One person’s view: “No redeeming qualities whatsoever. Utterly appalling.” – djiaind @ Rate Your Music
The public’s view: 2.68 / 5.00, the worst #1 hit of 1971 that wasn’t by someone named Osmond
Imagine that most of the relics from the 1970s are wiped out by a nuclear comet, and the only surviving items are the master tapes that Tony Orlando keeps in the lead-lined bunker beneath his house. Anthropologists who listen to his songs will conclude that communication was very awkward in the ‘70s and people constructed bizarre ways to avoid having a conversation. Women of the ‘70s didn’t discuss family problems with their husbands, and simply fled without a word to become strippers in New Orleans. Prisoners asked their wives to indicate their loyalty by decorating trees with yellow ribbons. And then there’s the courtship attempt described in “Knock Three Times”, in which some dude tries to seduce his downstairs neighbor by dangling a note from string outside of her window.
One of the criticisms of “Knock Three Times” is that it’s a little rude for a guy to proposition a woman via a note when, by his own admission, she doesn’t even know him. This is why the setting is so important. Although the woman may not have ever talked to the upstairs Casanova, she does know a lot about him from the unspoken intimacy they have shared while living in the same building. She knows that he gets home from work before she does, and that he takes the best spot so she has to park in the giant mud puddle. She gets his mail by mistake from time to time, so she knows that his grandmother still renews his Highlights for Children subscription every year on his birthday. She also knows that he stomps into the kitchen for a snack every night at 2 AM, in what are probably his goddamn cowboy boots, and that he frequently unleashes manly urinations with all the sound and fury of Niagara Falls on a rainy day. Even if these two lovebirds haven’t shared a hello or a smile, he’s already maneuvered his way into her heart. It’s time to write a note!
On the other hand, the man is forgetting that he also has information about the young lady that he can leverage. Specifically, thanks to the volume level she has inconsiderately chosen for her music, he knows the songs that she likes. Why not incorporate this into the note? “I hear that you’re playing ‘Honey’. I’m a Goldsborohead too! I can’t find anyone who will go with me to Bobby’s show at the V.F.W. hall next Thursday. Would you be interested?”
The biggest problem with the note scheme is that it leaves the woman with only a binary choice. She is requested to reply with three knocks on the ceiling for a “yes” and two on the pipe for “I would rather have a 24-hour tap dancing studio upstairs than you.” Maybe she’s interested in the dude but needs to negotiate some terms first. How should she respond if she wants to have sex only if she can watch a rerun of Gomer Pyle during it? Should she draw a picture of Jim Nabors on the note and send it back up to him?
Orlando’s “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” ends by revealing the wife’s arboreal message to her freshly paroled husband, but “Knock Three Times” leaves its story unresolved. It never tells us the downstairs neighbor’s response. That’s probably because there’s no believable way to make this cringeworthy incident turn out well for the incel who dangles the note. It’s as if the song knows how dumb it is.
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