Big Girls Don't Cry (The Four Seasons song)

"Big Girls Don't Cry"
Single by The Four Seasons
from the album Sherry & 11 Others
B-side "Connie-O" (non-LP track later included on Golden Hits of the 4 Seasons album)
Released October 1962
Format 7" single
Recorded September 1962
Genre Rock
Length 2:26
Label Vee-Jay
Writer(s) Bob Crewe, Bob Gaudio
Producer(s) Bob Crewe
Certification Gold (U.S.)
The Four Seasons singles chronology
"Sherry"
(1962)
"Big Girls Don't Cry"
(1962)
"Santa Claus Is Coming to Town"
(1962)

"Big Girls Don't Cry" is a song written by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio and originally recorded by The Four Seasons. It hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on November 17, 1962, and, like its predecessor "Sherry", spent five weeks in the top position. The song also made it to number one, for three weeks, on Billboard's Rhythm and Blues survey.[1]

According to Gaudio, he was dozing off while watching the John Payne/Rhonda Fleming/Ronald Reagan movie Tennessee's Partner (1955) when he heard Payne's character slap Fleming in the face. After the slap, Fleming's character replied, "Big girls don't cry." Gaudio wrote the line on a scrap of paper, fell asleep, and wrote the song the next morning.[2][3]

However, the now-famous line does not appear in the Ronald Reagan film. According to Bob Crewe, he himself was dozing off in his Manhattan home with the television on when he awoke to see John Payne manhandling Rhonda Fleming in Slightly Scarlet, a 1956 film noir based on a James M. Cain story. The line is heard in that film.

Like "Sherry", "Big Girls Don't Cry" is sung mostly in falsetto. With this song, the Four Seasons became the first rock-era act to hit the top spot on the Hot 100 with their first two chart entries (their first single, "Bermuda"/"Spanish Lace", did not appear on any Billboard chart in 1961).

Various episodes of Happy Days features this song, most notably when it is played in the jukebox at Arnold's diner. It was also used, with customized lyrics sung by the Four Seasons themselves, as the theme song to Joey Reynolds's various radio programs throughout the United States.

It has also appeared in the soundtrack to the 1987 film Dirty Dancing.

Cover versions

Preceded by
"He's a Rebel" by The Crystals
Billboard Hot 100 number one single
November 17, 1962 (five weeks)
Succeeded by
"Telstar" by The Tornados
Preceded by
"Do You Love Me" by The Contours
Billboard Hot R&B Singles number-one single
November 17, 1962 – December 1, 1962 (three weeks)
Succeeded by
"Release Me" by Little Esther Phillips

References

  1. Whitburn, Joel (2004). Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004. Record Research. p. 212.
  2. Joe Sasfy, liner notes, Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, "The Rock 'N' Roll Era" (Time-Life Records, 1987)
  3. Jersey Boys Playbill with discussion of history of hits

External links

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