Bradley's Buzz

Today's Bubbatune - Olivia Newton-John

As is typical in my life, I made my big singing debut in front of an audience, not at something normal like a school Christmas showcase but rather at a bar singing an Olivia Newton-John song. I must say, though observers may claim a different opinion, I know I was fabulous and I owe it all to that woman I like to call “The Liv.”

OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN – ULTIMATE OLIVIA (bub50)
Cover artwork designed by Bradley Jacobson

Track List
01. A Little More Love
02. Heart Attack
03. Magic
04. Twist Of Fate
05. Xanadu (w/ ELO)
06. Have You Never Been Mellow
07. Hopelessly Devoted To You
08. Landslide
09. You’re The One That I Want (w/John Travolta)
10. Recovery
11. Totally Hot
12. Deeper Than The Night
13. Make A Move On Me
14. I Honestly Love You
15. Sam
16. Not Gonna Be The One
17. Physical
18. Livin’ In Desperate Times
19. Tied Up
20. Tutta La Vita
21. Soul Kiss
22. Sordid Lives

THE STORY
In Wisconsin, it wasn’t rare to find children of all ages hanging out with their parents in the local tavern. Most of these establishments were owned and operated by the bartender on duty and like the patrons; their kids pretty much grew up hanging out at the bar. This was particularly evident on Sunday afternoons when the bars would become packed with the families wetting their whistle with beer and the free appetizers after a long morning of confessing their sins for the week.

My parents weren’t any different from the numerous ones dragging their kids to the bars. Of course, my parents were a little different in the fact they were pretty young. My mother had me when she was still a teenager so by the time I was in my teens she was still in her 20s. Incidentally, my mother is now 29 and I’m 25, I pity the day we catch up in age.

Anyway, my mom and dad went out quite frequently as they still had a lot of that young gusto in their veins. Normally, a Friday would be spent at my grandparents while my parents hit the Wausau nightclub scene. But those parents also fought a lot and you never quite knew when you’d find yourself living with just mom or dad – depending on who threw the biggest fit and got kicked out of the house.

One Saturday night, my dad was the one kicked out and my mother decided she wanted to hit the local nightclub and have a few beers. My sister wasn’t yet born and my brother was with my father wherever that happened to be. Normally, I was more than willing to stay home and play “sitcom” or “music video.”

These games involved me and only me playing numerous characters in either sitcoms I created starring my favorite stars of the moment, or me playing records and making up videos – once again playing every character. I even had an Emmy broadcast in my kitchen where I put on a tape of every TV theme song I had captured with me performing them in a ten-minute medley. The crowd in my head went wild as I went through everything from “There’s A New Girl In Town” from Alice to “Love Is All Around” from Mary Tyler Moore.

But on this particular night, I felt my mother might need company so I opted to leave my fantasies at home. Of course, my mother offered up the information that she was going to see a band play. Being a lover of all music, I thought it would be exciting to see a real band performing live even if it was a local rock country outfit.

So off we went to the Shindig – a local dive that had once been a strip club but now worked as a small tavern with a back room for local bands and the occasional wedding reception.

There we were, two perfect little blondes in a surrounding we found quite comfortable – a tavern where everyone saw and told us how cute we were. I loved my mother so much at that moment. Knowing we could walk into a bar with 75 cents between us and still end up snockered by the end of the night and at least $1.85 in our pocket. Don’t ask me how this works; it’s just something that has always happened to us Jacobsons. To this day, my mother doesn’t need any money to go to a bar and have a good time, and incidentally, neither do I.

The name of the band performing that night completely eludes me but I do remember them to be a bunch of fairly rough neck guys. They were also quite talented from what I remember. But the best thing they did – the only thing that really mattered to me was in the middle of their set they asked the audience if anyone wanted to come up and perform with them.

I raised my hand, I yelled, I screamed like a little girl and though some bitch with a mullet was ready to show her tits to the guys to get on stage it was me – the cute blonde kid who got up there.

