Grease is the word. (Music Monday)
Peak Travolta was very impressive. Oh, and Sandy is dead.
I continue to pick up lots of new subscribers (thank you!!!!) mainly because of my writing about podcasting, which I always do on Wednesday and often a few other times a week. Along the way, the open-ended “Media Thoughts” is deliberately open-ended. Mondays are Music Monday, and I have some pieces coming up about Atari in the next few weeks. On to Music Monday…
The title song of Grease isn't even in the stage show. It was written specifically for the movie by Barry Gibb, and sung by Frankie Valli. And somehow it works perfectly, even though it sounds nothing like the rest of the score. It's pure late-70s Bee Gees magic dropped into a 1950s pastiche, and yet it sets the tone for everything that follows. It’s darn catchy. It's got a groove, it's got a meaning. Grease is the way we are feeling. Grease has been stuck in my head for a full week now.
Speaking of things that shouldn't work but do - let's talk how Sandy is dead.
The idea is that the whole movie is some kind of fever dream or afterlife experience. Think about it - she "drowned" at the beach (mentioned in "Summer Nights"), and then suddenly we're in this heightened reality where cars fly and people spontaneously burst into song.
That dream sequence in the middle of the film? Maybe it's not just a dream - maybe it's reality bleeding through. In "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee (Reprise)" - is she saying goodbye to her old self, or to life itself?
Like all great fan theories, once you hear it, you can't unsee the clues. The whole movie takes on this surreal, dreamlike quality. Maybe that's why it's held up so well - there's something deeper lurking beneath the sock hops and drag races.
The movie of course ends with Sandy getting everything she wanted (the moral of the film is you have to change everything about yourself to get the boy) as they drive off into the clouds…and heaven.
1978 Travolta was just operating on another level. Between Saturday Night Fever and Grease, he owned the world. Think about that run - he goes from king of disco to king of the T-Birds in the span of months.
Remember, this is also peak "John Travolta can do no wrong" era. Welcome Back Kotter was still fresh in everyone's minds, but DO NOT GOT BACK AND WATCH THAT. Kotter is best left to your memories. It is horrifically terrible.
Travolta’s singing in Grease - it's not Pavarotti, but it doesn't need to be. It's perfect for Danny Zuko. The slight roughness actually helps sell the character. He's a high school greaser, not an opera star. I was listening to the soundtrack again this weekend and you know what? Travolta's vocals have this raw charm that just works. When he's belting out those songs about cars and summer love, you believe him.
It's fascinating to look back now and realize how many things could have gone wrong. The movie is a 1970s take on the 1950s, with a title song that sounds like neither decade, starring a disco king playing a greaser, with a plot that might actually be about death and the afterlife. On paper, that sounds like a disaster.
But somehow, like Sandy and Danny's car at the end, it all takes flight. Maybe because it's not trying to be a realistic portrayal of the 1950s - it's a dream version, filtered through 1970s sensibilities and nostalgia. Just like American Graffiti before it, it's not showing us the '50s as they were, but as we wished they had been.
Or maybe, if you believe those fan theories, it's showing us something else entirely. A last dance in the afterlife, a goodbye to innocence, a fever dream of summer love that never really ends because it never really happened. Wish is what we all wish had happened to Grease 2.