Hopelessly Devoted to You

“Hopelessly Devoted to You” is a song recorded by British-Australian singer, songwriter and actress Olivia Newton-John for Grease: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture (1978). It was written and produced by John Farrar and originally performed by Newton-John in the film version of the musical Grease (1978). The song was released in Australia in August 1978 and peaked at number two. It reached number three on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number seven on the Adult Contemporary chart. On the country chart, “Hopelessly Devoted to You” peaked at number 20 and was her first top 20 country hit in two years. Newton-John performed the song at the 21st Grammy Awards in 1979. The song received an Oscar nomination as Best Original Song, losing to “Last Dance” from Thank God It’s Friday at the 51st Academy Awards. Lyrically, the song is about Olivia’s character in the movie, Australian newcomer Sandy Olsson, singing about how she keeps loving John Travolta’s character Danny Zuko, leader of a gang of greaser boys, despite him brushing her off in favor of his friends. Record World called it “a ’50s-inspired love ballad with the production sound of the ’70s.” In 2001, Swedish girl group Play covered the song on their debut album. The song was not part of the original musical production (and was replaced with the 1950s standard “Since I Don’t Have You” for the 1994 revival), but it was added to the score for the 2007 revival and was included in the 2016 Grease: Live performance, sung by Julianne Hough. In June 2004, Farrar recalled writing the song: “I spent the longest period writing the lyrics of any song I’ve ever written. Every thesaurus and every rhyming dictionary I had, just trying to really make it work properly”. Halfway through shooting Grease, Newton-John’s contractually-entitled vocal solo had yet to be written. Farrar, Newton-John’s personal producer, wrote the song and submitted it to the film’s production team. They were reluctant but then approved it; shooting and recording took place after the other parts of the film had been completed.m