Donna - 10cc

‘Donna’ is another spoof doo-wop song, better than either of the songs listed above, but personally I find it by far the most trite and annoying song on the record. The problem might well be with me rather than the band though – in its day, when comedy records consisted of impressions of boring celebrities or were unfunny spoofs of rock stars by the ‘elders’ of the day getting their own back at the youngsters, ‘Donna’ must have seemed like a breath of fresh air. Alas for collectors like me, we’ve heard this sort of thing too often in modern times and there’s no getting away from the fact that the song borrows heavily from two other AAA songs, The Beach Boys’ cover of ‘Then I Kissed Her’ and The Beatles’ own doo-wop spoof ‘Oh! Darling’ (for which the tune of ‘Donna’ sounds like an identical twin). Strangely, given that 1973 was also a big year for plagiarism court cases, nobody ever took issue with this strong-selling single – perhaps they were lulled by its gentle beat, fun harmonies and the contrast between Creme’s high falsetto and Gouldmann’s gentlemanly calls on the telephone. There’s honestly not much more to add, with Donna a bored and lonely housewife waiting for the phone to ring – and receiving one of the oddest calls in the history of rock and roll (its Creme, again, doing his best Clark Gable impression, albeit Clark Gable doing his impression of Mickey Mouse). As most fans probably already know, this song was dashed off by Godley and Creme in about five minutes after Stewart and Gouldmann’s ‘Waterfall’ had been chosen for the A-side (the band had struck up a suprirngly fair sounding deal whereby whichever two writers got the A side the other two would always get the B-side thereby splitting the money, although this idea rather peters out after the first three singles). Unable to get a record contract, however, 10cc played Jonathon King the B-side which he loved, causing him to flip the single and release ‘Donna’ instead. (Not for the first time, Mr King got things badly wrong as ‘Waterfall’ might well be the best single song 10cc ever did in the 1970s, although I do have to grudgingly give him respect for recognizing 10cc’s talent when every other record label boss in the UK seemed to have cloth ears).