Although Bobby Russell wrote both the lyrics and music for the song, was reluctant to even record a demonstration because he "didn't like it." According to Lawrence, she believed it was destined to be successful and recorded the demo herself. The publishers and the record label didn't quite know how to pitch the song, as it was not really a country or a pop song. The first thought was to offer the song to actress/singer Liza Minnelli, but eventually was offered to singer Cher, but her then-husband and manager Sonny Bono reportedly refused it, as he was said to be concerned that the song might offend Cher's southern fans.
Without a singer to record the song, Lawrence went into a studio and recorded it professionally herself, then pressed the label to release it as a single.
Upon it's early June 1972 release, it became an immediate number-one success for Lawrence, who at the time was a regular performer on the ensemble variety comedy television showThe Carol Burnett Show. On the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, and scored number six on the Easy Listening chart,] and it peaked at number thirty-six on Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart. It was number one for two weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, and finally topped by Tony Orlando and Dawn's "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree". In Canada the single version scored number one as well, topping the RPM 100 national singles chart on May 5 of the same year. On the RPM Country Singles chart, it reached #25.(The song has been a point of contention and conversation among those who have heard the song for years because of the ambiguity of the song's lyrics itself. The following is nothing more than a literal description of the song itself.
A young woman tells the story of a man who returns home after a two-week trip from a place known only as "Candletop," and he meets his best friend Andy Wolloe at Webb's Bar. Andy informs him that his young wife has been seeing another man in town named Seth Amos, or "she's been seeing that Amos boy Seth." Andy then reveals that he too has "been with" his friend's wife.
Andy gets scared and leaves the bar for home because "Andy didn't have many friends and he just lost him one." "Brother" thinks his wife is out of town so in anger he goes home and gets the gun his father left him and walks through the woods to Andy's house. When the brother arrives there, he comes upon some footsteps in the ground, "tracks that were too small for Andy to make," and discovers by peering though the back porch door that someone had already killed him in his kitchen and left him for dead in a puddle of blood. The Georgia Patrol "was making their rounds" and he fires a shot from his gun in the air to summon them, but a "big-bellied sheriff" quickly grabs "Brother" and said to him "'why'd you do it?'", immediately accusing him of murder. A judge finds "Brother" guilty after a quick and "make-believe" trial, and the judge says he's hungry and has to get home to "eat supper".
In an epilogue in the final verses, the singer reveals that they "hung my Brother" before she could confess to two things: the tracks too small for him to make were hers and that she had killed Andy, and that "his cheatin' wife had never left town," also confessing to killing her as well, and that will be "one body that'll never be found," because "Little Sister don't miss when she aims her gun."
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