Dawn (Go Away)
| "Dawn (Go Away)" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by The Four Seasons | ||||
| from the album Dawn (Go Away) and 11 Great Songs | ||||
| B-side | No Surfin' Today (from the album Born To Wander) | |||
| Released | January 1964 | |||
| Format | 7" | |||
| Recorded | 1963 | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 2:10 | |||
| Label | Philips | |||
| Writer(s) | Bob Gaudio-Sandy Linzer | |||
| Producer(s) | Bob Crewe | |||
| The Four Seasons singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"Dawn (Go Away)" is a song written by Bob Gaudio and Sandy Linzer and recorded by The Four Seasons[1] in early January 1964 as the Four Seasons were involved in a royalty dispute with Vee-Jay Records. As the lawsuit was making its way through the American judiciary system, the group recorded "Dawn" and a handful of other songs and withheld the master tapes from Vee-Jay, which then claimed breach of contract. The dispute would not be settled until 1965, a year after the Four Seasons officially left Vee-Jay.
Background
Later that month, Atlantic Records rejected "Dawn". The group signed with Philips Records, a subsidiary of Mercury Records, shortly thereafter. "Dawn (Go Away)" was released even later that month. It took only four weeks for "Dawn" to climb the Billboard Hot 100 chart to #3 on February 29, 1964[2] - and was prevented from going higher by the then-omnipresent "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You" (which turned out to be the top two singles for 1964, according to Billboard). "Dawn" remained at #3 for three weeks, then dropped to make way for two further Beatles singles ("Twist and Shout" and "Please Please Me"). During its entire six-week run in the Top Ten only Beatles hits ranked above it in the chart.[3]
Originally written as a folk song, arranger Charles Calello sped it up and at Valli's suggestion added a galloping rhythm guitar borrowed from Kai Windings version of "More". Drummer Buddy Saltzman accented the recording with bombastic around the kit fills and ghost notes while never using a cymbal once.
The single version (with a two-line sung introduction) was never recorded in true stereo. Early "stereo" album releases were rechanneled (with the high and low frequencies on one channel and the midrange on the other); later stereo issues, from the Edizione d'Oro greatest hits album onward, offer different takes of the recording, One begins with a short drum intro, featuring a louder perhaps even more frantic drum backing by legendary session drummer Buddy Saltzman, and slightly different vocals. Both versions state they are two minutes, eleven seconds long--neither is. The stereo Dawn is two minutes, thirty seconds. The mono Dawn with the "Pretty as midsummer's morn. They called her Dawn" intro is two minutes 45 seconds.[4]
"Dawn (Go Away)" was the only Philips single crediting the Four Seasons that did not have the notation "featuring the 'sound' of Frankie Valli".
References
- ↑ Bob Gaudio interviewed on the Pop Chronicles (1969)
- ↑ Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits: Eighth Edition. Record Research. p. 238.
- ↑ ”Billboard Hot 100 Charts – The Sixties/The Seventies”, Record Research Inc, 1990
- ↑ Thomas J McKeon personally playing and observing phonograph records, August 28-September 1,2013
