Bye, Bye, Baby (Baby Goodbye)

"Bye, Bye, Baby (Baby, Goodbye)" is a popular song written by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio (a member of The Four Seasons). The Four Seasons' 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". However, on the album, The 4 Seasons Entertain You, and on later issues of the song, the name was changed to the longer, more familiar one. 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 D major, 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 (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 described it as "a heartfelt rhythmic stomp’er that again features the attention-getting falsetto sound of Frankie Valli and a top teen Calello arrangement."

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

Bay City Rollers version
A cover of the song by the Scottish boy band Bay City Rollers was released in the UK on February 28, 1975 as the only single from the group's second studio album Once Upon a Star. It reached number one in the UK, Ireland and Australia, and was also a hit in several other music markets across the world. It was number one on the UK Singles Chart for six weeks from March 1975 and ended the year as the UK's top-selling single of 1975. 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.

Charts
Weekly charts

Year-end charts