Osmonds – Crazy Horses

Please don’t disown me after this…but a Led Zeppelin and Osmond’s story is too hard to pass up. I have played this song to people without telling them who did it…none of them guessed it. 

My sister would aggravate me when I was 4 or 5 by playing their records repeatedly. All I could remember was looking at that album and being blinded by that bright glaring smile they all had. So this post is for my sister who probably would not have liked this particular song…but that is probably why it stuck with me. 

This is a comment on YouTube about this song “This is what happens when Mormons finally have caffeine.“

I hate to admit it…but this song is not that bad. The Osmonds had this song banned in South Africa, not because of their wild image but because the word Horse meant heroin there. The keyboard at the intro with the slide sound was a YP-30 Yamaha organ with a portmento slide. 

A few years after this song…The Osmonds were invited to see Led Zeppelin at Earls Court by the band. They went backstage and met Zeppelin’s family. The Osmonds even used their sound system when they played Earls Court ourselves the following night.

I have to admit…it’s a pretty damn hard song. It peaked at #14 on the Billboard 100, #2 in the UK, and #6 in Canada in 1972. Hmmm wonder how close we came to a Black Sabbath – Osmonds tour in the early seventies?

There was a positive message with the song…it was an environmental song about pollution… an allegory for mankind’s destructive tendencies. As much as I hate to…I’ll give them their due. They stepped out of the teenybopper box they were in and tried something different.

Jay Osmond: I remember we went in a day early because we were using Led Zepplin’s sound equipment. And so we went in to watch them and those guys were so fun and cool. We went backstage and played frisbee with their kids and then they invited us to come up and play with them on ‘Stair Way To Heaven’. And I’ll never forget, The Osmonds and Led Zepplin on the same stage.

Merrill Osmond:  “Before that, my brothers and I had been what’s now called a boy band… all our songs were chosen for us by the record company. But now, having been successful, we wanted to freak out and make our own music. We were rehearsing in a basement one day when Wayne started playing this heavy rock riff. I came up with a melody and Alan got the chords. Within an hour, we had the song. I had always been the lead singer, but I sang Crazy Horses with Jay. The line “What a show, there they go, smoking up the sky” had to be sung higher, so I did that and Jay did the verses because his voice was growlier, and this track was heavier than anything we’d ever done.”

Donny Osmond: “Ozzy Osbourne actually told me that ‘Crazy Horses’ is one of his favorite rock and roll songs. “The problem is my teenybopper career was selling like crazy and it overshadowed anything we did as a rock and roll band.”

Donny Osmond: We had a wall of Marshalls in the studio. It was so loud that you couldn’t even walk in the studio, so we had to play the organ from the control room. My brother Alan actually played it on the record. I played it live. But the secret to it was a wah-wah pedal. We opened the wah-wah just enough to get that really harsh kind of a piercing sound, but it was the loudness of the Marshalls that got us that sound. And then we doubled it. That was the secret to that sound.”

This is a song off of that album…they borrowed a Zeppelin riff for this one. 

Crazy Horses

There’s a message floatin’ in the air.
Crazy horses ridin’ everywhere.
It’s a warning, it’s in every tongue.
Gotta stop them crazy horses on the run.

What a show, there they go smokin’ up the sky, yeah.
Crazy horses all got riders, and they’re you and I.
Crazy horses (repeat 3 times)

Never stop and they never die.
They just keep on puffin’ how they multiply.
Crazy horses, will they never halt?
If they keep on movin’ then it’s all our fault.

What a show, there they go smokin’ up the sky, yeah.
Crazy horses all got riders, and they’re you and I.
Crazy horses (repeat 3 times)

So take a good look around,
See what they’ve done, what they’ve done —
They’ve done–
They’ve done–
They’ve done–
They’ve done.

Crazy horses.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

48 thoughts on “Osmonds – Crazy Horses”

  3. Ya got me on this one! I never listened to the Osmond Brothers, but I never expected them to sound like this. Not saying I liked it, just that it was unexpected. Definite Black Sabbath vibes…how far would they have ben led astray by a joint tour?

