Lost in the Grease World

by Sahara Alia Jauhali Silongan

Grease

The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture

Robert Stigwood Organization label, 1978.

Re-released by Polygram International, 1998.

After watching Grease on HBO three years ago, I can’t help but fall in love once again with the 70s (although the movie was actually set in the 50s). I love the oldies and I find no better ways of spending a worry-free day than staying at home and listening to Oldies Radio play hits from the 50s to 70s. I confess that listening to songs older than me brings a nostalgic feeling -- as if I long for something that has long been gone. Upon hearing this confession, my father teased that perhaps I am reincarnated from the 50s or 60s. One of my professors even said that I might be lost in a time warp. Indeed, listening to the Grease Original Soundtrack, takes me to a different world some time in the 50s as the music provides me with both wistful as well as fun moments while it plays sentimental music along with the hip and groove of the golden years.

The soundtrack comprises of 23 different tracks that are arranged not in the same order as they were played in the movie. Instead, what the producers did was to put the more popular songs on the first part of the list then arranged the rest in such a way that provides no dull moment for the listeners by playing the blues alternately with the groovy ones.

The album opens with the movie’s official theme song  “Grease” sang by Frankie Vallie and is written especially for the film by former member of the Bee Gees, Barry Gibb. As I listen to the track, I can’t avoid but relive the movie in my head. Undeniably, it’s hard for me to listen to the soundtrack without the T-Birds and the Pink Ladies popping in my mind. When John Travolta starts singing, “Summer lovin’ had me a blast,” in the next track, “Summer Nights,” I become completely lost in the Grease world. I suddenly turn into one of the Pink Ladies singing “Tell me more, tell me more” alongside Olivia Newton John who goes “Summer days drifted away.” This track has become one of my personal favorites and that I often find myself humming to its tune of shoo bop bop and doo bee doop even as I finish listening to the album.

From an upbeat all-cast track that got me swaying to and fro, the next single, on the other hand, is a sentimental love song that had me sit back and relax as I listen to Olivia Newton-John sing “Hopelessly Devoted to You.” The track might be considered a certified oldies hit as it is among our mothers’ favorite songs of all time but listening to the song’s lyrics as sang by Newton-John’s sweet voice makes me feel how it is to be young and in love. I can imagine the shy and charming Sandy Dombrowski (Newton-John) falling for Danny Zuko (Travolta), the leader of the coolest male group in Rydell High, the T-Birds.

Once again, Travolta and Newton-John exhibit their chemistry as they perform a duet in “You’re The One That I Want.” The part of the film on which the single was performed has become the most popular moment in the movie that even twenty years later, the concept of the scene is experienced again in music videos like Jordan Knight’s “Give It To You” and JA Rule’s “Mesmerized” to name a few.

Still hanging on to the bubbly tune of “You’re The One That I Want,” I find myself transported to one of Rydell High’s benches, listening to Danny Zuko express his sentiments as Sandra Dee leaves him. Travolta’s solo performance in “Sandy” proves that aside from being a good actor and dancer, he is not that bad at all when it comes to singing. Meanwhile, from a teen-idol singing voice in “Sandy,” Travolta transforms into an Elvis clone as he deepens his voice in “Greased Lightnin,” a song that clearly illustrates boys’ obsession with cars.

What’s good about the soundtrack is that no matter how old it gets, it would still appeal to the young generation with the songs’ theme encircling on high school experiences. “Beauty School Dropout” sang by Frankie Avalon, for instance, sends a message to high school girls who look forward to shopping and parlor visits rather than going to school. “Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee” by Stockard Canning, on the other hand, mocks Sandy’s character as she refuses to drink or swear or cut out her hair. Newton-John performs a single with the same title as her character, Sandy reflects on being “wholesome and pure, so scared and unsure” and that she wants to change. Meanwhile, “There Are Worse Things I Could Do,” again by Canning, turns out to be a confession of a mean girl.

“It’s Raining On Prom Night” by Cindy Bullens, however, is the single that I consider would best remind one of high school days no matter which decade the listener belongs to. From here, the music takes me to Rydell High’s gymnasium where I find myself joining the class of 1958 in their Senior Prom.

In my yellow dress and a flower pinned on my chest, I take a seat with the Pink Ladies and we will have a little chitchat as the performing band, the Sha-Na-Na plays “Those Magic Changes.” A blue-eyed T-Bird suddenly grabs me by the hand and takes me to the dance floor as the bands starts playing “Rock N’ Roll Is Here To Stay” and later on we boogie to the band’s rendition of Elvis’ “Hound Dog.”

Exhausted from swinging and swaying on the dance floor, my partner and I decide to grab a seat and watch as Danny and Sandy, with their dance partners, join the dance showdown to the tune of “Born To Hand Jive.” No less than ten minutes, I find myself back on the dance floor as my partner and I slow dance to the tune of “Blue Moon” and “Tears On My Pillow.” With his arms around my waist, I rest my head on his shoulders and close my eyes in order to feel the moment.

As I open my eyes, I realize that I am back in my own room, one with pink flowered wallpaper. The prom has ended but I haven’t got the chance to ask my partner’s name that out of regret, I start to spend my days alone in my room. Still trap in the 50s, I wonder about my mysterious dance partner’s identity and I comfort myself by listening to “Mooning” by Louis St. Louis and Cindy Bullens followed by “Freedy My Love.” Then I begin to cheer up when Louis and Bullens start singing “Rock N’ Roll Party Queen.”

Some time later, I begin to hear cheers and shouts from outside my room. I look out the window to find the Senior Class out in Rydell High’s field celebrating their upcoming graduation. A sudden urge to join them well up inside me that I run outside. Alongside the leaders of the pack, Danny Zuko and Sandy Dombrowski, together with the T-Birds in their leather jackets and the Pink Ladies in their pink sweaters, I join the class of 1958 as they sing the rama lama lama kiding kiding kidong and shoo bop shoo ba wee bop tunes from “We Go Together.”

My fantasy ends with the movie’s opening themes: the instrumental version of “Love Is A Many Splendored Thing,” and Frankie Valli’s “Grease” which is also the closing theme of the movie.

Its potential to make the listeners sway and harmonize with its music no matter which generation they belong to makes the Grease Original Soundtrack the second biggest-selling in pop history (after the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack, to which the film also starred John Travolta). [1] There is certainly no dull moment in the soundtrack that a running length of an hour and four minutes is definitely more than satisfactory. All 24 tracks are worth listening to that there is no need to push the Forward and Rewind or the Previous and Next buttons of one’s music player.  The album is packed with songs that would comfort listener of any age who is in the mood to relax or to simply have some fun and perhaps anyone who is interested to take a trip back to 1958 and witness the excitement happening in Ol’ Rydell High.