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john travolta

19 years after writing ‘Grease,’ the Bee Gees performed it for the first time. It was amazing.
19 years after writing ‘Grease,’ the Bee Gees performed it for the first time. It was amazing.

"Grease is the word, is the word that you heard/It's got a groove, it's got a meaningGrease is the time, is the place, is the motion/Grease is the way we are feeling"

The title track to the 1978 film Grease, starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, brought three generations together and hit number 1 on the Billboard Charts. The song is based on a movie about teenagers in the ‘50s, sung by a legend from the ‘60s and written by one of the biggest hitmakers of the ‘70s. In other words, there was almost no one alive at the time who didn't love Grease!

(And did you know that Grease was a Broadway musical years before the film? The story and songs, in many instances, are wildly different between the two, however.)

Grease was written by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees but sung by doo-wop legend Frankie Valli. Although the Bee Gees toured in the late ‘70s and made a comeback in the '90s, they never played the song live until 1997 when it was part of their “One Night Only” concert and album featuring many of their biggest hits.

What’s impressive about the song is that even though Valli does a great job singing it on the original recording, when you hear the Bee Gees sing it, it sounds exactly like something you would have heard them perform in the late ‘70s.


grease, musicals, broadway, grease lightning, the bee gees, barry gibb, frankie valli, john travolta, 1970s, 1978 John Travolta turned in a legendary performance in the film as Danny Zuko. Giphy

During the performance, Barry Gibb points to Grease star Olivia Newton-John, who’s seen dancing with her daughter, Chloe Lattanzi in the audience.

In the third verse, Valli's vocal from the original is played so you can hear the difference.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

The magic started when producer Robert Stigwood, fresh from the Travolta-starring ‘77 hit Saturday Night Fever, went into production on a film adaptation of the Broadway musical Grease. The film promised a killer soundtrack filled with new versions of the classic show tunes, but it needed a song for the film's opening credits.

So, Stigwood tapped Barry Gibb, lead singer of the Bee Gees, the band that had just launched into the stratosphere after being featured on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Stigwood also happened to be the band’s manager and planned to feature them in a Beatles-based musical, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Legend has it that Barry wrote the song “Grease" in one day. Instead of sounding like a '50s doo-wop or rockabilly track, it was a slick-sounding disco-adjacent number about a feeling of generational confusion. The song was given to Valli, who’d had a recent comeback with the songs “My Eyes Adored You” (1975) and the 1976 nostalgia-dazed Four Seasons doo-wop disco number “December 1963 (Oh, What A Night).”

Valli had the option of recording the song or appearing as the Teen Angel who sings “Beauty School Drop-Out.” The “Walk Like a Man” singer opted to do the theme song and Frankie Avalon was given the Teen Angel role.

grease, musicals, broadway, grease lightning, the bee gees, barry gibb, frankie valli, john travolta, 1970s, 1978 There's a good reason 'Grease' is one of the most famous musicals of all time. Giphy

“I just remember that it all happened in one afternoon,” Barry Gibb recalled. "I was babysitting and my wife was out. And Robert Stigwood called up and said, 'I have two wonderful new songs by John Farrar called ‘Hopelessly Devoted to You’ and ‘You’re the One that I Want.’ But we don’t have a song for the film's title. Could you come up with a song called ‘Grease’?” I said, “How do you write a song called ‘Grease’? I don’t understand what direction I would take to do that.' And Robert said, 'Just Grease duh-duh-duh-duh-duh, Grease duh-duh-duh-duh-duh.' So he wasn’t very helpful. But I understood that they really wanted something that was positive and sunny. It really all happened in that afternoon. I walked on the dock for a bit…."

Indeed, the feature film version of the musical is known for its upbeat and optimistic music when compared to the slightly darker tones of the stage musical.

Grease was a box-office smash and became the highest-grossing film of 1978. Unfortunately for Stigwood, his follow-up film, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, starring the Bee Gees, would be one of the biggest flops of the decade.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of “Grease” in 2018, Barry Gibb released the demo he originally recorded of the song accompanied by piano. Take a listen and chill out for a few minutes.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

This story originally appeared last year. It has been updated.


Via Olivia Newton-John / Instagram

A recent airing of "Grease" on the BBC resulted in a backlash online with some calling for it to be banned from further showings.

Critics cited the scene where John Travolta's character Danny Zuko repeatedly tries to put a move on Sandy Osbourne, played by Olivia-Newton John, but she pushes him away.

They also called the film homophobic because the dance contest is for straight couples only.



People also objected to how Rizzo, played by Stockard Channing, is slut-shamed for being with multiple men. There's also a line in the song "Summer Loving" where a T-Bird asks, "Did she put up a fight?"

Thematically, It's also pretty cringey that Sandy wins over Danny in the end by dressing herself up for the male gaze by putting on skintight black pants.

All of these critiques seem to forget the fact that the film was made in 1978 about teenagers in the 1950s, an era that was far more sexist, segregated, homophobic, and racist than the one we live in today.

The film is also about men who are in a gang who talk about getting into rumbles and carry switchblades. Those types aren't usually known for being too progressive.

Olivia Newton-John pushed back against people who believe the movie is too problematic in a recent interview on the "A Life of Greatness" podcast.

Newton-John said the movie was "not [meant] to be taken so seriously." She believes that the criticism is "kind of silly, because the movie was made in the '70s about the '50s. It was a stage play. It's a musical. It's fun."

"We need to relax a little bit and just enjoy things for what they are," Olivia continued. "I think it's just a fun movie that entertains people. That's all."

The actor's call for people to mellow out is refreshing in a world where many people are scared and quickly dismiss work they've done in the past if it doesn't live up to the exacting measure of our times.

"Grease" clearly falls short of the standards that we have today. But it also has some amazing music, choreography, and wonderfully charismatic performances from Newton-John, Travolta, and Channing.

We should have a bit more faith in people by believing they can walk and chew gum at the same time when watching an outdated piece of culture. Most mature adults have the capacity to watch something that is old and separate the inappropriate material from the wonderful music and dancing.

If we can trust people to watch a horror film and not come out the other side an axe murderer, we can let them see a film with outdated portrayals of gender without thinking they'll become raging sexists.

In other "Grease" news, Travolta and his daughter Ella make a brief appearance in a new Super Bowl ad for Scotts Miracle-Gro. In the ad, the Travoltas recreate the "Hand Jive" dance that Travolta and Newton-John do in the film. But this time, instead of dancing to Sha Na Na, it's to Surfaces' "Sunday Best."

Scotts & Miracle-Gro Big Game Commercial | Keep Growing :45www.youtube.com