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    1. I had some fun with this one… Oh I heard them over and over courtesy of my sister…pure bad bubble gum pop…
      This is totally different from them.

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  5. Yeah that’s one for the ‘believe it or not’ music files! I don’t recall that song from back then but listened to it a year or two back when you suggested it, and I was shocked. Definitely sounds a bit Zeppelin-tinged and also reminds me a bit of early Kiss… not at all a typical Osmonds tune! Well, must be Osmond week around here….if you live long enough you see everything, LOL!

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    1. Yes it does…he laughed when I told him I was going to post this…he got a kick out of it.
      I have to say…they sure did try to break out of the teenybopper thing…it was Donny who was deep in it.

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  10. Hey, if Ozzy approved it, it’s gotta be legit! After all, he was going off the rails on a crazy train!

    On a more serious note, if you wouldn’t know who performed “Crazy Horses”, it would be impossible to guess it was The Osmonds. I wonder how fans of their “usual music” felt about it.

    I also found this comment by Donny Osmond quite revealing: “The problem is my teenybopper career was selling like crazy and it overshadowed anything we did as a rock and roll band.”

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    1. Yea…just like David Cassidy their heart could have been there….the album was successful though…not #1 but successful.
      They did pretty good.

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  13. What the hell? lol…Led Osmonds??? Hanging out with Ozzy in the 70’s?? Holy moly I never know this went down. Donnie is right how can you start rocking hard when your image is a teenybopper. But man just imagine Donnie and Marie drinking with Bonzo backstage! lol

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      1. No worries dude. I try and keep up with these posts and between you and Dave its basically 4 daily between you two hahaha….
        Sometimes I get lost in the scrolling on Reader hahaha

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      2. Dude…seriously… don’t feel you have to hit every one. It’s not fair….you don’t do a million every day. The only reason I told you about this one…is because…well shock value for one lol.

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      3. Gave me a good shot of shock and a laugh. Then again remember Alice Cooper showing up on the Muppets all trashed? lol so there ya go…should not be shocked haha

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      4. I forgot about that Alice Cooper moment….that was great.
        That is a good idea for a post…some of the rock and roll landmarks…like the KISS interview on Tom Snyder

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    1. I think so…that would be the only reason I would post the Osmonds…and the shock value. What is more surprising is that the album was a rock album through and through. It wasn’t a one off single which surprised me.

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  15. Crazy Horses is brilliant, we have no problem seeing it as a 70’s classic in the UK, and The Osmonds were always bigger here from 1972 onwards. Far and away their best record, though, and held off the top spot by….Chuck Berry’s Ding A Ling. Ouch! That must have hurt the boys! Not least since pre-teen Jimmy knocked Berry off the top with another piece of cack, and Donny joined them in the top 5 too with a 50’s cover, Why. Why indeed! Follow-up Going Home was good too, rocking.

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    1. I can’t believe it was held off by Chucks worse song.
      That album…I have to admit was really good. My sister loved the tennybopper part of Donny….so that is what I got exposed to.

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      1. shhh dont tell anyone, but when I was a kid we loved The Osmond Brothers on the Andy Williams Show, and then their cartoon TV show with the Jackson-5-soundalike One Bad Apple, which was also a great record 🙂 Jimmy and Donny tried my patience at times, but I always liked the group together. Their version of The Four Seasons The Proud One always gets to me…sob! 🙂

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      2. LOL… well one of my first memories was riding with mom and dad to take my sister to see the Osmonds…they chased Donnie around the auditorium.
        I remember the single “Lazy River” as a kid…I know every word of it just by memory.

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      3. awww childhood memories. I liked Lazy River too, and I have actually stood next to Donny Osmond while he did a trolley dash in our local HMV record store (Bournemouth, and still going incredibly) when he opened it in 1988-ish – he’d just had a comeback hit with Soldier Of Love, a sort of George Michael-styled upbeat pop song.

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