Puppy Love

Album: Paul Anka Sings His Big 15 (1960)
Charted: 33 2
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Songfacts®:

  • Paul Anka wrote this song about Annette Funicello, with whom Anka was having an affair during a package tour. Anka's manager insisted that the affair be low-key and kept out of the press, if possible.

    Funicello was an actress who, like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake, was a very popular member of Disney's Mickey Mouse Club. She wasn't allowed to date until she turned 16; she and Anka got together when both were 17. Adults dismissed their affair as "puppy love," but to the couple it felt very strong and inspired Anka to write the song. In her autobiography, Funicello wrote: "Just because we were 17 didn't mean that, for us, our love wasn't real."

    The puppy love didn't last, but Funicello did cut an album of Anka's songs called Annette Sings Anka, which was also released in 1960. In 1992, she announced that she had Multiple Sclerosis, and when she passed away from the disease on April 8, 2013 at the age of 70, Anka stated: "She was kind and intelligent and she will be missed by her family and her wide circle of friends, in which I was lucky to be included."
  • Donny Osmond had a hit with this song in 1972 - his version topped the UK chart and peaked at #3 in the US. What sold the record was the teen idol's supercharged emotion on the line, "Someone help me, help me, help me please." Donny recalled, "(Producer) Mike Curb told me to give it my all on 'Puppy Love,' so I suppose it worked."
  • Donny Osmond started to resent this song in the late '80s when he was trying to get taken seriously as a songwriter and legitimate recording artist. "It defined me as a 'teenybopper,'" he said in a Songfacts interview. "It wasn't the biggest hit of mine, but it's the one that I'm mostly known for."

    As a show in New Jersey, he left "Puppy Love" out of his set, but the crowd kept calling for it. To get them off his case, he told his band to play a heavy metal version of the song, and he screamed out some of the lyrics. Most in the audience laughed along, but not everyone.

    "After the show, as I'm walking out of the stage door, there's all these fans waiting to get autographs," Osmond said. "This one lady stops me and says, 'Why did you make fun of 'Puppy Love'?' And in a cocky way, I said, 'It's my song. I can do whatever I want to it.' And she said something that changed my life. She said, 'You may have had a hit with that song, but that song was a big part of my childhood memories, and you had no right to mess with my memories.' It just stopped me and it changed me. I realized she's absolutely right. That song doesn't just belong to me, it belongs to a lot of other people.

    As I've grown up, it's a little easier to look back. Yes, I've had success after that, but I look back and embrace it rather than push it away. And I sing it with respect now because it was a great record for me."
  • This is one of the more innocent songs ever recorded, but in 1986 when Donny Osmond appeared on a panel to discuss censorship in music, he used it to make the point that obscenity is in the ear of the beholder. Said Osmond: "What's the difference between me recording a song with sexual connotations and the way someone else may record it? I could get away with murder. Look at 'Puppy Love,' my biggest record. It can be a very filthy song."
  • After KHJ Los Angeles deejay Robert W. Morgan had spun Donny Osmond's version of the song over and over for 90 continuous minutes on his March 15, 1972 show, worried listeners summoned the local police. The LAPD broke into the studio, convinced that hippies or anarchists had taken it over. However, it turned out it was just a publicity stunt and the perplexed officers left without making any arrests.

