THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

768- John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John-Summer Nights.

1978-Number 1 single.

Best Bit-At 3.19. As they said in Gavin and Stacey,’It’s not a proper wedding disco until we’ve done the ‘Grease Megamix.”

‘Summer Nights’ was co-written by the American actor, composer, and lyricist Jim Jacobs, and the American theatre, composer, lyricist, writer and actor Warren Casey, (1935-1988) who together also wrote the original Grease Musical, which was first performed in Chicago, United States, in 1971. The musical was named after the 1950’s United States working class youth subculture, known as ‘Greasers.’ The musical is set in 1959, at the fictional ‘Rydel High School, which the writers had named after the American Rock N’ Roll teen idol Bobby Rydel, (1942-2022) and follows the lives of 10 working class teenagers.

In 1978 the musical was made in to a movie, with some of the original songs dropped, and others being commissioned for the film. The two main characters in the movie are John Travolta, (see also best songs 882-211 and 35) who played the male lead role of Danny Zuko, and Olivia Newton-John, (1948-2022) who played the leading female part of Sandy Ollson. The main story line of Grease is the relationship between Danny and Sandy, who had first met in the summer of 1958 at the beach, and fallen in love. At the end of summer Sandy was meant to be going back to Australia, and the two thought that they might never meet again. Sandy’s parents have a change of mind, and she enrols at Rydel High School, both unaware of each others presence, as this is the school that Danny also attends.

‘Summer Nights’ was co-written by Jim Jacobs, and Warren Casey, with the production being by the American songwriter, musical arranger, and producer Louis St. Louis (1942-2021.) The song was track 2 of the 24 songs that appeared on ‘Grease: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture,’ which was released in April 1978. With sales of just short of 30 million copies sold worldwide, the Album is at the time of writing the 33rd best selling Album of all time. ‘Summer Nights’ was the fourth of six singles released from the Album, and reached Number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, but it was in the UK where it found it’s greatest success, spending seven weeks at Number 1, and becoming the third best selling song of 1978 in that country, and going on to be the seventh best selling song in the UK in the 1970’s. ‘You’re the One That I Want,’ which was the other duet on the soundtrack between John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, and had been released as the second single, had spent nine weeks at Number 1, before being dislodged by ‘Summer Nights,’ which completed an unbroken run of 16 weeks at Number 1 for the duo. In the film ‘Grease,’ ‘Summer Nights’ is performed as two separate dance sequences interjected, to show both parties at the same time, as Danny and Sandy recount events of their romance to their respective groups, ‘The T Birds,’ and ‘The Pink Ladies.’ Both versions of events differ greatly, with Sandy’s telling of the romance of their relationship, while Danny’s version is more sexual.

In 1991 ‘Summer Nights,’ along with ‘You’re the One That I Want,’ and a third track from the soundtrack Album, ‘Greased Lightnin,” which was performed solely by John Travolta, were remixed by the English music producers Phil Harding, and Ian Curnow, for ‘PWL,’ by the request of ‘Polydor Records,’ in order to make a ‘new song’ called the ‘Grease Megamix.’ This new track was created to promote the film ‘Grease,’ on it’s first release onto home video. The ‘Grease Megamix’ proved very successful, bringing the original film to the attention of a whole new generation, when reaching Number 3 on the UK top 40, as well as reaching Number 1 in Australia, and Spain, and going top 10 in many other countries. The ‘Grease Megamix’ was never issued as a single in America, making it ineligible for the Billboard Hot 100 chart at that time.

‘She swam by me, she got cramp. He went by me, got my suit damp. I saved her life, he nearly drowned, he showed off splashin’ around.’