Songs about miners are a strange music sub-genre all its own. You might have never thought much about it, but there are dozens of songs written about the men who swing their shovels and pick axes underneath the Earth’s crust in search for precious minerals. Off the top of my head there is “New York Mining Disaster” by The Bee Gees, “Dark as a Dungeon” by Johnny Cash, “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford, “Big Bad John” by Jimmy Dean and “Red Hill Mining Town” by U2. But the most epic, most unusual and easily my favorite is “Timothy” by The Buoys. Ever heard of ”Timothy?” It astonishes me how many people don’t know it. One of the most unusual pop singles of the 1970’s, “Timothy” was a word of mouth success generated by record buyers who delighted at the morose and shocking tale of the three men who went into a mine, only to have two emerge forever changed by the ghastly events that happened during their entrapment. What happened in that mine? People who know the song know the answer, and its deliciously garish. But what some people might be surprised to learn is that a few years before he was drinking Pina Coladas and getting lost in the rain, it was songwriter Rupert Holmes who was putting “Timothy” on the menu and having one of his earliest successes in the pop music industry.
I don’t remember the first time I heard the song “Timothy.” It wasn’t a song that was on rotation on the oldies station I listened to when I was young and crafted my musical knowledge from. I am willing to bet that the lyrical content of the song was just too intense for the station, even a quarter century after its original release. I also must admit that I have never done a lot of thinking about Rupert Holmes either. I’m going to be honest, but his 1979 hit “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” has never been a favorite of mine, and Rupert Holmes’ albums have never found their way into my collection. But when I first heard “Timothy,” which I’m assuming happened on a YouTube video or podcast, like most fans of the song, I was turned on by its morbid and bloody content. Now I don’t maybe have the best grasp on Rupert Holmes’ complete body of work, but I’m willing to bet “Timothy” is the coolest thing he ever wrote. So, when I came across The Buoys 1971 debut album a few months ago, it got me to do a little deeper digging into the backstory of this bizarre one hit wonder and brought me an even firmer appreciation of “Timothy” beyond its horrific narrative.
Now, a lot of information is out there on the song “Timothy,” but not nearly as much is available on the band The Buoys. I’ll admit that I always assumed that The Buoys was just another made up studio group, such as Edison Lighthouse, The First Class, or the original Brotherhood of Man, but I couldn’t havebeen more wrong. The Buoys were indeed a real group that was formed as far back as 1965.
Formed in the town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, The Buoys story began when two local thirteen-year-olds, Bill Kelly and Frank Brozena, met each other when playing at a local community center. Bonding over their love of Beatles music, Kelly was playing as part of a duo, while Brozena had a three-piece combo. Anyhow, the two boys brought their two groups together, with Kelly taking lead vocals and Brozena providing backing vocals and lead guitar, to form the earliest version of The Buoys.
Although located in the Eastern US, Kelly and Brozena became fans of the music that was coming out of Laurel Canyon and soon began emulating the sounds of performers like Crosby, Still, Nash and Young, Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins, creating a soulful type of modern folk sound with insightful lyrics. Well, by the end of the decade the group, which line up came to include Jerry Hudzik, Carl Siracuse and Chris Hanlon, came to the attention of Sceptor Records producer Michael Wright, who really liked their sound. Wright brought The Buoys to New York and got them to record a track called “These Days” (not to be confused with the Jackson Browne hit), but it got no attention.
Frustrated with the failure of “These Days” to chart, Michael Wright had great faith in The Buoys and felt they had great potential, but he just didn’t know what to do with them. This is when Rupert Holmes came into the picture.
In 1970 Rupert Holmes, barely twernty years old at the time, was working as a songwriter and studio musician who was part of the faceless machine that was putting out bubblegum singles This was an era where a lot of fantastic singles were released by what were essentially anonymous studio groups with generic names. Holmes had just had his first real success with a bubblegum hit called “Jennifer Tompkins,” which was initially released by The Cuff Links, but was rerecorded and rereleased with Holmes at the helm under the band name The Street People, peaking at the moderate position of #36 on the Billboard Top 40.
Well, as the story goes, Holmes had ran into Michael Wright and Wright was telling him about how he had found this great group from Pennsylvania but he couldn’t get them to hit. Well, Holmes coyly suggested to give them a song that might get banned. Wright thought this was a strange suggestion, but Holmes continued to theorize that if they had a song that was controversial and offensive and got banned that the notoriety would make it a hit. Wright wasn’t completly convinced, but he told Holmes if he could write him a controvesial song of questionable content that was good enough, he’d produce it.
Holmes was up for the challange. As Holmes tells it, he was working with Canadian singer Andy Kim on a cover of Tenessee Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons” (I’m a big Andy Kim fan, but I can’t find any evidence that this track exists, and if anybody can give me more information on it please drop me a note). While he was learning the lyrics and the guitar part, his wife was watching an episode of the cooking show “The Galloping Gourmet,” starring Chef Graham Kerr, loudly in the other room. Unable to focus, eventually the lyrics of “Sixteen Tons” and Graham Kerr’s cooking instructions started to bleed into one another in Holmes’ head., and it sounded like a recipe:
“Some people say a man is made outta mud
A poor man’s made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that’s a-weak and a back that’s strong…….bake in an modern oven for three hours and top with sauce.”
Suddenly Holmes was hit with a blast of gorey inspiration and he dropped what he was doing and wrote his offensive opus. Calling up Michael Wright, he presented the producer with”Timothy” and Wright was impressed with what Holmes had come up with. It was ghastly, shocking and had never been done on pop radio….but it just might work.
