It’s the ‘70s! Disco is here, and so is the sexual revolution! Free love isn’t just for smelly hippies anymore! Sex for pleasure is IN, baby! Key parties! Birth control! One-night stands with Mr. Goodbar! Herpes simplex! Deep Throat, the film AND informant! What better time for a ‘60s teenybopper group to score a pop-chart comeback with a disco song about a one-night stand? The Four Seasons were Jersey boys with Italian accents that today we’d most associate with The Sopranos, and not just because Frankie Valli got to be on that show. They had voices ideal for angelically innocent teenage love songs, but accents best suited to telling graphic anal sex jokes in between takes. If that seems like a little ethnic stereotyping, it’s worth listening to “December 1963 (Oh What a Night)” and reading between the lines just a bit. It’s already blatantly about a random hookup on the surface, and when you take into account the time period it’s set in (the Four Seasons had only just gotten big in ’62), this is a song that could very well be about fucking one of your teenage fans on Christmas morn.Maybe the Four Seasons were still relatively innocent themselves at the time, but under the spotlight of stardom, that was disappearing quickly (“Why’d it take so long to see the light?/Seemed so wrong, but now it seems so right”). Really, the only regret is that he got real excited and came too fast (“As I recall, it ended much too soon”). Sex in early rock ‘n’ roll was all between the lines anyhow, in the beat and the movement but not the lyrics. If a pop group bred in that era are willing to acknowledge this much, imagine what the hell really went down.
So hey, this casual sex thing is new to you guys, here in late’ 75/early ‘76? We are the Four Fucking Seasons. We’ve been banging out broads since you were in short pants. Here, we’ll write a disco song about it, put some porno wah-wah guitars in the breakdown section. You regular jackoffs can use it as a soundtrack for your own average hookups. But here’s the point. See that date? Late December, NINETEEN SIXTY-THREE. We shed our inhibitions about 12-13 years ago, kids. You all have fun being daring and transgressive. Here’s a pat on the head. Now, we’ve gotta get back to that line of groupies we have backstage. Hey, you’re good-looking, sweetie. Here, take a number. Hopefully we won’t run out of boners. I guess otherwise we can all do the Hustle or some shit. Man, this is good blow.
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This is absolutely my most favorite song by the Four Seasons (perhaps not a huge statement: I like "Walk Like a Man" ok, but not most of their 60s music).
ReplyDeletePerhaps the sentiment is nostalgic, because they probably were not having those sorts of opportunities arising as often in 1975 as they did in 1963? I mean, there was a big gap between "Will you love me tomorrow?" (1968) and the "Who loves me" album (1975). Yes, they released a few albums, but none of them had any hits.
On the other hand, most swingers tend to be middle-aged. The post-childbearing years can be a time of great freedom from biologically programmed anxieties.
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