December, 1963 (Oh What A Night!) | Chords + Lyrics
Intro
| N.C | N.C |
||: Db Ebm7 Db/F Gb | Gb Db/Ab Ab7sus2 Ab11 Ab7sus2 :||
Verse 1
||: Db Ebm7 Db/F Gb | Gb Db/Ab Ab7sus2 Ab11 Ab7sus2 :||
Oh, what a night. Late December back in ’63.
What a very special time for me, as I remember, what a night.
Oh, what a night, you know I didn’t even know her name.
But I was never gonna be the same, what a lady, what a night.
Bridge 1
| Ebm7 | Gb | Bbm7 | Ab6 |
Oh, I, I got a funny feeling when she walked in the room.
| Ebm7 | Gb | Ab6 Ab Ab6 Ab | Ab6 Ab |
And my, as I recall it ended much too soon.
Chorus 1
||: Db Ebm7 Db/F Gb | Gb Db/Ab Ab7sus2 Ab11 Ab7sus2 :||
Oh what a night, hypnotizing’, mesmerizing me.
She was everything I dreamed she’d be. Sweet surrender, what a night.
Instrumental 1
||: Bbm7 | Bbm7 Eb :||
Bridge 2
| Ebm7 | Db/F |
I felt a rush like a rollin’ ball of thunder.
| Gbmaj7 | Ab (Ab6) |
Spinning my head around and taking my body under. Oh, what a night.
Instrumental 2
||: Db Ebm7 Db/F Gb | Gb Db/Ab Ab7sus2 Ab11 Ab7sus2 :|| x4
Bridge 3 (as bridge 1)
Oh, I, got a funny feelin’ when she walked in the room.
And my, as I recall it ended much too soon. Oh, what a night.
Chorus 2
Why’d it take so long to see the light?
Seemed so wrong, but now it seems so right. What a lady, what a night.
Instrumental 3
||: Bbm7 | Bbm7 Eb :||
Bridge 4 (as bridge 2)
Oh I, felt a rush like a rollin’ ball of thunder.
Spinnin’ my head around and takin’ my body under. Oh, what a night.
Outro
||: Db Ebm7 Db/F Gb | Gb Db/Ab Ab7sus2 Ab11 Ab7sus2 :||
Do-do-do, do-do-do. Do-do-do-do, oh what a night.
Do-do-do, do-do-do. Do-do-do-do-do-do, oh what a night.
Do-do-do, do-do-do. Do-do-do-do-do-do, oh what a night.
Do-do-do, do-do-do. Do-do-do-do-do-do, oh what a night.
December 1963 Chords: Learn the progressions
You should study this remarkable song, only comparable to the band’s other monster hit Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, in great detail.
The chords are pretty complex in both tunes, to say the least!
So complex, that you may be looking at the chords for the intro/verse and think, I’m just going to leave that for the piano player…
After all, the guitar only plays a Db Major Pentatonic lick as the piano plays seemingly all the chords in the world, like this:
||: Db Ebm7 Db/F Gb | Gb Db/Ab Ab7sus2 Ab11 Ab7sus2 :||
Intimidating at first but at least it’s only two bars repeated forever, and if you play all those chords on just strings 2-4, ignoring the bass notes, it’s actually pretty easy to do it on the guitar, if you have the TAB that is.
Here’s a link to what I suggest you should play: December, 1963 (Oh What A Night!) – Guitar Lesson with TAB.
The bridge is easier, starting on chord II and going down to chord I but as the bass note is the 3rd, it feels like it’s going up, very clever! Gbmaj7 and Ab are chords IV – V, like this:
| Ebm7 (II) | Db/F (I/3) | Gbmaj7 (IV) | Ab (V) Ab6 |
Here’s a chord chart which will be very helpful, once you’ve studied the TAB and played along with the original recording.
December, 1963 (Oh What A Night!) Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro
My main aim here was to make it as simple as possible as the chords are so intimidating. This meant that the chart doesn’t actually show the structure, I had to write that using text.
Should you want to download this chart, here’s a PDF: December, 1963 (Oh What A Night!) Chord Chart PDF.
This chord chart was created using iReal Pro, here’s a link to that file: December, 1963 (Oh What A Night!) iReal Pro. Using this and the iRealPro app, you can change the key or maybe alter my layout!
The Four Seasons got Franki Valli to take a step back for December, 1963 (Oh What A Night!)
Franki Valli got removed from lead vocal duties when The Four Seasons recorded their smash hit December, 1963 (Oh What A Night!).
Instead, the group’s drummer, Gerry Polci, took over and, I must say, did a remarkably great job.
The high falsetto part for “And I felt a rush…” is not Franki either, that’s the bass player, Don Ciccone. But Franki wasn’t completely left out, he sang BV’s, and the bridge section.
A top twenty hit the world over in 1975, December 1963 (Oh What A Night) sold over a million copies in the U.S. and is still played on the radio and by DJs today.
I haven’t seen many guitar players play it, perhaps they need some TAB!
December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night!) Chords | Related Pages
December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night!) | Guitar Lesson + TAB
With this guitar lesson, you can learn how to play December, 1963 (Oh What a Night!) by Franki Valli using a chord analysis and TAB.
| Db Ebm7 Db/F Gb | Gb Db/Ab Ab7sus2 Ab11 Ab7sus2 |
Oh, what a night. Late December back in ’63…
Five similar tunes | Chords + Lyrics
- Build Me Up Buttercup chords by TheFoundations
- Can’t Take My Eyes Off You chords by Franki Valli
- I Can’t Help Myself chords by The Four Tops
- Love Train chords by The O’Jays
- Young Hearts Run Free chords by Candi Staton
Franki Valli and the Four Seasons tunes
The hugely successful musical Jersey Boys is based on the tunes by Franki Valli and the Four Seasons.
Hits include Sherry, Big Girls Don’t Cry, Silence Is Golden, Working My Way Back, December, 63 (Oh What a Night!), and Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.
Franki Valli and the Four Seasons on the web
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was a guitar lesson about December 1963 (Oh, What A Night!) chords, by Dan Lundholm. Discover more about him and how you can learn guitar with Spytunes.
Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.
