the