Hold Her Tight by The Osmonds

Hold Her Tight

1972

The Osmonds

Back in the summer of 1972, The Osmonds managed a little trick that pretty much blew more than a few people's minds while also making a musical deal with the devil. YA see, The Osmonds went all Heavy Metal on everyone. No, I'm not saying that that tried to go heavy metal. They legitimately pulled it off with two of their albums...'Crazy Horses' and 'The Plan', the former being a legitimate hit in the US, clocking in at #14 on the Billboard Top LPs chart, and the latter only charting on the Album Charts in the UK.

The first track on 'Crazy Horses' was a song giving some unnamed guy advice on how to hang on to his girl, and from the first smack of drum-stick and synthesizer-wail of the intro, and Merril's first growling syllable of the vocals it was obvious that this one was most definitely not what most people thought of as The Osmonds's signature sound, and most definitely was serious Rock, and not any Rock, but Heavy Metal at that.

When you listen to it, BTW, listen closely to the bass line. Sound familiar? Ever head of a little group called Led Zeppelin? And a little tune of theirs of some note called 'The Immigrant Song'? Ya have? (If you grew up listening to Rock music in the 70s, of course ya have!!) OK, again...does the Bass line in 'Hold Her Tight sound just a scosh familiar??

It should, as it's pulled almost directly from 'The Immigrant Song's bass line...so much so that it actually caused the closest thing to a controversy that The Osmonds ever saw when some Zep fans all but accused them of plagiarism. Interestingly enough, though, Led Zeppelin didn't so accuse them.

Wayne Osmond was (and likely still is) a huge Zep fan, and really admired Led Zeppelin's legendary Jimmy Page, and that's who he was channeling when he wrote the riff for 'Hold Her Tight' (Which, BTW, brings us to something else impressive about 'Hold Her Tight...it wasn't written for them...it was written by them. The Osmonds were proving themselves to be very adept at knocking out their own tunes.)

While lot's of the Zep faithful then, and to this day, say that The Osmonds flat out stole 'The Immigrant Song's' bass line for 'Hold Her Tight', Led Zeppelin themselves embraced The Osmonds, kind of welcoming them into the Heavy Metal fold. (Come Young Osmonds...Come over to The Dark Side... ;) )

Led Zeppelin even invited The Osmonds onstage with them one night during a European tour, and the Osmonds hung out back stage with the legendary band, discussing music and such. If today's technology had existed back in 1972, tell me that little get together wouldn't have made for a viral video of the first magnitude! Zep's larger than life and possibly legitimately-crazy-but-in-a-good-way drummer John Bonham even took his son to an Osmond's concert and then met with them back stage...so Zep had no problem with The Osmonds using the bass line for their own not-so-dastardly musical purposes. And as such little controversies tend to do, it likely boosted record sales for both groups. The Osmonds, BTW, managed to crack the Top 20 with it...

...Hold Her Tight debuted on The Billboard Hot 100 on July 1^st, 1972, and cracked the Top 20, at#20, on it's fourth week in. It peaked at #14 two weeks later, on August 5^th, hanging on there for a pair of weeks before starting back down and dropping off of the charts on August 26^th, for a nine week chart run.

Interesting little factoid here, BTW...Hold Her Tight actually charted higher (#14 Vs #16) than The Immigrant Song, from which it's bass line was, er, borrowed. The Immigrant Song, however, enjoyed a much longer chart run, staying on The Hot 100 for 14 weeks.

When DJs first started spinning 'Hold Her Tight' people had a hard time believing it was an Osmonds tune (Much less written and produced by them) and it actually got a bit of airplay...maybe even more than a bit...on Rock stations, though it wasn't heard as much as 'Crazy Hoses', which is arguably the best known of these two most Rock-centric of Osmond tunes, despite the fact that 'Hold Her Tight' and Crazy Horses both peaked at #14 on the Hot 100 (And yep...Crazy Horses is also getting covered in this set of posts...next up, in fact.)

'Hold Her Tight' very very rarely pops up on Oldies and Classic Rock stations today (Also being over- shadowed by it's better-known album-mate today) but it's still well remembered, well loved by both The Osmonds fans and some Rock fans, and it's one half of one of the most interesting little bits of controversy out of Seventies Rock. And lets be honest here...they flat out nailed the Heavy Metal sound!

So Enjoy! 'Hold Her Tight by The Osmonds! 


And as a Bonus (Bet ya saw this one comin' a mile away!) 'The Immigrant Song' from Led Zeppelin. Listen to the bass line in this one, then compare it to the bass line in 'Hold Her Tight'.