"Bye, Bye, Baby (Baby, Goodbye)" is a popular song written by

Bob Crewe Robert Stanley Crewe (November 12, 1930 – September 11, 2014) was an American songwriter, dancer, singer, manager, and record producer. He was known for producing, and co-writing with Bob Gaudio, a string of Top 10 singles for the Four Season ...

and

Bob Gaudio Robert John Gaudio (born November 17, 1942) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer, and the keyboardist and backing vocalist of the pop/rock band the Four Seasons. Gaudio wrote or co-wrote and produced the vast majori ...

, a member of The Four Seasons, whose version of the song made it to No. 1 in Canada and No. 12 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in 1965. On the original issue of the single, the title was "Bye Bye Baby"; on the album ''The 4 Seasons Entertain You'' (and later issues of the song), the name was changed to the longer, more familiar name. The song is about saying goodbye, not because the person is unloved but rather because the relationship is adulterous ("there's a wedding ring on my finger"). After a winding seven-bar introduction in B minor, featuring Frankie Valli's spoken recitation, the song settles into a triplet-swing beat and thereafter alternates between two keys, F-sharp major (in the chorus) and

A major A major (or the key of A) is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has three sharps. Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor. The key of A major is the only k ...

(in the verse and final chorus), bridging the gap with a five-step chromatic pivot-modulation (D-D-E-F-F over the line "She's got me and I'm not free"). ''

Cash Box ''Cashbox'', also known as ''Cash Box'', was an American music industry trade magazine, originally published weekly from July 1942 to November 1996. Ten years after its dissolution, it was revived and continues as ''Cashbox Magazine'', an online ...

'' described it as "a heartfelt rhythmic stomp’er that again features the attention-getting falsetto sound of

Frankie Valli Francesco Stephen Castelluccio (born May 3, 1934), better known by his stage name Frankie Valli, is an American singer, known as the frontman of the Four Seasons beginning in 1960. He is known for his unusually powerful lead falsetto voice. ...

and a top teen Calello arrangement."

Chart history

Other charting versions

A version by British group The Symbols reached No. 44 in the UK Singles Chart in 1967. A Japanese version by Hiromi Go was released in December 1975 in Japan & Charted at No.9 in the Oricon charts, in the exact same backing sound style & step as the Rollers version, including an eight-bar guitar solo, distributed by

CBS/Sony , often abbreviated as SMEJ or simply SME, and also known as Sony Music Japan for short (stylized as ''SonyMusic''), is a Japanese music arm for Sony. Founded in 1968 as CBS/Sony, SMEJ is directly owned by Sony Group Corporation and is opera ...

, which appears in his second compilation album ''Go Hiromi no Subete''.

Bay City Rollers version

A cover of the song by the

Bay City Rollers The Bay City Rollers are a Scottish pop rock band known for their worldwide teen idol popularity in the 1970s. They have been called the "tartan teen sensations from Edinburgh" and one of many acts heralded as the "biggest group since the Beat ...

sold a million copies and hit No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart for six weeks from March 1975. It ended the year as the UK's top-selling single. The Four Seasons' version is quite sparse in instrumental backing, instead carried by the vocals, while the Bay City Rollers' is faster and has a fuller backing sound. Played a whole step lower, it includes an eight-bar guitar solo, supposedly by Eric Faulkner but probably a session musician, which is not present in the original.

Chart history

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

External links

* * {{authority control 1965 songs 1965 singles 1975 singles The Four Seasons (band) songs Bay City Rollers songs Number-one singles in Australia RPM Top Singles number-one singles UK Singles Chart number-one singles Irish Singles Chart number-one singles Songs written by Bob Crewe Songs written by Bob Gaudio Song recordings produced by Bob Crewe Song recordings produced by Phil Wainman Philips Records singles President Records singles