The Buoys were an American pop/rock band from the early 1970s. Its membership included Bill Kelly, Fran Brozena, Jerry Hludzik, Carl Siracuse and Chris Hanlon, based in the Wilkes-Barre-Scranton, Pennsylvania area. They are most famous for the banned song "Timothy", which was written for them by Rupert Holmes.
The Buoys are most famous for their recording of Rupert Holmes's "Timothy", a song deliberately written to get banned, based on the theme of cannibalism. Holmes himself selected the group to record the song.[1]
Recorded at Scepter Recording Studios in New York City and released by Scepter Records in December 1970, with whom the Buoys had been signed but previously ignored, the song hit No. 17 on US charts in 1971.
In 1963, there had been a mine cave-in in Sheppton, Pennsylvania, a small mining community outside of Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Rupert Holmes told rock journalist Maxim Furek, “I learned about the Sheppton Mine Disaster after Timothy was on the charts. If I had known about that at the time, I probably never would have written the song because I don’t want to make fun of something that’s tragic.”[2]
Scepter executives did not catch what the song was about until after it started climbing the charts, after which they claimed that Timothy was a mule. Holmes rejected this attempt to change the premise of his song; he had intended it to be offensive. Holmes, with D. Jordan, wrote a less-successful hit for them titled "Give Up Your Guns" (1972), an epic narrative dealing with an escaped bank robber.
Much more serious in tone than their previous hit, "Give Up Your Guns" reached only No. 84. By contrast, "Give Up Your Guns" was a massive hit twice in mainland Europe, when originally released, and when re-released in 1979.
Holmes wrote a number of other songs for the band, including "The Prince of Thieves", "Bloodknot", and "Tomorrow", most of which had much of the darkness but little of the humor of "Timothy". Like "Give Up Your Guns", they are complaints by criminals.
Holmes now writes Broadway musicals. Rock journalist Maxim Furek later wrote a book connecting Sheppton to what he called The Sheppton Mythology.
