Song of the Day 12/27: The Four Seasons, “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)”
I always found this song’s opening line a bit strange. “Oh, what a night, late December, 1963.” Considering that “late December” is already filled with several significant calendar items, like “Christmas Eve,” “Christmas” and “New Year’s Eve,” not to mention the winter solstice, it seems odd that the singer can’t put a specific date on an otherwise unforgettable encounter.
It turns out Bob Gaudio, the band’s keyboard player and composer/producer of most of their hits, originally wrote the song with a particular date in mind, and in a particular year: Dec. 5, 1933, the date Prohibition was lifted by the 21st Amendment. Gaudio seldom wrote lyrics, and the band balked at singing what he later conceded were “silly” ones about legalizing liquor. So Gaudio’s girlfriend and future wife, Judy Parker, took a crack at it, taking the night she and Gaudio met as inspiration. Parker, a former producer for Motown, had never written lyrics before, but she was already adept at poetic license – she and Gaudio actually met in 1973, not 1963.
The song is unusual in the Four Seasons catalog because it doesn’t feature Frankie Valli on lead vocals. By the time the single debuted in December 1975, the Four Seasons hadn’t had a Top 40 hit in more than seven years. When they recorded “My Eyes Adored You” earlier that year, Motown refused to release it, so Valli bought the master and shopped it around. He found a label that wanted the song, but only by a solo Frankie Valli. The situation was awkward because the song reached No. 1 (great call there, Motown).
The band’s new label responded by pushing them to diversity their vocals to better distinguish them from Valli’s solo work (Valli also kept the two separate by singing in his trademark falsetto only with the group, never solo). So “December, 1963” features drummer Gerry Polci on lead vocals on the verses, with Valli singing the bridge sections and bass player Don Ciccone contributing the falsetto parts.
The song topped the UK singles chart in February 1976 and the Billboard Hot 100 in March. It was the last Four Seasons single to reach the top 30.
