Puppy Love

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."