10 Christmas No 1's That Had Nothing To Do With Christmas

3. Jimmy Osmond - Long Haired Lover From Liverpool

http://youtu.be/lKg3VjBSRPo Year: 1972 Weeks at No.1: Five Don't let the video fool you, the lyrics have nothing in common with Christmas. After all, Jimmy has the audacity to mention 'sunshine' six times in the song. This isn't Australia, kid - in the Northern hemisphere we dream of white Christmases and chestnuts roasting on an open fire, not sunny daisies and leprechauns. Another fatal error from Jimmy is the song title - he isn't even from Liverpool, he's from the USA (who weren't treated to a marketed release of this monstrosity) as the youngest member of the Osmond family. A further feature of the song (and perhaps most unnerving) is that Jimmy is also being passed as a potential lover, a rather creepy prospect for a pre-pubescent Mormon. Though perhaps we should cut the boy some slack as it is merely a cover of an unsuccessful 1969 single by Christopher Kingsley. To his credit, Osmond is actually the youngest ever chart topper in the UK at just nine years and eight months old. The hit came during the peak of Osmond popularity, with Puppy Love & Crazy Horses also coming out in 1972. The family enjoyed more chart hits in this 12-month period than any other band in history, so I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that this ditty would flourish the way it did, with nearly one million sales. Still, it remains that this is a bad song. It doesn't have comedic value and it's not endearing (I'm sorry, but it's hard to watch the grins and head swaying from little Jimmy and not want to punch his lights out). It's almost as if it was purposefully made to be loathed with the exploitation of marketing children in attempt to get the Osmonds to appeal to every demographic young and old. It worked, inexplicably staying at number one for a whole five weeks on the trot.
 
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