They brought me up to the stage and had me introduce myself, “Well I’m Brad and you better remember that name because one day you’ll all be standing in line to buy my records.” I was met with audible gasps and cheers, just as I had intended.

The band asked what song I would like to sing and having just seen the film Grease 86 times, listening to my 8track of the soundtrack every day for six months, I realized a Grease song would be perfect.

The mullet girl put away her breasts and informed her friend I was going to do “Greased Lightning” thus putting a spark into their hick eyes. However, I didn’t know all those words and if I recalled correctly there were swear words in that little ditty. Well, I was putting on a clean show and wouldn’t be using words such as “shit” and “pussy wagon” in my set. After all this was a family establishment.

I whispered into the ear of the lead guitarist and he informed the members of the band. The beginning chords of “You’re The One That I Want” began. I grabbed that microphone with all the gusto my 7-year-old frame could handle and I started, “I’ve got chills they’re multiplying…”

Now anyone who knows this song knows there could be a problem with one young boy singing it. No, not the fact that I was a kid in a bar on stage singing an adult tune, it was the fact "You're The One That I Want" is a duet. I don’t recall if the boys in the band ever offered to sing a line or if they even started, to which I’m sure I would’ve kicked them in the neck for I was taking the song in a new direction. This was no longer a duet; this was a Bradley ditty through and through.

Although perhaps I should've worried more about the lyrics than the duet part since most of the song is, "You better shape up cuz I need a man who can keep me satisfied..." Well perhaps I was just so convincing they really believed I needed a man to keep me satisfied.

I sang the song, the mullet girls danced, my mother looked on with proud eyes while drinking four drinks during that three minutes, and I reveled in the applause. I wanted to do more songs but apparently the band had their own agenda. I’ve always felt they were just afraid I was going to take over.

Needless to say I thought my stage debut was a smashing success but I have to wonder now if I came across not so much a star on the rise as a poor schizophrenic 7-year-old kid who should probably be taken to social services.

THE SONGS
Long love the Liv! I am not afraid to admit I love Olivia Newton-John. She has been with me since I was just a wee tyke. I have loved her through her Australian take on American country in the early 70s, her never been mellowness of the middle 70s and her hot leather panted totally hotness of the late 70s. I begged and pleaded to be part of the leg warmer sweatband Olivia craze of the 80s, I stood by her sultriness of the late 80s, I reveled in her trashiness in Sordid Lives, fought along with her during her breast battles and even cried during her tortured performance as a mannequin come to life in Mom For Christmas.

Through all of her incarnations, she will forever be Sandy Olsen the shy girl who changed her entire personality for the sole purpose of getting it on with a T Bird. But though Grease was my first real glimpse of how cool she could be, I most definitely have followed her music career and whether you want to believe me or not, this little Aussie girl has an awful lot to offer.

Ultimate Olivia was made last year after I found a DVD of Olivia videos at a very reasonable price at Amoeba music. On it were little vignettes of Olivia singing “A Little More Love” and “Deeper Than The Night” then a full on staged video of “Totally Hot.” I had also recently found a remastered version of her 1978 album Totally Hot and realized how cool it was. This was her first post Grease album and it was the beginning of her real claim to charts fame with catchy little pop songs and a sexy little attitude.

I realized that though there were a number of compilations available none of them had my very favorite songs on them. Even Back To Basics, a 1992 comp from the Liv camp forgot to include some of my more favorite and forgotten songs like “Tied Up” and “Livin’ In Desperate Times.” My gal pal Jen from the Valley (Valene if you know her well) is also a big fan of Miss Liv so I thought I’d make a comp we could both enjoy, and so became Ultimate Olivia.

As I’ve said before I’m not a huge fan of chronological order compilations so I thought I’d mix this one up a bit. I also wanted to make sure I got all those rarities and album tracks that I so loved, so a few of the Newton’s hits had to go – most of which were the country and adult contemporary 70s stuff.

