Go Away Little Girl by Donny Osmond

Go Away Little Girl

1971

Donny Osmond

Donny didn't do bad at all with 'Sweet And Innocent'...cracking the Top 10 with your first single is not at all shabby by any means...but with his friend and rival Michael Jackson and The Jackson Five accumulating #1 hits the way the proverbial dark suit accumulates lint, I have a feeling that Mike Curb and the rest of MGMs's brass weren't completely satisfied with a hit that only made it to #7...so the search was on for another hit for Donny, one that would climb further up in the rarefied chart-mosphere of the Top Ten, and maybe even snag that coveted top spot. And again, when they developed another tune for him, they kinda took the easy, and most importantly, quick way out and decided to cover an old favorite...no, really, this time it really was an old favorite, one that had already sat in that much-desired #1 spot. And when they chose the song for Donny to cover he, from the sounds of things, actually all but made the decision for them.

Back in 1962 Gerry Goffin and Carole King (Yep...that Carole King) knocked out a little tune called 'Go Away Little Girl' about a boy telling a girl who liked him...and who he was attracted to...that she needed to stay away from him because he was already spoken for. It was a pretty little pop-tune, simple and smooth and soothing, and almost...but not quite...slow enough to be a ballad. Bobby Vee was the first artist to record it, including it on his 1962 album 'The Night Has A Thousand Eyes'...but I don't believe he ever released it as a single. Then, in January '63 Steve Lawrence covered it, did release it as a single, and promptly took it to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it his most successful Pop hit by far.

It'd crack the Top 20 again almost four years later when The Happenings took it to #12 two days before Halloween, 1966. And then, four and and a half years after that, in mid 1971, MGM's suits had a meeting of the minds with Donny, who, it so happened, was a big fan of the song. He'd been pushing MGM to let him cover it for a bit, and they had, as corporate suits tend to do, held meetings, pondered, pontificated, debated the potential profitability (Or possible lack-there-of) of covering the song, and finally, at this final meeting, gave the go ahead and made the appropriate arrangements.

Happily, both the songwriters and producers at FAME studios and Donny were of a like mind about changing the lyrics and melody on this one...they pretty much left it as it was. The intro was tweaked and modernized a scosh, and a couple of words were changed, but they stayed 99.9% faithful to the lyrics and 100% faithful to the melody, keeping the exact same tempo and beat that had already taken the song to #1 one time, and into the Top 20 twice. Sometime during mid-summer of '71 Donny, with the rest of the Osmonds pulling Back-up Singer duty on the chorus, stepped to the mike, and at the producer's cue, crooned 'Go Awaaaaay Little Girl...' for the first time, wondering if they could strike gold with it yet again.

The same legions of little girls who'd made Donny a star several times over in the last year and change squealed In glee as he crooned that opening line, swooned, and grabbed their parents, descended on record stores, and started sending 'Go Away Little Girl' up the charts. It apparently took a week or two or three for the tidal wave of young fans to hit the stores full force, though...when Go Away Little Girl debuted on The Billboard Hot 100 on August 7^th, 1971, it barely made it onto the chart, clocking in at #89 on it's first week...but it jumped 45 spots on it's second week to land at #44 and almost cracked the Top 20 on it's third week in, landing at #24 on August 17^th. Then the afterburners really kicked in. It cracked the Top 10, at #10, on August 28^th, the Top 5 at # 5 a week later, just as school cranked up for the year on September 4^th, and grabbed that coveted #1 spot on September 11^th 1971, becoming the very first song to ever be taken to #1 by two different artists while it was at it...that in itself being a pretty exclusive club, with only nine songs ever pulling it off.

The song hung on to #1 for three weeks before dropping to the runner-up spot for another pair of weeks, staying in the Top 10...at #5 and #7 respectively...for two more weeks and finally falling off of the chart altogether on November 11^th, 1971 for a total of 15 weeks on the chart, eight of 'em in the Top Ten. Just to show how diverse music tastes were back in The Awesome Music Decade, Go Away Little Girl knocked Paul and Linda McCartney's 'Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey' out of the #1 spot, while Rod Stewart's 'Maggie May took over the #1 spot when 'Go Away Little Girl dropped down to #2.

It goes with out saying that Donny Osmond was crooning this tune all over Top 40 radio as the 1971-72 school year...my freshman year in high school...kicked off. I'd moved to Chesterfield County just about two months earlier, so when I heard it it was on Richmond's AM Top 40 powerhouse, WLEE.

The titular little girls loved it and kept it alive until almost Thanksgiving. (Steve Lawrence's version, BTW, still beat Donny's version by two weeks, chart-run wise...17 weeks to 15 weeks...though Donny's version stayed at #1 a week longer that Steve L's. And another little bit of useless but interesting trivia...Steve Lawrence's version of the song debuted on the Hot 100 during the same week in November that would see Donnie's version drop off of the chart 9 years later.)

'Go Away Little Girl' also, arguably, has had the best staying power of any Donny Osmond song, and not just on the Oldies Stations, though it's among the most played of Osmond Oldies. It's been covered extensively by other artists (And, as noted, Donnie's version was itself a cover), from Mickey Dolenz, of 'The Monkees' fame,to Lawrence Welk, who, BTW,  actually rejected The Osmonds when they auditioned for his show almost a decade earlier.

While serious musicians give the tune a wide berth, it still talks to young girls to this day, both the little girl who's still inside every adult woman (Many of whom were among the Donny Osmond Faithful back in the day) and, occasionally, modern tweens and teens. The reason that contemporary kids like it, though, could possibly be for a different reason. The song's melody and simple lyrics make it easy to memorize and sing, and it's one of those songs that pretty much anyone who can carry a tune a couple of feet can sound acceptably good singing, making it a favorite at middle and high school talent contests forty-four years after the first single was placed on a record store shelf.

As little respect as 'Bubble-gum' pop garnered, and as much contempt as serious musicphiles had for the genre, 'Go Away Little Girl', like all of Donny's music, is loved by his original fans...those tween girls of the early Seventies who're closing in on retirement age now...because of the memories that sweet, soft flute intro calls up, and because when they hear it, for just under two and a half minutes, they're back in junior high school.

So enjoy...Donnie Osmond's biggest and best loved hit...Go Away Little Girl.


And for the first bonus...Bobby Vee's original version, which was never released as a single..

 And the second bonus...Steve Lawrence's uber-hit version from 1963, which was also the first version of the song to go straight up to The Billboard Hot 100's top spot