Grease Sound Track-You're The One That I Want

You're The One That I Want

1978

John Travolta/Olivia Newton John

This one was arguably The Biggie, hit-wise,from the sound track. 'You're The One That I Want' was the Big Finale song for the movie, and showed off John Travolta's dancing skills, as well as proving that Olivia Newton John could hang with him on the dance floor without breaking a sweat. The tune was also penned by John Farrar specifically for the film, and after being released on May 6th 1978 it shot up the charts, making it to the top spot on The Billboard hot 100 a scosh over a month later, on June 10^th . I couldn't find out how long it stayed at #1, but it stayed on the charts...and the radio station play-lists...all summer long.

The scene was filmed in just one day with the help of a traveling carnival that happened to be in town (that's why the carnival rides and games looked so intricately detailed and authentic...they were the real thing). They wrapped the scene...and Director Randall Kleiser decided that they needed some more close-ups. BIG problem...the carnival had left town, so the set designers had to design sets that were spitting images of the carnival for the backgrounds of the close-ups. Watch closely in the video and see if you can spot the scenes that were shot using the movie sets rather than the actual carnival rides..

I read what's probably the best possible description of this song on Songfacts...'About as pure a Pop Adrenaline rush as you can get'. That pretty much nails it...You almost can't listen to this song without moving to it.

My brother and I were talking about Grease as I was working on finding videos for this post just the other day and he reminded me of an Olivia Newton John interview, possibly form The Tonight Show, where she was asked if she had been nervous about having to dance with John Travolta in the finale.

To paraphrase her reply (And I can picture her kind of looking sidewise at her interviewer...Carson if it was indeed on The Ultimate Late Night Talk Show...and giving him that adorable and impish little half smile that everyone loved as she said this in her Aussie accent) ”Probably no more nervous than he was having to sing with me”

Well played, Liv...Well played!!

This one's another song that doesn't appear on Oldies station play-lists as often as it should...but we sure remember it. After all, 35 years ago we made it the biggest hit from the top grossing movie musical of all time.

So enjoy (You sang with it. And kinda chair danced a bit with it too!)

You're The One That I Want by John Travolta and Olivia Newton John, in the finale scene from 'Grease'

The kids from Glee covered this one too...in it's entirety..Did have the video, but sadly, it got removed...Oh well!