FOUR SEASONS – “December 1963 (Oh What A Night)”
Another one tainted slightly by personal memories: on the jukebox at University, this was a chosen singalong track of the rugby lads. I did not like the rugby lads; they did not like me – ergo I did not like the song. In fact when I first acquired it for Popular, I had avoided it studiously since 1995 and firmly expected to hate it.
I don’t hate it. I don’t love it, either, but at a safe distance it wins me over: its warm combination of throwback pop and disco bump is inclusive enough to embrace me and my old college foes. Though it’s ironic that the best thing about “December, 1963″ is its gentility: its sly lyrics full of vague little placeholders (“as I recall”, “as I remember”), and the chuckling “what a lady, what a night”. It’s quite the friendliest song about losing your virginity to a prostitute I can think of. Beyond the instant-impact chorus it never really takes off as a performance (none of the shared leads have the presence of Valli in his pomp, though to be fair their slight hesitancy suits the lyric), and the sudden, incongruous synth solo had me checking I hadn’t got hold of some bogus re-recording by accident. But I’m glad I’ve come round to it, however grudgingly.
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Tom in FT / Popular • Pop • 2,859 views • Share/Save
This is definitely a successful updating of the Seasons trademark sound- certainly more palatable than an attempt made approx 8 years which we’ll unfortunately be discussing here in the future…
Is this and Yellow Submarine the only #1s to feature the drummer on lead vocals?
Re:48- whats even worse is discovering a musical treasure all of your very own only for a few years later for it to be used in a film/advert etc and as a result everyone in the entire world knows it- happened to me w/ Dick Dale’s Miserlou, Elvis’s A Little Less Conversation and many others- part of you feels glad others are being introduced to this great music but another part feels rather like you’ve just sent ur firstborn off to school for the first time!
Crag, I’m sensing some deja vu here, but Paper Lace’s “Billy Don’t Be A Hero” also featured a singing drummer.
As for having a personal favourite busted wide open, this happened to me with Joni Mitchell’s latter-day re-recording of “Both Sides Now”. Its huge personal significance was ruined forever by having to share it with Emma Thompson’s Christmas Day weep-a-thon in Love Actually…
Yep, we’ve definitely done the singing drummer question before…
Crag,
I suspect there have been quite a few singing drummers at no1 – Paper Lace’s “Billy Don’t Be A Hero” springs to mind”, and Kevin Godley did bits of “Rubber Bullets”.
I think this may have been covered in the “Billy Don’t Be A Hero” thread.
Also at least one from the future!
Sorry about that – looks like there were three of us having the same thought at the same time!
sorry dont think i was around for the Paper Lace discussion!Either that or I forgot-having one of those days i’m afraid…
Rosie, I didn’t mean the description “regular Joes” to be dismissive or denigrating. It was intended as a good thing. I can’t imagine being a Beatle – they really were, to borrow Nik Cohn’s phrase, “normal, everyday superhumans” – but I can see myself being a Season, or at least having been in high school with them, or hung out at the bowling alley with them. It’s nice to have one apparently immortal pop act that fits that description.
I too thought I hated this (though not for rugby-related reasons) but I heard it the other day and actually I don’t mind it quite so much. However, I’ve never had much tolerance for the shrill Sixties version of the Four Seasons, which is why I was quite surprised to learn a couple of years back that ‘Who Loves You’ and ‘The Night’ were them.
I don’t like it either though, so no more than a 4.
As far as subject matter goes, I heard Bob Gaudio on the radio a few weeks back and I think he was saying that he’d written some rough lyrics for the piano riff and it was only near the end of the process that his wife suggested he should write something a bit more commercial for such an obvious hit – in which case the title may predate the lyric after all. They’re still a month late for Kennedy though.
And what’s wrong with mentioning the Clock version? It’s better than the 1988 mix of this.
An immortal pop act who can be seen as a “regular joe”-Buddy Holly?