We begin the comp with one of her all time greatest songs, “A Little More Love.” With its popping guitar and Liv’s screams through the end, it is a classic gem. It was the lead single from the Totally Hot album and became a #3 hit. Totaly Hot is my second fav album by our girl led only by 1981’s Physical of course.

The other two songs from that enormously popular hot album on Ultimate Olivia are “Deeper Than The Night” another hit single and the title track. Anyone who hasn’t heard the title track (or hasn’t heard it in a while) really needs to check it out. It’s a piano driven countrified pop song with Olivia singing fast and high as “it’s so hot, totally hot, you got to me, baby, baby so hot, totally hot, you got to me! Give me what you got ready or not my love is totally hot.” Awesome!

In order to make sure I had my ultimate fav singles, I put them on the very beginning of the CD. Immediately following “A Little More Love” is one of my all time favs, “Heart Attack” which I’ve always felt was Olivia’s best single of the 80s.

The song is so clever yet so simple. It begins with a drum and cymbal combo that I always end up humming for days, “Da da da dunt shhh shh da da dunt shhh shh” before Olivia starts cooing, “My mouth is dry, my legs are weak, thank goodness that I can speak/I’m looking at you/you’re looking at me/you must think that I’m just crazy” and then she picks it up a notch, “If you only knew/what you’re putting me through/you’re giving me a Heart Attack.”

People may have forgotten how brilliant and catchy this song is (not real fans of course) and though it’s a short little 3 minutes, Olivia’s vocals and the dark intensity of its 1982 pop formula are basically friggin’ brilliant. “Must have died and gone to Heaven/what a way to gooooo….” “You’re giving me a Heart Attack.” And so are you Miss Newton-John.

The song was done for 1982’s Greatest Hits Volume 2, a ten-song compilation that had all of her hits from 1978 to date. Of course this was meant to cash in on her Grease/Totally Hot/Xanadu stuff. Two new songs were recorded for the package, “Heart Attack” and “Tied Up.”

Once again, I love “Tied Up” and feel it’s one of her more overlooked ditties. Perhaps because it’s so similar in sound to “Heart Attack” people forget about it. But not this boy. It was one I absolutely had to put on the compilation. “Tied up in promises/ooo Tied Up in what you got to be/Tied Up in promises we could never keep.”

The song is all about an adulterous relationship from what I can tell and that’s always something I liked to hear about. Around this time, Olivia had perfected a pop formula where her songs all contained the verse, then a bridge to a chorus, this gave her the opportunity to fade out a song without having to repeat the same chorus over and over.

This formula is featured in “A Little More Love”, “Make A Move On Me” and this song. It really worked for our girl and it worked for me too. In “Tied Up” the verses begin with Olivia’s standard cooing, “You keep me waiting/I don’t mind waiting” “This is a one time situation/you say you need me/I believe you need me/but you’re fooling no one/this is a one time situation” then the beat changes as she reminds her man, “what does it matter when you’ve got two hearts aching to begin.” Then the bridge which is brilliant, “Here’s your opportunity/come and take it to the nth degree…” Did I mention I love it?

In 1980, our girl tried her hand at another musical movie. The much bally hooed train wreck that is Xanadu. The movie didn’t do much for Olivia’s acting career but the songs from the soundtrack didn’t crash and burn at all. In fact all the singles released hit the top ten in both the US and UK.

“Magic” was the lead single and though not prominently featured in the film (she’s roller skating to the song when we first meet her character), it is ultimate Olivia if ever there was one. It’s this song that really made me realize how brilliant she could be. I had the 45 and used to listen to it over and over again.

Once I was grounded for something I was probably wrongfully accused of doing and my parents took my stereo out of my room. I had my revenge by putting the stereo in the living room, plugging in my headphones and singing out loud to every song I listened to while my parents tried to watch television. It was Olivia’s “Magic” which finally got me my stereo back.

