Dawn (Go Away)
"Dawn (Go Away)" is a song written by Bob Gaudio and Sandy Linzer and recorded by The Four Seasons[1] in early January 1964.
| "Dawn (Go Away)" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by The Four Seasons | ||||
| from the album Dawn (Go Away) and 11 Other Great Songs | ||||
| B-side | "No Surfin' Today (from the album Born To Wander)" | |||
| Released | January 1964 | |||
| Format | 7" | |||
| Recorded | January 1964 | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 2:10 | |||
| Label | Philips | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Bob Gaudio-Sandy Linzer | |||
| Producer(s) | Bob Crewe | |||
| The Four Seasons singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
Background
It was recorded as the Four Seasons were involved in a royalty dispute with Vee-Jay Records. As the lawsuit proceeded, 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 was not settled until 1965, a year after the Four Seasons officially left Vee-Jay.
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 later in the same month. It took four weeks to climb the Billboard Hot 100 chart to #3 on February 29, 1964,[2] prevented from going higher by The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You", which turned out to be the top two singles of 1964. "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 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 Winding's version of "More". Drummer Buddy Saltzman accented the recording with bombastic around-the-kit fills and ghost notes without using any cymbals.
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, include different takes of the recording. One begins with a short drum intro, featuring a louder and more frantic drum backing by Saltzman, and slightly different vocals. Both versions are listed as 2 minutes 11 seconds long, but in fact the stereo Dawn is 2 minutes 30 seconds, and the mono Dawn with the "Pretty as midsummer's morn. They called her Dawn" intro is 2 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
