The song describes a mine cave-in and aftermath, with the implication the two survivors cannibalized their companion, the eponymous Timothy.

Written by Rupert Holmes, who also performed piano on the song, "Timothy" was conceived from the band being forced to promote their first single without the aid of their label, Scepter Records.

“If I wrote a song where the lyrics were obscene, or I described something sexual that was not allowed in those days, or if there was a clear drug reference, that would not work, because it would just never get played at all.” [6] Holmes has cited the 1947 country song "Sixteen Tons" (about the hard life of a coal miner) and the 1959 film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play Suddenly Last Summer (which also contains allusions to cannibalism) as inspirations for "Timothy".

[7] Although the fate of the missing man, Timothy, is never explicitly revealed, it is strongly implied by the fact that the two survivors, once hungry and with no access to food, and only enough water for two people, show no sign of hunger when they're rescued.

Indeed, the singer's "stomach was full as it could be"; how they found food, however, is purposely left blank, and the singer has blacked out the experience leaving him unable to recall how they found food or what happened to Timothy (the lyrics make it clear he suspects he and Joe ate Timothy; "God, why don't I know?!").

[8] To make the song appealing to listeners, Holmes disguised the borderline-gruesome lyrics to a degree by juxtaposing them against a light, bouncy melody with a heavy emphasis on brass and string orchestrated and conducted by Howard Reeves.

The record labels (in black and white for promotional issues) indicate these versions under the song title as "Revised Lyric" (SDR-12275) and "Edited, Bleeped Out" (SDJ-12275), respectively.

Although Scepter did re-sign the band to record an album, they were left with the problem of how to follow up on a hit song as unusual as "Timothy".

Meanwhile, Holmes himself continued his career as a songwriter and, by the end of the decade, also as a successful recording artist in his own right, having two top-ten hits in "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" in late 1979 and "Him" in 1980.