R.I.P. Olivia Newton-John

A million lights are dancing and there you are, a shooting star

I wouldn’t describe myself as an Olivia Newton-John mega-fan. Or a super fan. Even calling myself a fan at all feels like an overstatement. I do not own any of her albums. Until this week I hadn’t thought about her in years. So why was my body behaving as if a close friend or relative had died?

I spent the next two hours investigating this reaction.

In other words, I burrowed down an Olivia Newton-John YouTube rabbit hole, absorbing as much ONJ video footage as I could.  

giphy.com/gifs/grease-olivia-newton-john-7EErFyyADmj3W

I rewatched scenes from the iconic 1978 film-musical Grease. I sang along with “You’re The One That I Want,” “Hopelessly Devoted To You,” and “Summer Nights.” I knew every word even though it’d been decades since I’d seen the movie or listened to the soundtrack.

I played, in their entirety, the music videos for her ‘80s hits “Physical,” “Magic,” and “Make a Move on Me.”

I watched live and pre-recorded versions of her hits from the 70s: “A Little More Love” and “Have You Never Been Mellow.”

Then, 30 seconds or so after I hit play on Olivia’s 1974 hit song “I Honestly Love You,” I felt tears welling then dripping down my face. I doesn’t matter that the song is about loving someone outside of one’s current relationship. The way Olivia sings the word “honestly,” her eyes exuding tenderness and vulnerability, leaves no doubt as to the truthfulness of her love. Olivia Newton-John honesty resides on a plane higher than mere mortal honesty. She honestly didn’t even have to use the word honestly to convey her honesty.

Watching her sing this song, and really any song in her extensive catalog, the sense one gets is that Olivia simply was not wired for dishonesty. She wore her open heart on her sleeve and, when the 80s came around, on her leg warmers.

Much like her role as Sandy in the film Grease, Olivia Newton-John, even when playing sexy, as in the video for “Physical,” always exuded a girlish innocence. At the end of the film, when she appears clad in tight black leather, her hair teased to the skies, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, she’s playing dress up. She never reads as tough, not like Stockard Channing’s naturally edgy Betty Rizzo.

The same could be said for her spandex-clad aerobics instructor persona in the video for “Physical.” Moving the song’s R-rated bedroom setting to the gym didn’t necessarily imply that Newton-John was avoiding the lyrics’ sexual innuendo. Instead, she flips the script on the preponderance of scantily-clad female bodies so often seen in music videos. In “Physical,” Newton-John is filmed surrounded by barely dressed, muscular men and then, later, men who seem to have never seen the inside of a gym before. She’s making fun of gender stereotypes while at the same time showing that people come in all shapes and sizes.

It was certainly her most explicit hit song, but instead of seeming dirty or X rated, it comes off as PG-13. Again, ONJ was playing dress up; she’d found a way to expand her sound, to keep up with the times, yet still maintain her appeal to all audiences.

Though she could play R-rated, Olivia at her core was PG. She didn’t have a jaded bone in her body. She seemed like someone who could be your best friend, who would never tell anyone your secrets, who would offer a shoulder or a hug and only give advice at just the perfect time. She was someone that would be devoted to you, hopelessly and hopefully.

One video that I haven’t mentioned yet, the one I spent the most time with during my Olivia Newton-John YouTube-immersion, is the titular scene from the 1980 roller-disco musical extravaganza, Xanadu. (I’m linking to the entire 6 and a half minute video below, as it is breathtaking.)

I’m sure I saw Xanadu in the theater back in the day — I must have been 13 or 14 years old — but the young, teen version of me surely would have made fun of it, mocking the goofy costumes, corny choreography and syrupy music. I listened only to hard rock and wore corduroys and jean jackets with patches of my favorite bands — Led Zeppelin, Rush, Van Halen — sewn across the chest and the back (thanks Mom!).

Watching Xanadu now (this scene at least), 42 years after its release, feels like entering a portal into Olivia Newton-John’s post-human-body existence. If there is a heaven or some sort of cool afterlife setting where we get to inhabit when we die, I sure hope it resembles the psychedelic spectral landscape of director Robert Greenwald’s vision of Xanadu. Viewing this clip felt as if I had direct access to a live simulcast of Olivia from her forever place; like it was her way of letting us know there’s no need to fear death or feel sad about her passing.

Filled with people from all walks of life, dancing and roller-skating and singing and chanting and having no discernible plot to have to follow, Xanadu is the embodiment of wearing your freak flag, of throwing convention to the wind. A place where Olivia Newton-John can appear from out of nowhere (we have to believe she is magic) to sing us a disco lullaby and Gene Kelly will lead us in a rousing routine of movements specially choreographed to embody our bodylessness.

Gene Kelly’s final screen performance

Watching this scene from Xanadu, I came to realize why my body reacted as it did when I learned of Olivia Newton-John’s passing. The scene, like my impression of Olivia, is all presence. It’s all in the now. There’s no brooding, no nostalgia, no worrying about tomorrow. It just is.

I know Olivia Newton-John was a complex, multi-faceted woman who worked tirelessly and passionately for the causes that mattered most to her — animal rights, cancer research and education, LGBTQ rights — just to name a few. In a couple of short hours I was able to learn quite a bit about some of the important work she has done. And that barely scratches the surface.

But I’ll leave those details to the biographers, to the people who truly knew her.

For the rest of us, for the fans both mega, super and regular, for those who came to love her through the songs, videos, tv shows and films she shared with the world, through the genuineness and kindness she exuded with every glittery smile, every twinkle of the eye, through every word spoken or sung throughout a more than 50 year career, I think I can speak for a vast majority by saying simply: Thank you. We will miss you; we’ll honestly miss you.

I feel I must end with the above clip, which I found during my YouTube vortex. A TV special musical feature Olivia, ABBA and Andy Gibb. If my heart wasn’t singing before watching this fantastic time capsule, it was belting out arias afterward (sorry neighbors).