First off, as an American Anglophile, I’ve always hated this song. Perhaps it’s just me, but I’ve always thought that the reference to “Late December back in ’63″ was a significant nostalgic gesture, perhaps concerning the JFK assassination the month before, but also, in some sense, decrying even more what happened the following month, i.e. the arrival of the Beatles on US soil.
I was about to turn thirteen at the time, and I was just becoming acutely aware of popular culture. By mid-January ’64, the Beatles (and, within another month, a whole cohort of British artists) had taken over the charts. The acts that had dominated the airwaves (e.g., the Four Seasons) took a terrible blow in the popularity category, having become virtually passé overnight.
By the ’70s, the various figures of pre-1964 pop music were appearing on television (trying, perhaps, to revive their careers once the Beatles had disintegrated), lamenting how the advent of those awful Brits had put an end to so much “great” music. And even now, there’s a recent Four Seasons cd/dvd box set entitled The Jersey Beat–as if to emphasize the rivalry with the Mersey Beat. They’re never gonna forgive them Brits.
No, most of the US pop music (aside from soul music) from 1963 was really pretty dreadful.
So maybe all of this is colouring my perceptions of this song, with its nostalgia for a lost America (a thread Springsteen and Billy Joel would take up soon thereafter). I spent my childhood there–I was (and still am) glad to see it go. (But as a Californian in exile on Long Island, I often think that I’m in a time warp in which the sixties never happened and the seventies never ended–which probably makes me like this song even less.)
And the great irony of it all is that the original Four Seasons had ceased to exist some time around the beginning of the 70s, and an ailing and aging Frankie Valli took a supporting role to a pack of newcomers in the vocal department. As Simone Signoret once said, nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
Still reeling from the death of Humphrey Lyttelton. His contribution to the Popular project is largely tangential (he fostered Helen Shapiro and guided here away from pop towards the jazz that better favoured her voice) but his influence on the British music scene in general can’t be underestimated (Stones at the 100 Club, anybody? How many early breaks were made there)
He
a) was never ‘cool’
b) never gave a toss
c) was always good value
Seeing his band at the Stanley Theatre in Liverpool in my first term at Uni goes down for me as one of my great gigs.
Indeed. I’m going to write something about Humph on my own blog on Monday – in Popular terms of course his “Badpenny Blues” (engineered and imaginatively remixed by the young Joe Meek) should be acknowledged as a direct influence on “Lady Madonna” (as a sheepish McCartney later confessed to Humph).
Beyond that I cannot think of any other musician who managed to work with both Louis Armstrong and Radiohead. Along with Peter Clayton and Charles Fox – now, alas, they are all gone – his Radio 2 programme was a vital and formative influence in terms of my attitude to jazz. To me he had always “been there.” And overnight I’ve been listening to some of my old I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue tapes just to remind myself of his easy and natural and never malicious wit.
Also, in light of the nauseating Etonian clique now looking to take over the running of London and Britain, in that order, Humph was the best of Old Etonians (and very unusually for an Old Etonian, a lifelong socialist) and I wish he’d been able to have a go at being Mayor of London; he was everyone’s favourite uncle and not just in a Mornington Crescent sense.
RIP, big man.
John Fowles once wrote (in The Magus, I think) that there was no such thing as a snobbish Old Etonian. I don’t know for sure whether that was always true although all the OEs I have ever met have been notably un-snobbish and more than one of them a socialist – wayward members of the Labour Party like Mark Fisher, mostly. I think that it may be less true than it was, since some of the ‘vulgar money’ of the 1980s is starting to feed through.
A charming Old Rugbeian who took me out once explained that Eton and Harrow were supposed to be rivals for Top School, but that Eton boys were comfortable in the knowledge that they were superior and didn’t need to display it, and Harrow boys were saddled with an inferiority complex because they knew they would always be second-best. Whereas yer Rugbeian is safe in the knowledge that is the best of the rest and doesn’t need to compete. Whether an old Wykehamist would concur I don’t know, although the lad who came to our sixth form (Stanborough School, Welwyn Garden City) after being expelled from Winchester was perfectly genial if bonkers.
