Music Friday: 'What About That Brand New Ring?' Asks a Jilted Man in 'Don't Pull Your Love'

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you great throwback songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. In 1971, frontman Dan Hamilton of the soft-rock group Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds threatened to "cry for a hundred years" in the chart-topping hit, "Don't Pull Your Love."

In his plea to keep his girlfriend from taking off on "that big white bird," the jilted Hamilton makes a last-ditch effort to win her back by referencing a very special and sentimental piece of jewelry.

He sings, “Haven't I been good to you? / What about that brand new ring? / Doesn't that mean love to you? / Doesn't that mean anything?"

By the end of the song, Hamilton is a desperate man: "Don't pull your love out on me honey / Take my heart, my soul, my money / But don't leave me drownin' in my tears."

Written by Brian Potter and Dennis Lambert, “Don’t Pull Your Love” was an international hit for the trio and reached #1 on the U.S. Cash Box Top 100.

Recorded nearly five decades ago, this song has stood the test of time. Glen Campbell recorded it as a medley in 1976, and it got new life when Sean MacGuire covered it in 1996. But neither of those outpaced the original, which is still heard regularly on soft rock and easy listening stations. Many critics consider it a rock classic.

Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds was formed in Los Angeles in 1970. The original members were Dan Hamilton (guitar/lead vocal), Joe Frank Carollo (bass/vocal), and Tommy Reynolds (multi-instrumentalist/vocal), all of whom had previously played in The T-Bones, a 1960s band noted for the instrumental hit "No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In)." The song was inspired by a then-popular Alka-Seltzer commercial.

Only a year after the group first hit the charts with "Don't Pull Your Love," Reynolds was replaced by keyboardist Alan Dennison. This revised line-up performed the group's biggest hit, 1975's "Fallin' in Love." The group permanently disbanded in 1980.

Please check out the throwback video of Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds performing "Don't Pull Your Love." The lyrics are below if you'd like to sing along...

"Don't Pull Your Love"
Written by Brian Potter and Dennis Lambert. Performed by Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds.

Don't pull your love out on me baby
If you do then I think that maybe
I'll just lay me down and cry for a hundred years
Don't pull your love out on me honey
Take my heart, my soul, my money
But don't leave me drownin' in my tears

You say you're gonna leave
Gonna take that big white bird
Gonna fly right out of here
Without a single word
Don't you know you'll break my heart
When I watch you close that door
'Cause I know I won't see you anymore

Don't pull your love out on me baby
If you do then I think that maybe
I'll just lay me down and cry for a hundred years
Don't pull your love out on me honey
Take my heart, my soul, my money
But don't leave me drownin' in my tears

Haven't I been good to you?
What about that brand new ring?
Doesn't that mean love to you?
Doesn't that mean anything?
If I threw away my pride
And I got down on my knees
Would I have to beg you, "Pretty please?"

Don't pull your love out on me baby
If you do then I think that maybe
I'll just lay me down and cry for a hundred years
Don't pull your love out on me honey
Take my heart, my soul, my money
But don't leave me drownin' in my tears

There's so much I wanna do
I've got love enough for two
But I'll never use it girl if I don't have you

Don't pull your love out on me baby
If you do then I think that maybe
I'll just lay me down and cry for a hundred years
Don't pull your love out on me honey
Take my heart, my soul, my money
But don't leave me drownin' in my tears

Credit: Image by ABC / Dunhill Records [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Los Alamos Particle Accelerator Helps Unravel the Mystery of the Golden 'Ram's Horn'

Harnessing the power of a half-mile-long particle accelerator, scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory were finally able to peer inside the "Ram's Horn," a super-rare and natural formation of wire gold. What they found was truly unexpected.

Unearthed more than 130 years ago at the Ground Hog Mine in Red Cliff, Colo., the Ram's Horn is mysteriously shaped like a curly bunch of tendrils instead of the more recognizable golden nugget.

