The cover of the 1967 Frankie Valli single, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”
Happy Valentine’s Day from NJArts.net!
Garden State artists have been responsible for lots of great love songs over the years — think of Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, even Bruce Springsteen — but you can’t do much better than Frankie Valli’s rapturous “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” As shown in the “Jersey Boys” movie and film, this 1967 single was a breakthrough for Valli, as a solo artist, after his hit-filled years with The Four Seasons.
The song, co-written by original Four Seasons member Bob Gaudio and Four Seasons producer Bob Crewe, has been covered countless times since then, by artists ranging from Nancy Wilson to the Pet Shop Boys and Lauryn Hill. It also has been featured in many movies — perhaps most memorably in 1978’s “The Deer Hunter (see the clip below, under the clip of Valli singing it).
Valli’s version rose to No. 2 on Billboard magazine’s pop singles chart in July 1967, kept out of the No. 1 spot by The Association’s “Windy.” Other songs in the Top 10 that Summer of Love week included The Doors’ “Light My Fire,” Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair),” Stevie Wonder’s “I Was Made to Love Her,” The 5th Dimension’s “Up, Up and Away,” Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and The Four Seasons’ “C’Mon Marianne.”
New Jersey celebrated its 350th birthday in 2014. And in the 350 Jersey Songs series, we marked the occasion by posting 350 songs — one a day, from September 2014 to September 2015 — that have something to do with the state, its musical history, or both.
To see the entire list, click here.
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