Friday 3 April 2009

1973 Donny Osmond: The Twelfth Of Never

Declarations of everlasting love were the DNA of Donny Osmond's solo career. As long as the lyrics were pledging forever to some starry eyed girl then it was fair game for a Donny makeover, though he sometimes bit off more than he could chew. Like here. 'Twelfth Of Never' is a crooner's song, but Donald is definitely no crooner. If anything, he sounds even younger on this than he did on 'Puppy Love'. Again he gives it his all, but his yelp levels the song's promise of eternal love to the hollow boast of a schoolyard crush and there's nothing in Osmond's delivery that convinces this is anything other than puppy love. Which is kind of ironic really.

What Osmond needed of course was a Stock, Aitken and Waterman type writing team feeding him tailor made songs for his voice and his audience rather than have him tackling standards that leave him floundering in the depths. Again, it's not entirely his fault. There's no doubt he's sincere, but what does a sixteen year old know of forever? It's cute enough, but 'Twelfth Of Never' by Donny Osmond is the seventies equivalent of a modern day 'pop idol' publishing their autobiography at age 21. The fans will lap it up as manna, but the paucity of content gives it little lasting value.

No comments:

Post a Comment