Songfacts®:

• This is the debut single from Marie Osmond, whose five older brothers were already teen idols by the early '70s performing as the pop group The Osmonds. After MGM Records president Mike Curb aided her brother Donny in launching a solo career with hit remakes of oldies like "Puppy Love" and "Go Away Little Girl," he wondered if he could try the same tactic with 13-year-old Marie.
  
  After signing her to the label, Curb began searching for country songs for her to cover on her debut album. Producer Sonny James suggested "Paper Roses," a 1960 pop hit by Anita Bryant, after hearing Marie's demo tape, which included a cover of Dolly Parton's "Coat Of Many Colors."
  
  James recalled his first impression of the Osmond sister's voice in The Billboard Book Of Number One Country Hits: "When I heard it, her voice didn't sound that different. She sounded good. She was a child, you could tell, but I'd hear, every once in a while, this cutting sound. It wasn't consistent all the way through, but it was just cutting, what I considered an ear-catcher."
• Despite her family's musical pedigree, Marie got a case of the jitters when she arrived at the recording studio in Nashville to cut the tracks live with the musicians. She told Barry Scott, author of the 1994 book We Had Joy, We Had Fun, "I remember walking in the studio and thinking, 'Good grief!' I'd seen my brothers do all this stuff, but it's really different when all of a sudden everybody's waiting for you to sing it right."
• Marie became the youngest female artist and youngest solo artist to top the Country chart when this went to #1 four weeks after her 14th birthday. It also reached #5 on the Hot 100 - matching Bryant's 1960 chart entry - and peaked at #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
• Written by Fred Spielman (music) and Janice Torre (lyrics), this follows the singer's heartbreaking realization that her partner's love for her is as authentic as paper roses. The pair also collaborated on Elvis Presley's "I Don't Want To" (1962) and Judy Garland's "Merry Christmas" (1952).
• When Marie was recording her Greatest Hits album in 1990, the record label didn't have the rights to the original recording, so she reunited with her producer Sonny James and recorded a new version.
• This was covered by several other artists, including Pat Boone, Connie Smith, Hank Snow, Jerry Vale, Loretta Lynn, Vera Lynn, Slim Whitman, Annette Funicello, and Joey + Rory.
• Paper Roses was her first and only #1 album on the Country Albums chart. Its follow-up, In My Little Corner Of The World (1974), went to #10.
• This was used on the Australian TV series Redfern Now in the 2013 episode "Starting Over."