Incidentally, the flip side of the single was another Xanadu masterpiece called “Fool Country” starting out as a punk rock song it quickly turns into a country song. It was the theme of the movie to combine musical genres and this song captured it as well. The song though was never put on the Xanadu soundtrack for some strange reason. I always loved the song and wanted to put it on this compilation so bad, but the copy I had when I made Ultimate Olivia was shoddy at best. Since then a new Olivia compilation (2 CDs) has been remastered and released including “Fool Country”. So don’t be surprised if another Olivia comp turns up in the bubbatunes collection complete with the masterful “Fool Country.”

So back to the songs we actually have –

Also included from Xanadu is the brilliant ELO written and produced theme song. I love this crazy little ditty. It’s totally Electric Light Orchestra at its very best and Olivia singing lead on it only makes it so much better. As silly as the movie may seem (I personally love it) and even the song’s lyrics you can’t help but sing it over and over once you hear it.

There was another single released from Xanadu called “Suddenly” a duet with Cliff Richard. The songs shows up on numerous compilations but you won’t find it here. I’ve always thought the song was a bore and felt the only reason it was a hit was because those Brits loved Cliff Richard and we needed something slow to couples roller skate to.

Another movie bomb Olivia ended up in was her 1983 Two Of A Kind film. Why this film didn’t make it I’m not quite sure. It had Olivia saying, “This tastes like shit,” a moment I will forever remember and it had an interesting theme. Not to mention Olivia wasn’t her usual sweet self, she was a lying manipulating woman who pretty much caused the end of the world – oh well.

What did come from the movie was two excellent little 1983 synthesized pop gems. “Twist Of Fate” was the huge hit scoring #3 again for the girl. The lyrics are complete 80s madness but not if you know the movie. It’s a little story about getting second chances though you screwed up your whole life – that is the theme of the movie. The song is great and I love anytime Olivia sings really high and screams her little Aussie head off. Fun, fun, fun.

But the fun doesn’t end with that number. The opening number in the movie isn’t the big lead off single but rather the second single, another synthesized drum machine laden pop confection called “Livin’ In Desperate Times.” I had not heard the song since its release in 1984 when I stumbled upon a used 45 of it in Spokane, Washington.

I will never forget jamming the song on my little turntable while my roommate Patrick got ready for work. He came into my room and I expected a little rant about how Olivia Newton-John should not be played in his presence – instead he loved it, the cheesiness, the perfection of it, all of it. I knew then that Patrick was my best friend.

In 1981, I received one of my best Christmas presents ever. The full album Physical. By this time the song and Olivia was everywhere. You couldn’t go anywhere without hearing the song and I had to have it.

My Aunt Carol, who was considered by some in my crazed family to be an outcast, was to me an inspiration. She knew about television, she knew about music, she knew everything. It was Carol who gave me my first Pat Benatar record, it was Carol who let me ransack her record collection and take anything I wanted (Blondie’s Eat To The Beat was the winner), it was Carol I went running to when I got “The Tide Is High” single at Prange Way; and it was Carol who bought me the Physical album.

Carol had come to us one November day asking what we kids wanted for Christmas, I told her I wanted the Physical album, to which my mother later scorned me, “Why didn’t you ask for the single, you don’t need the whole album.” Apparently, my mother was on some form of medication or still drunk from the night before because her reasoning was obviously blurred – why would I want a single when I could have the whole album?

So Christmas came and I got that record. It was a wonderful gift. The album opened up into a gatefold with Olivia in a red dress playing in the ocean. On the inside you turned the record right side up and Olivia was swimming with the dolphins. Inside, Olivia was in various poses of exercising in the water, and on the flip side of that were the lyrics to all the songs.

For the longest time it was the only Olivia Newton-John record I owned besides the Grease soundtrack. Needless to say that thing got played a lot! One of my all time favorite tracks on the album was a little song called “Recovery.”