I suspect that probing further into the Headmasters Conference may prove to be a minefield!
I was out clubbing in the company of an Old Etonian friend last night, as it happens. Totally un-snobbish, down to earth, You’d Never Guess, etc etc.
Then again, legend has it that when our school shooting team wrote to Eton requesting a match, they received this reply:
“We know Harrow. We’ve heard of Winchester. Who the hell are you?”
I actually really like Doc Mod’s reading of December 1963 as the eve of the Beatles destroying Frankie Valli’s career – not sure exactly how tightly that narrative works out (didn’t the Seasons continue to have minor hits in the shadow of the British Invasion?), but it lends a personal edge to the song that’s impossible otherwise, as others have observed.
It’s probably obvious to all, but I just want to put down for the record that the natural reason for picking 1963 as opposed to 1953 is that 1953 would make the singer horribly old to the target audience, who, as baby boomers, were in their mid-to-late teens in 1963. Just the right time for clumsy, first-time fumbling.
As for why “late December,” I dunno, but it works. Reminds me of furtive hookups made while home from college at Christmas, sneaking out from all the festivities for a different sort of celebration. I like the fact that it doesn’t just pick a summer month or the week before graduation or something – it’s a totally arbitrary choice that doesn’t affect anything else in the lyric, but it’s specific and unlikely enough that it feels plausible.
In any case, Tom’s prostitute reading has its first 100% convert, as I read this entry before I ever really listened to the song with any attention to the lyrics, and it’s taken hold. The clincher has got to be when he says he didn’t even know her name – this is definitely not the girl next door we’re talking about!
Certainly The Four Seasons’ unsatisfactory cover version of We Can Work It Out sounds like the work of men with a vendetta against The Beatles!
Didn’t that come from the walking disaster that was the All This And World War II (SEE WHAT THEY DID THERE?) double album/cut-and-paste film?
Going to a school with a shooting team seems a bit posh to me, even if it wasn’t Harrow or Eton.
I think Waldo’s old school may have a shooting team these days!
Their “we can work it out” was saved by the bit of “I want you (She’s so heavy)” they added to the “Fussing and fighting my friend” line.
Actually, the Four Seasons had several substantial hits in 1964, including perhaps their singularly best recording, “Rag Doll.” (I must confess a real fondness for the Steeleye Span cover thereof.) By 1965, though, their output was suffering badly through attempts to be “trendy.” (With the exception of Bob Gaudio, they were well beyond the average age of mid-60s rock stars and they never really “got it” after the British Invasion.)
There was also a hard core of American fans who never really warmed to the Brits. I remember a big schism among the girls in my school–no, we didn’t have a shooting team–between the girls who loved the Brits (whose masculinity was suspect in some American eyes) and the girls who loved the Four Seasons, the Beach Boys, etc. (i.e., “real men,” “regular guys,” “average Joes”). Perhaps it was merely coincidental, but in a school where the girls were separated in thirds according to aptitude, the girls in the upper third loved the Brits (though I was suspected of loving Dusty even more than the Beatles, for which I was chided); the girls in the lower third loved the pre-1964 dudes; the middle third loved or hated everyone.
All This and World War II? Apparently a whole lot of people had vendettas against the Beatles if they went to all that effort to make that film. (What brilliant mind conceived of using Beatles’ covers as a soundtrack to WWII documentary footage??)
It was only a few months ago that I saw a television programme featuring some elderly American former pop stars. And yes, they were grousing about the British Invasion bringing about “the end of our innocence.” (Yes, that’s what one of them said.)
By 1965, though, their output was suffering badly through attempts to be “trendy.”
Yes, folks – “Let’s Hang On,” “Bye Bye Baby,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “Opus 17,” Genuine Imitation Life Gazette, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “You’re Ready Now,” “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” “The Night,” Who Loves You?, etc. etc. etc. – all substandard rot.
Jesus wept.
