“Summer Nights” is a popular song from the musical Grease. Written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, its best-known version was recorded by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John for the big-screen adaptation of the musical, and released as a single that same year.
“Summer Nights” became a massive hit in both the United States and United Kingdom during the summer of 1978. Included on the movie’s soundtrack album, the song was one of several hit singles from the movie. Parts of the song were introduced to a new audience when it was re-released in the 1990s as part of a megamix of several songs from the movie version.
In the movie version of Grease, Travolta and Newton-John played the lead roles of Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson.
The song’s genesis stems from a summertime love affair between Danny and Sandy, which had ended upon Sandy’s revelation that she was moving back to Australia with her family. However, Sandy soon learns that her family is staying in the United States and subsequently enrolls at Rydell High School, where Danny is also a student.
(In the original stage version, Sandy Dumbrowski, who like many other characters in the play is a Catholic of Polish descent, originally attends parochial school. Danny, on the other hand, lied to her and claimed to attend Lake Forest Academy, a prestigious real-life private school in Chicago. Sandy’s parents’ decision to pull her out of Catholic school and put her in public Rydell High exposes Danny’s ruse.)
However, it quickly becomes clear that there are unresolved feelings of love between Danny and Sandy
“Summer Nights” reached No. 5 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and spent two weeks at No. 3 on Cash Box Top 100. The song was an even bigger hit in the UK, spending seven weeks at No. 1. Combined with an earlier nine-week run with “You’re the One That I Want,” the Travolta-Newton-John duet team spent 16 weeks at No. 1 during 1978 in the UK.
In 2004 it finished at #70 in AFI’s 100 Years…100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema.
In 2010, Billboard ranked it No. 9 on their “Best Summer Songs of All Time” list
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