Hidden at the end of side two, the song had the pop formula Olivia had perfected by 1981 but instead of singing about the environment or sexual escapades, this was a song about loneliness. Only it was done in reverse, though Olivia sang with remorse and longing it was really telling who ever would listen to her that she didn’t need to be part of the real world and all of its ills and woes…

“I live on an island far away/all by myself /there’s no one else…” “Nobody here to make a career of hurting me/deserting me/your crazy life ain’t ever gonna get me…” then the backing boy vocals chime in singing behind Olivia’s “Lover don’t you worry about my Recovery/cause lover you won’t recover me/I’m not too low/I’m not too high/I get by/making my Recovery.”

For a strange 8 year old lost in a world of fake sitcoms and music, I could completely relate to the song. To this day, there is a certain feeling I get when hearing the song. I love it and it was a must have for this compilation.

Of course an Olivia compilation wouldn’t be complete without the mandatory “Physical” song. I don’t know if people really understand the impact this song had on pop culture at the time. It ended up being the biggest selling single of the entire 80s decade, and it came out in 1981! A pretty outstanding feat.

The song was banned in some markets because of its obvious sexual tone, though Olivia made the video into an exercise video. But even the video with its tongue pressed firmly in cheek was rather bold.

Olivia plays an aerobics instructor singing to a group of obese men working out. During the guitar solo, our girl opts to take a shower, while the boys go into full exercise mode and not only lose weight – they become muscular hot studs (should be noted this is 1981’s idea of muscular hot studs so don’t think I’m going into convulsions when I see the red headed mustache of stud #3).

The joke is as Olivia comes back from her shower and realizes how hot all the guys are she is more than ready to get Physical. However, as the video ends, those boys all leave together – taking each other’s hands and walking out the door. Yes, my friends it has to be one of the first gay videos ever.

Olivia sticks her hand out of the door and pulls one stud back in – only to find it’s one of those obese guys from the beginning. Olivia just smiles and shakes her head making us think she is so hot by now, she’ll take what she can get….

The other singles, “Make A Move On Me” and “Landslide” were equally fabulous in their pop moments. The first was very much in vein with “Physical.” Beginning with a synthesized keyboard, the mellow grooves follow as we learn Olivia’s boy takes her out to dinner and talks a fine talk but he won’t love her up the way she wants. She implores to him, “I’m the one you want/that’s all I want to be/so come on baby make a move on me/got nowhere to go/All my time is free/so come on baby Make A Move On Me/I can’t wait/I can’t wait.”

“Landslide” is my second favorite song off of the Physical album. I love it! It’s the first track on the album and was the third single released in the US. It was released in UK instead of “Make A Move On Me” and made a bigger impression there, but it should’ve been a hit worldwide.

Again using the pop formula of all the songs she did during the time, it’s the lyrics and delivery that make this one interesting. Plus it contains an Olivia yelp at the end, and I have to say anytime she does that, it makes me smile with glee.

Starting out with a screaming guitar and jungle drums, the song moves into a slower beat as Olivia sings, “Cold winds rarely blow/here at the end of the rainbow/guess it’s hard to believe/I’d be willing to leeeaave…” but alas she will leave her paradise because “someone walked up behind me/seemed to find me/I saw him standing there/I turned around and saw the face of an angel/I fell/it wasn’t fair/it just wasn’t fair…” and we learn, “He took my heart it was a landslide/my head was saying this is the man/my heart agreed/my minor desires turned into major needs/my needs won’t be denied/it was a landsliiiide…” How I can relate to that!

The song continues through the second verse and chorus and then goes into pure magic. There’s a slowed down bridge with Olivia sounding like she’s tapping into the BeeGees nasal passages (“I’m in Heaven when he’s around/I’m hoping that he might feel the same”) then another chorus before Olivia screams, “It really was a, really was a, you know it was a Landslide…” and the yelping at the end with Olivia screeching, “Landsliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiideeee…” through to the fade out.