Mineralogists scratched their heads, wondering about its fundamental structure. The specimen is 12 centimeters (4.72 inches) tall and weighs 263 grams (9.28 ounces), but because of its extreme rarity, researchers didn't want to cut into it or break it open.

Low-energy X-rays and other diagnostics could only evaluate the exterior surfaces due to gold's high density. The internal nature of this specimen remained a mystery, until now.

Surprisingly, the Ram's Horn was found to be composed of only a few single crystals, according to John Rakovan, Professor of Mineralogy at Miami University in Ohio. This differs wildly from the formation of silver wire, which is a mosaic-like polycrystalline aggregate with many hundreds to thousands of crystals in a single wire.

"Furthermore, we discovered that these samples are not pure gold, but rather gold-silver alloys with as much as 30 percent silver substituting for gold in the atomic structure," noted Sven Vogel, a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory's neutron science center (LANSCE).

Using neutron techniques at LANSCE, scientists can “look” inside these large gold specimens, nondestructively, and learn about their texture, atomic structure, and element and isotope chemistry.

The Ram's Horn belongs to the collection of the Mineralogical and Geological Museum at Harvard University. It had been bequeathed to Harvard in 1947 by Harvard alumnus Albert C. Burrage as part of the A. C. Burrage Collection.

The fascinating gold specimen will headline “The Rare and Beautiful" exhibition at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, with the grand opening slated for the spring of 2020.

Credit: Image by Harvard University.

Panthers' Greg Olsen Films In-Progress Marriage Proposal: 'Best Thing I've Ever Witnessed'

Carolina Panthers' Pro Bowl tight end Greg Olsen was in Nashville last week to deliver a keynote speech at a healthcare conference. As the 6' 5", 255 lb. former first round draft pick was walking back to his hotel, he happened upon something that he would call the "best thing I've ever witnessed."

What Olsen was describing was an in-progress marriage proposal. With a ring box in hand, Max Harvat was on bended knee just about to pop the question to his girlfriend Brooke Hartranft.

Olsen pulled out his phone and started filming.

“So I’m thinking, ‘I would imagine that this guy would love to have this on film.’ He was literally five feet from us. It was amazing,” Olsen told panthers.com.

After the proposal, Harvat got back to his feet and joyfully lifted Hartranft into the air.

"What did she say? Did she say, Yes? Olsen asked.

"She said, "Yes," Harvat screamed back, his voice echoing through the hotel complex.

"I've got it on video, dude," Olsen said. "I'm going to send it to you."

"You're my hero," said Harvat, not knowing at the time that he was speaking with the three-time Pro Bowler who happens to play for his favorite team.

"That was the best thing I've ever witnessed," Olsen said.

“When I stood up, I looked over and I started having a mini heart attack," Harvat told panthers.com. "I was like, ‘I’m 90 percent sure that’s Greg Olsen from the Panthers!’”

“Brooke looked at me and didn’t believe me,” Harvat said. “She just thought I was too excited and wasn’t seeing straight. But I’m like, ‘No, that’s him. I’ve seen him on TV and in interviews. That’s him!’”

On his Instagram page, Olsen explained that his instinct was to film the precious moment because he had wished he had a video of his own marriage proposal.

“He was really respectful," Harvat told panthers.com. "He didn’t want to steal any of the moment from us. He sent me the video and said congratulations and wished us the best.”

Check out the video on Olsen's Instagram page. It has been viewed more than 135,000 times and earned more than 36,000 Likes since it was posted three days ago.

Credits: Screen captures via Instagram.com/gregolsen88. Split frame: Greg Olsen (left) by Jeffrey Beall [CC BY 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons. Greg Olsen (right) by original: U.S. Army National Guard Photo by Sgt. Leticia Samuels, North Carolina National Guard Public Affairs/Released North Carolina National Guardderivative: Diddykong1130 and XxSuguSxX [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.