Puppy Love by Donny Osmond

Puppy Love

1972

Donny Osmond

SO! After notching up the maturity level just a tiny bit for 'Hey Girl', Donny Osmond then preceded to record the tune that, more than any other song he recorded by far, forever cemented his status as the absolute, uncontested master of early Seventies Bubblegum Pop.

A song that every woman who was a tween/teen girl in 1972 still knows by heart, and that every man who was a tween/teen boy still has stuck in his head whether he wants it there or not. It was played that much over about a three month period in early 1972

'What song?' you may ask. Hint. 'And they call it Puppy LOOOooOOOoooOOOve...'

MGM Whip Mike Curb reached back a scosh more than a decade to find this one, and this time he picked a tune that two big names were already associated with...one being the songwriter and singer of the tune, and the other being the lovely young lady he wrote it for...both of them seventeen at the time the original 'Puppy Love' was released.

Puppy Love was written 1n 1960 by a young man by the name of Paul Anka who'd enjoy some...er...small measure of musical success over the next couple of decades, and it was written for the one, only, and incomparable Annette Funicello, who Anka was dating while on tour (A romance that Anka's management insisted that they keep low key...Anka was, after all, a Teen Idol at the time.). He wrote it out of frustration, as a reply to those who said (After the romance inevitably became public anyway) that, at 17 years old, their love was just a (Lets all say it together!) 'Puppy Love'.

Paul Anka tweaked some hearts and emotions in a good way with this one...in April 1960 he took it to the Runner-Up spot on The Billboard Hot 100.

Flash forward 12 years...not only did Mike Curb pick this one for Donnie to cover, he produced it, and he told Donnie to pull out all of the emotional stops when he recorded it, which he most definitely did, especially on the line 'Someone help me! Help me PleeeEEeeease!'. Millions of young girls swooned and sighed at the first note of that string-heavy intro, and all of them just knew...I'm talking absolutely knew...that Donny was singing directly to them and them alone. And this absolute and unshakable belief is what helped Donny's version of 'Puppy Love' come within one spot of matching the original's chart performance.

It debuted on The Hot 100 at #26 on Feb 26, 1972 and cracked the Top 10, at #9 three weeks later, on March 18^th. It peaked at #3 on April 6^th, staying there for a single week before heading down and dropping off the chart on the thirteenth of May for a 12 week chart run. (Paul Anka's version bettered Donny's version by a single week at Peak, and by two weeks in it's stay on the Hot 100, as well as moving a single place further up on the Hot 100. 

Another interesting little bit of trivia. Both versions of the song were on The Hot 100 during the exact same weeks of the years they charted, with Paul Anka's original version, of course, spending an extra two weeks on the chart. Both versions even peaked during the exact same week in April...just 12 years apart..)

Donny's version stayed absolutely true to the melody and lyrics, with MGM's song-scribes only tweaking the former a bit, and changing a single word (From Anka's 'Seventeen' to Donny's 'In our teens') in the latter and Donny, as noted above, really ramped up the emotion on it. Lets be honest here...Bubblegum though he may have been, Donny had (And still has) an awesome voice, and he really knew how to put feeling into a song, even at the young age of 14, and bubblegum though it may be, Puppy Love's well remembered and much loved by Donny's original fans,and is kept alive by younger artists covering it every dozen or so years.

And, trust me on this, you absolutely could not get away from it during the Winter and Spring of '72. WLEE was still the Top 40 radio destination of choice in Richmond back then, and if you were tuned to 1480 you were forever hearing Donny croon that near-iconic first line and beg for someone to 'Help me! Help me PleeeeEEeeease!!' along with all of the other major hits of the day.

As much as we heard it back then...and as well remembered as it is...you almost never hear it on Oldies stations any more...but that didn't keep the true Donnyphiles among us Seventies Kids from remembering it fondly, and I can bet ya that on those rare occasions they do hear it on the radio they can pretty much join in on that first note and sing right along!

So enjoy! Donny Osmonds Ultimate Bubblegum tune...Puppy Love! The graphics for this one redefine adorable, BTW...if you don't get a smile on your face and say 'AWWWWW' while watching this vid, you have a heart of the hardest stone!


A pair of bonus vids for this one! First up, the original, written for the lovely Annette Funicello by Paul Anka way back in 1960, when the two of them were one of the original Teen power-couples. 


Second bonus...S Club Juniors cover of the tune from 2002. They stayed absolutely true to both melody and lyrics when they covered it, then made it into a Christmas song, and did a pretty good job with it at that. They also cracked the Top 10 on the British Singles Chart, clocking in at #6. One the best parts of the vid is the looks that the other members of the group are giving Calvin as he sings the tune...you can tell these kids had a blast with this one! The message at the end rocks, too, BTW

There's a strange story connected to Donny's version of Puppy Love, BTW. Back in the early Seventies, Southern California's AM Top-40 mega-giant was KLH, in L.A., and KLH's premiere DJ was a guy named Robert W. Morgan.

Supposedly, one day in March, 1972, Morgan locked the door to the broadcast studio and played 'Puppy Love' for a solid 90 minutes. Equally supposedly, LAPD actually responded to the KLH studios on a welfare check to see if Morgan was OK, and to make sure that the wasn't being forced to do this by unknown ne'er-do-wells ( No kidding here...one of the things that the responding officers actually thought may have happened was a takeover by radical Donny Osmond fans...and an image of a group of cute li'l camo-clad teeny-boppers armed with curling irons, looks of absolute determination on their faces, threatening to break the classic Beatles albums that they're holding in their hands as they demand that he 'Play it again or the records get it' suddenly springs to mind...)

The officers found nothing amiss...except the locked studio...and found Morgan smiling and cheerful. He'd later say that he'd gotten so tired of 'Teeny-boppers' requesting the tune that he decided to play it until everyone got tired of it.

The cops left shaking their heads in confusion. Apparently excessive playing of Puppy Love is not a crime in Cali!