I’ve never heard their version of “We Can Work It Out” but it’s not like they disappeared after The Beatles/British Invasion happened…but they only had one more #1 (the justly praised “Rag Doll”) in the 60s, then popped up again in with this song (a transatlantic #1!)
They also had to compete against another huge force known as Motown, which may also account for their sudden lack of #1s…
It’s probable that their chart positions and overall popularity fell gradually in the States after ’65 but that’s not the same thing as declining quality of output. One might as well criticise things like “Lady Marmalade” and “Get Dancing” (both of which involved Gaudio and/or Crewe) for jumping on a non-existent “trendy” bandwagon.
By 1965, though, their commercial standing was suffering badly through what their core fanbase viewed, rightly or wrongly, as attempts to be “trendy”.
???
My main memory of this was a gigantic cock-up by the BMRB, which produced the chart for Radio One back then. I remember very clearly being at home, either on a sickie or half-term, on the Tuesday the chart came out. From the offset things were crazy with most peculiar movements all over the place. I was actually writing the chart down and at one point scribbled “Oh, what a chart!” in the margin. At one o’clock, Johnnie announced the number one as Geoff Love’s “Rodrigo’s Guitar Concerto” and this was promptly played as the new chart topper. Almost immediately, it was admitted that there had been “irregularities” with the calculating computer and that the chart was suspended. As it turned out, there were no nefarious goings-on. The computer had simply suffered a malfunction. Nevertheless, it was pointed out that certain sections of the chart were wrong and that the rundown would have to be recalculated.
Later that afternoon, Dave Lee Travis, who regularly reprised the chart on his show, welcomed a lady from the BMRB onto the air to explain the error. In a nice touch, DLT asked the lady to deliver the revised and now correct chart rundown. This order of play was void totally of any salmon-like leaps by records which had previously been on the way down having already peaked and The Four Seasons were reinstated at number one, thereby confining the ill-starred Mr Love (ludicrously billed as “Manuel and the Music of the Mountains”) to the records books as “the number one that never was”.
As for “December ’63…”, I felt that this was first rate, an excellent piece of pop fully deserving of its success during what was the second or perhaps even third coming of this particular pop group. I nevertheless remained conscious that the date in the song was indeed a “very special time” in the United States, Kennedy having just been made a monkey of in Dallas.
Rosie # 69 – That may well be true but I’m far too sensible to want to try and find out. With regards Stockwell Manor (now Stockwell Park) I continue to follow the principle of Steely Dan…
Many thanks to Waldo for definitively clearing up the Manuel situation, but were the BMRB really using computers at that time or still relying on the thick bound Peter Stuyvesant-style black A4 diaries that they received back from the Woolworths and Rumbelows counters of this great nation?
However, I cannot remotely remember what prompted the Geoff Love/Manuel disc to become so popular in the first place since I don’t remember it being used on any TV show or film at the time. Maybe some people thought it was something to do with Fawlty Towers.
Unless I’m mistaken, the “Fawlty” episode in question (to wit – The Rat) was second season (1979) and thus was three years after this event.
I remember my mother raving about this fantastic piece of music she’d heard, and from the title of it I was expecting some incredibly flamboyant piece of flamenco music. Then I heard it and was ‘oh’. I suspect Terry Wogan was to blame.
Revisiting Slik’s “Requiem” over the weekend, I was tickled to be reminded that its intro is identical to that of “Rodrigo”!
Mr Love also recorded funky big band workouts under the pseudonym of “Mandingo” around the same time as well as being the musical director for Max Bygraves and his heartrending Singalonga series of albums, all of which cumulated in 1976 with the most ludicrous album title ever, 100 Golden Greats (on Ronco, no less).
Mandingo was a couple of years earlier, DJP: I’ve got some promo 7″s of theirs (or rather his) from 1973 or thereabouts. Pretty good stuff actually, and I enjoyed that whole Sound Gallery revivalist phase from the back end of the 1990s.
I’ve also got a whole clutch of the Actual Real Life type-written Telexes which Radio One sent out, announcing the weekly charts, circa 1972-73 I think. They’ve got Derek Chinnery’s name at the top and everything! (More James Hamilton residuals, y’see.) I really ought to dig one out and scan it.