Olivia didn’t record another full-length album until 1985’s Soul Kiss. By this time a few other women had upped their world into the world of rock and pop. A certain girl named Madonna was using sex as her weapon knocking out such strong contenders as Pat Benatar, Deborah Harry and our Olivia.

This didn’t stop Olivia from making her most sexual statements to date. Where “Physical” both song and album may have talked about sexuality it was done either with humor or at least subtlety. Not the case with Soul Kiss.

"Culture Shock" finds Olivia all for having a threesome when she gets caught cheating (“I don’t want to lose you/but I’m not going to give him up/why can’t the three of us live together/it’s a Culture Shock/but it’s the only choice we’ve got.”)

The would be sweet ballad with Carl Wilson is titled “You Were Great How Was I?” and the one song which did any kind of chart action was the title track which includes the repeated line, “I get down on my knees and thank you baby/I get down on my knees…” Needless to say I love the album and the song. It’s another one most compilations seem to miss but I’d be damned if I didn’t put on song where I get to drive around singing, “I get down on my knees and thank you baby.”

After Soul Kiss, Olivia again took a long time off from recording. She came back in 1988 with The Rumour which I think is her best album to date. For most of her career Olivia relied on the work of outside writers and producers. Though this obviously paid off for her, you always had to wonder if she was singing from any kind of personal experience or if she was just a voice for other people’s ideas.

With The Rumour, she co-wrote almost every song. The album includes songs about divorce (“It’s Not Heaven” – a narrative spoken to her daughter), role reversals in marriage (“Get Out” – if you can’t take it), the environment, AIDS and other social commentaries. For the first time in her career, I wasn’t just listening to Olivia for entertainment purposes; I was feeling for her and relating to her.

Recently, an Australian record company called Festival Records (Olivia’s only Australian label for her entire career) remastered all of Olivia’s albums including The Rumour. If you can find it (or the original CD version of it) I strongly recommend you get it. You won’t be disappointed.

Despite the heavy themes on the album, there were some catchy little moments. None so brilliant or entertaining as the album’s final cut, “Tutta La Vita”. Set to an Island rhythm the song begins with keyboards and horns and Olivia’s cry, “Twice in a lifetime/if you’re really really lucky/you may discover/why you were brought here/tutta la vita/try to find your destination/search for the truth/try to make communication/all of your life..” the song continues telling the tale of how we all look for purpose in life, but according to Liv, “it’s not on a map/so we all have to muddle through/you can’t get there in a car/not even your BMW..” Incidentally tutta la vita is also “not a mansion in Malibu or a face lift at forty.”

The songs ends with hoops and hollers and horns as we discover, “twice in a lifetime/you’ll know the answer/once when you find love/once when you give love to another…” and the whole thing (like most of The Rumour) has Olivia yelping and screeching. I love it.. and just so you know the line about finding love twice is actually sung “once when you find loooooooooove” once again bringing a big fat tutta la vita to my life.

Olivia began with her country tunes in hand and scoring country music awards much to the chagrin of Nashville’s old farts – many of who left the Country Music Association and created their own branch. None the less, Olivia found success in this early venue but it was the cross overs that made her the star.

The biggest song to come out of this early incarnation was “I Honestly Love You”. Tacked onto her 1974 If You Love Me country album, the Peter Allen/Jeff Barry song shot to number one on country and pop charts and though it’s sweetness is tooth decaying, it’s actually a tragic little song about two lovers who can’t be together because “there you are with yours and here I am with mine.”

Knowing that Peter Allen was a grade A homosexual kind of gives new meaning to this song for me. Wondering if perhaps this is one of the songs where Olivia is speaking from the heart – someone else’s heart nonetheless – and telling us a true tragic story of star crossed gay lovers who can’t be together because of 1974 Hollywood stigmas.

After the success of “I Honestly Love You” Olivia began to branch more to the adult contemporary foray. The next big album Have You Never Been Mellow spawned the title track that I love so.