Now you can look the lyrics of “Timothy” up for yourself, but for those still with us, let me break down the song for you.
“Timothy” is one of the great story songs of the 70’s, which weaved a narrative through the song like a little mini-drama or movie. Many of Rupert Holmes’ songs are in this line of songwriting. But to cover up the shocking ending of “Timothy,” Holmes filled the song with a descriptive banter and a rousing course that would distract the listener unless they stuck with the narrative until the very end. Casual listeners, and hopefully the censors, might miss it, but those who listened carefully were in for a treat.
Holmes sets the story without any delay. Taking place in a mine where a cave in has occurred, three men are trapped under the rubble – the nameless narrator of the song and his two co-workers Joe and Tim:
“Trapped in a mine that 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
Were Joe and me.”
Oh damn! What happened to Timothy? What is his fate? These are the questions repeated in the agonizing chorus:
“Timothy, Timothy, where on earth did you go?
Timothy, Timothy, God why don’t I know?”
The narrative continues:
“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 have a swig
And then there’s some for you.”
“Timothy, Timothy, Joe was looking at you
Timothy, Timothy, God what did we do?”
The clues are set in place, and a deadly conspiracy has begun, and Joe is looking at Timothy like in one of those cartoons where Daffy Duck hasn’t eaten om daus and he’s looking at Porky Pig who suddenly turns into a giant pork chop during a hunger hallucination. Can things get any bleaker for our miner friends? Oh yes, they can. Let’s take it to the third verse:
“I must have blacked out just around 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”
Of fuck! Due to a trauma block the narrator never actually says it, but Timothy’s fate is pretty clear. Rupert Holmes had written the first pop song in the history of rock n’ roll about cannibalism! They ate Timothy! That is some seriously dark shit going on in that song.
With Rupert Holmes sitting in on piano, The Buoys recorded “Timothy” accompanied by a “Wall of Sound” type production, filled with a dramatic string section that gave it a sort of Ennio Morricone epicenes to it, which also somewhat further obscure the final outcome of the story within its grandiosity. The single was dropped with little fanfare and absolutely no promotion in December 1970, and for the most part, the powers that be at Scepter Records were so uninterested in the single that they were not even aware of the morbid lyrical content.
Well, “Timothy” sat in record stores for a long while. The radio wasn’t playing it, and nobody had ever heard of it. But all it took was for one astute listener to do as deep listen to the song, and, shocked by what they heard, played it for the next person, who played it for the next, and then the next. Eventually, “Timothy” became a surprise “word of mouth” hit which grew organically from shocked listeners who delighted at its macabre content. Soon kids across the East Coast were calling local radio stations requesting the song, while record stores were literally selling out of it and requesting more copies. Some radio stations refused to play the song due to its gruesome narrative, which only made the audience want to her it more. Furthermore, when one station would ban it, another rival station would put it on their play list. Before Sceptre Records knew what was even going on, over a million copies of “Timothy” had been sold, and they had a hit by a band they had barely paid any attention to. In April 1971, “Timothy” entered the Billboard charts, peaking at #17. A surprise to all involved, Rupert Holmes had done it. His song about cannibalism was on the charts!
In fear of backlash from a sensitive public, as well as hoping to save the song from further ban lists, Sceptre Records released a statement stating that the character Timothy was not a human after all but was, in fact, a mule. However, record buyers who loved the morbidness of the song weren’t buying that flimsy explanation, especially when Rupert Holmes came out with a counter statement saying that, no, Timothy was definitely a human being. So now with a hit song credited to The Buoys, Sceptre wanted to capitalize on the success with a full album. The Buoys were brought back into the studio with hopes of more success,
But here laid the challenge. When you hit the top of the charts with a song about cannibalism, how do you top that? The Buoys had become notorious for the outrageous subject matter of “Timothy,” so going back to songs about any sort of lesser subject, like love or peace or nature or whatever, would feel like a step backwards.
Well, Rupert Holmes was brought back in to assist and provided a number of additional “story songs” in the mode of “Timothy” for the group including ‘Blood Knot,” “Prince of Thieves,” “Give Up Your Guns” and “Tomorrow.” All containing the same larger than life production, the first three songs were filled with a criminal element and were narratives told by outlaws, vagabonds and convicts, while the final one was a beautiful and haunting song about doomed love. “Give Up Your Guns” even became a minor hit for The Buoys, just poking its head out at #84 on the US Billboard charts but going all the way to #5 on the European charts.
But despite the strong material, excellent production and fine performances by a solid band, The Buoys were not able to recreate the momentum of the shock and awe that “Timothy” had left on listeners. As a result, their debut album undersold, and they were dropped by Sceptre records shortly after.
The Buoys remained together in one form or another for a number of years after being dropped by Sceptre and released a few additional singles via Polydor Records but never had any further chart success. Finally, in 1979, Bill Kelly and Frank Brozena dissolved The Buoys but regrouped with a new group calling themselves Dakota which would prove to be a much more successful endeavour, releasing eleven studio albums between 1980 and 2015, and acquiring a strong fan following after working as a supporting band for Queen on various tours throughout the 1980’s.
Of course, Rupert Holmes would go on to become a yacht rock icon with his good time brand of soft rock and his playful lyrics. But while his solo music many seem campy and cringy to music hipsters, lets never forget that his musical journey was dipped in the blood of a man named Timothy. Pina Coladas are only a drink selection, while Timothy was the main course.