Nearly every one of my classmates had one or more of those Geoff Love Plays Great TV Themes/Great Movie Themes albums in the dark days when you couldn’t get copyright clearance for the originals.
My parents had Big Western Movie Themes (c.1970) and later acquired Big Bond Movie Themes, possibly for me actually though I can’t recall for sure now.
This LP, from Love’s disco period, contains a couple of awesome cover versions:
http://www.discomusic.com/records-more/8507_0_2_0_C/
I had a bunch of the Geoff Love LPs – certainly Western, Love, Sci-Fi themes – courtesy of the 10p basement. I think Western was the only one I actually sat all through.
Well you can partially blame me for Manuel’s success as I actually went out and bought it for my Mum (my idea of a gift) – she probably still has it ! I didn’t actually mind it that much either.
I think there was an album chart in late 1976 where the top three was:
20 Golden Greats – Glen Campbell;
22 Golden Guitar Greats – Bert Weedon;
100 Golden Greats – Max Bygraves.
Weedon had replaced Led Zeppelin’s “The Song Remains The Same” at number one. Record Mirror interviewed a variety of current stars about Bert Weedon being number one; Jimmy Page reportedly “just smiled” and John Bonham said “I learned to play guitar from Bert’s Play In A Day book – that’s why I’m the drummer.”
Indeed – it was the chart w/e 27 November. The album at number four – the week’s highest selling non-compilation album and one of only six albums in that Top 20 which wasn’t a compilation album or a live album – was Songs In The Key Of Life.
As I recall, this song seemed a little insipid to my 15 year old ears; 1963 was too long ago to be cool. The whole Franki Valli comeback was strange to me, then. I had only been following “Top 40″ for a year or so. The Four Seasons I knew only from UHF TV ads for a nostalgic greatest hits disc. The music seemed ancient to me, and I was suspicious of the sudden re-emergence of FV&4S, even though I kind of liked the songs: how could musicians from a by-gone era make legitimate hits of TODAY???
I prefer Who Loves You and Swearin to God, but December ’63 was and is acceptable hyper-catchy fluff.
The song contributed one of those minute, embarrassing moments that will remain with me, bobbing to the surface of consciousness every so often, until Alzheimer’s. My best friend (who I looked up to in many areas, including pop music), remarked while this song was on “nice bass.” December ’63 was borderline too “white” for us, but close enough to early disco or soul-pop, I guess, to make the grade. Now, I didn’t have any bass-line-judging criteria (still don’t, really), but it seemed like a very erudite type of observation, and a few days later when the song came on the jukebox in the student lounge, I took the opportunity to repeat it to another kid (who I think was more a Jethro Tull type and would have disdained this number). He challenged me: “what’s so good about the bass?” I had no idea, of course. I’m not even sure I had actually picked out the bass line with my ears. I’m pretty sure I learned from that minor humiliation never to repeat someone else’s opinion as though it were my own.
But all this talk of doo-wop… is there a trace of the doo-wop style in any of The Four Seasons’ 70s hits?
“doo doo dooop doo doo, Doo doop doo Oh what a night..”
also on Silver Star (I think) and four part harmonies on “Who Loves You”, etc..
“doo doo dooop doo doo, Doo doop doo Oh what a night..”
also on Silver Star (I think) and four part harmonies on “Who Loves You”, etc..
Hmmm… I guess you’re right as far as a “trace…” But vocal harmonizing in itself isn’t exclusive to doo-wop, is it? Though the 4 seasons are definitely harmonizing in these numbers — especially Who Loves You — I just don’t hear these songs as having any doo-wop flavor. At least in an anachronistic or “nostalgic” sense. Maybe it’s nouveau-doo-wop.
I’m a bit like Cliff Richard here, I didn’t know this song was about a prostitute, this wasn’t long after honky tonk angel which he sang on supersonic, I remember the chart cock up as well, no pun intended.