"Have You Never Been Mellow" tells the tale of someone who keeps moving too fast and won’t slow down to take in the world. It makes me want to smoke pot and perhaps that’s why it was such a big hit in 1975, I’m probably not the first person to feel that way. In fact, Olivia’s vocals make me think she may have even been toking in the booth on that day.

Between 1974 and her starring role in Grease in 1978, Olivia released about six albums. Every six months it seemed she had new mellowness to bestow upon adult radio. The hits began to dry out but that doesn’t mean there weren’t some worthy moments.

Of the mellow mid seventies Olivia, one of my fav songs is “Sam.” I knew a Sam when I was a kid so I was pretty impressed Olivia would sing a song about that Moeschler girl who lived across the street. I would later find out the song wasn’t about my Sam at all but I still think of that girl when I hear this song.

In 1992 Olivia began coming full circle. She released a greatest hits album called Back To Basics that included a slew of new songs mixed in with old favorites. The album, new songs and the classics alike, combined the country flavors of Olivia with the pop dance stuff.

One of the new songs recorded was “Not Gonna Be The One” which gives me a big thrill as it has what I call a breakdown in the middle of it. The music falls away and only Olivia is there singing, “Not gonna be the one that you call/not gonna take the fall/for all your indecision…” It’s catchy, it’s sassy, it’s fun.

Lest we forget what brought me into the Olivia world and you into my endless rant for today, I tapped into that Grease soundtrack for Ultimate Olivia. The first single from the film was Olivia’s “Hopelessly Devoted To You” which finds our girl not only still holding onto her innocence in the film but also in real life Olivia holds onto her mellow 70s sound.

Then with the Bradley Jacobson solo debut and Olivia’s first real pop monster hit we get the duet “You’re The One That I Want” – it was the biggest hit of the 70s in Europe and I’m sure the sales from the record here Stateside did everyone involved a world of good. No matter how many times I think I’m sick of hearing this song, once that opening music starts I’m hooked and dancing around looking for those tight black pants I know I still have.

We return to an Olivia singing movie role for Ultimate Olivia’s final cut. The Del Shores movie (originally a play) Sordid Live is about a southern Baptist Texas family on the cusp of a funeral. In LA, the main character discusses with his therapist how his family doesn’t know he’s gay while back home the whole family deals not only with their gay brother Brother Boy, but also the death of a family member who died while having an affair with a neighbor’s husband.

Del Shores is a huge Olivia Newton-John and invited her to be in the movie playing a recently paroled lounge singer at the local tavern. Olivia, with a bad bleached dye job, smacks gum and sings country songs while speaking in a twang. The movie is a riot and so is the theme song so spiritually sung by our girl.

It’s a pure country knock off with Olivia cursing and this fan loving every second of it. It's so good, I not only ended Ultimate Olivia with it, I'm going to end my post with a few lines of its delicious lyrics. I think these are lyrics that everyone can relate to:

Olivia begins with a few strums of her guitar:

“Now who’s to judge who’s a saint and who’s a sinner
Lord, it’s tough enough to drudge from brunch to dinner
We seek the light of truth between our white lies
We sleep away our youth under tattle tale skies”

Then the guitar twang and the piano kicks in:

“Now who’s to say who’s a sinner and who’s a saint
Who’s to say who you can love and who you can’t
Now it’s easy for the pot to call the kettle black
When they’re jealous of the hard and lustrous sordid lives they lack

Ain’t it a bitch sorting out our sordid lives
It’s a bitch when you come to realize
Get yourself a box of cracker jacks
Looking at a really shitty prize
It’s a bitch sorting out our sordid lives.”

And remember, “the Lord’s too busy trying to keep the world on its feet/
He ain’t got time to give a damn about what goes on between the sheets…”

And if Miss Goody Two Shoes Sandy Olsen can say that, then you can all bet it’s the God’s honest truth!

posted by swivek @ 9:03 AM