Paul Anka - "Lonely Boy"
Hit Number 1: July 13, 1959
Stay at Number 1: 4 Weeks
It's pretty hard to get anything out of songs by teen idols. They lack any real personality, and nothing sets them apart. That's the impression I got with Frankie Avalon's "Venus". Paul Anka's "Lonely Boy" is a little bit better, but still is a song with some missing parts. It's a song about someone who apparently has everything a person could possible want, yet does not have someone to love. I have to admit that the song is a little more creative than a lot of the other stuff the teen idols were doing, but again, it isn't anything special.
Born in Canada to Antiochian Orthodox Christian parents, Anka got his start singing with a music trio in high school called the Bobby Soxers. When he was 14, he recorded his first single called "I Confess". With a gift of $100 from his uncle in 1957, he went to New York City to audition at ABC for Don Costa. He ended up getting a contract from ABC, and started recording a song called "Diana", which was possibly Anka's biggest hit, and is one of the biggest songs recorded by a Canadian artist ever. ("Diana" was a #1 hit, but before the Billboard Hot 100 era. It's actually pretty good. It's a 7.) And a couple years down the line, "Lonely Boy" came.
"Lonely Boy" has a sound to it that does not match the lyrics at all. It sounds pretty happy, even though it's a pretty depressing song. This wasn't necessarily an awful approach, but what at least gives the song something to match the mood, is the way Anka sings it. Usually the teen idols like Anka sang their songs, and don't even attempt to sell them at all. Anka sells "Lonely Boy" pretty well, and at least convinces me that this is really someone who is desperate to find someone to love. (This seems like a good time to say that selling songs is not always a good thing. Songs can be oversold so much, that they just become annoying and bad.) But when I listen to it, it leaves no impression on me at all, and I have no real temptation to listen to the song again.
As for Anka, he would go away along with the teen idols. But in the early 1970s, he made his presence known again when he hit #1 a second time. Let's just say I'm not looking forward to that one at all. But at least "Lonely Boy" was okay.
GRADE: 5/10
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