Comments: 8

  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyExactly sixty years ago today on April 4th, 1960, Paul Anka's "Puppy Love" peaked at #2 {for 2 weeks} on Billboard's Top 100* chart, for the two weeks it was at #2, the #1 record for both those weeks was "The Theme from 'A Summer Place'" by Percy Faith and his Orchestra...
    "Puppy Love" reached #33 on the United Kingdom's Singles chart...
    Between 1957 and 1983 the Ottawa, Canada native had fifty-two records on the Top 100 chart, ten made Top 10 with three reaching #1, "Diana" for 1 week in 1957, "Lonely Boy" for 4 weeks in 1959, and "(Your) Having My Baby" for 3 weeks in 1974...
    He just missed having two more #1 records when both his "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" {1959} and the above "Puppy Love" peaked at #2...
    Four of his fifty-two charted records were duets with Odia Coates...
    He also charted as a member of a trio, with Johnny Nash & George Hamilton IV, "The Teen Commandments", it peaked at #29 in 1959...
    Paul Albert Anka will celebrate his 79th birthday in three months on July 30th, 2020...
    * And from the 'For What It's Worth' department, the remainder of Billboard's Top 10 on April 4th, 1960:
    At #3. "Wild One" by Bobby Rydell
    #4. "He'll Have To Go" by Jim Reeves
    #5. "Sweet Nothin's" by Brenda Lee
    #6. "Sink The Bismarck" by Johnny Horton
    #7. "Footsteps" by Steve Lawrence
    #8. "Harbor Lights" by The Platters
    #9. "Mama" by Connie Francis
    #10. "Baby (You’ve Got What It Takes)" by Dinah Washington and Brook Benton...
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn May 9, 1960, Paul Anka began a week long engagement at Blinsrub's*, a 350 seat night club in Boston, Massachusetts...
    At the time his "Puppy Love" was at #24 on Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; five weeks earlier it had peaked at #2 {for 2 weeks} and it spent 14 weeks on the Top 100...
    Between 1957 and 1983 he had fifty-two Top 100 records; ten made the Top 10 with three reaching #1, "Diana" for 1 week in 1957, "Lonely Boy" for 4 weeks in 1959, and "(Your) Having My Baby" for 3 weeks in 1974...
    * Eight years after Paul's appearance, on February 7th, 1968, Blinsrub's was destroyed in a fire and never re-opened.
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn February 13th 1960, Paul Anka performed "Puppy Love" on the ABC-TV program 'Dick Clark's Saturday Night Beechnut Show'...
    Nine days later on February 22nd the song would enter Billboard's Hot Top 100 at position #62; six weeks later on April 4th it would peak at #2 {for 2 weeks}...
    {See next three posts below}...
    And exactly three years later on February 13th, 1963 Paul Anka married Marie Ann de Zogheb, the daughter of the Count and Countess Charles Zogheb; the wedding took place in the Chapel of the Orly Airport in Paris, France.
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn April 23rd 1960, Paul Anka performed "Puppy Love" on the ABC-TV program 'Dick Clark's Saturday Night Beechnut Show'...
    At the time the song was at #3 on Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; the week before it was in its second and last week at #2 on the chart...
    {See second post below}...
    The record that bumped it out of the #2 position was "Greenfields" by the Brothers Four; and it just happened that the Brothers Four were also featured on the same 'Beechnut Nut' show and they performed "Greenfields".
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn March 31st 1960, Paul Anka performed at the Chase Club in the Chase Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri...
    At the time his "Puppy Love" was at #4 on Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart; eleven days later on April 11th, 1960 it would peak at #2 {See next post below}.
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn February 22th 1960, "Puppy Love" by Paul Anka entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart at position #62;
    and on April 11th it peaked at #2 (for 2 weeks) and spent 14 weeks on the Top 100 (and for 6 of those 14 weeks it was on the Top 10)...
    It reached #2 on Italy's Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana chart...
    The two weeks it was at #2 on the Top 100, the #1 record was "Theme from 'A Summer Place'" by Percy Faith and His Orchestra...
    It was the fourth in a string of four straight Top 10 records by Mr. Anka; started with "Lonely Boy" (#1 for 4 weeks), "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" (#2 for 3 weeks), "It's Time To Cry" (#4), and finally this one...
    The string was broken by "Adam and Eve"; it stayed on the Top 100 for 2 weeks, peaking at #90 (was featured in the 1960 movie 'The Privates Lives of Adam & Eve', in which Mr. Anka played the role of Pinkie Parker)...
    Mr. Anka will celebrate his 73rd birthday this coming July 30th (2014).
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyFrom June 1959 to February 1960 Anka charted four records with three of them peaking at #1 or #2!!! "Lonely Boy" stayed at #1 for 4 weeks, then "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" was #2 for 3 weeks, "It's Time To Cry" peaked at #4, and finally "Puppy Love" stayed at #2 for 2 weeks!!!
  • Keith from Slc, UtWhile the Donny Osmond version was popular, radio station KOB (now KKOB), Albuquerque, played a version that featured a background bed recorded at the dog pound.
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