Grease would be nothing without its musical numbers, but which is the film's best song? Packing in twelve songs - mostly ported over from the Broadway original - it marries infectious high-school energy with a great eye for nostalgic '50s Americana.
Grease is set in the 1950s and adapted from the raunchy stage musical of the same name and stars John Travolta, then at the start of a burgeoning pop music career, and musician Olivia Newton-John, who was new to acting. Telling the tale of a group of high-school kids on the cusp of graduation and navigating the difficulties of puberty, lust, and their values, it's one of the most famous musical movies of all time. And along with the likes of The Greatest Showman, Mamma Mia! and Les Miserables, it is still one of the highest-grossing live-action musicals ever made.
Grease's music has transcended even the limits of the film's cult success, inspiring chart-released covers, an incredibly popular mega-mix, and countless karaoke performances. But which of the musical's songs is the best?
12. Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee (Reprise)
Grease's shortest song is still just as important as the rest of soundtrack because it's how the musical chose to show Sandy deciding to throw away her entire identity to get together with Danny. There's a sad resolution in the lyrics as Sandy sings at the site of Danny's great Greased Lightnin' victory that matches the sadness of what she's deciding. Still, it's nice to hear Olivia Newton-John reclaiming the song that otherwise makes her the target elsewhere in the musical.
11. Sandy
"Sandy" is essentially Danny Zucko's ode to being rejected by Sandy. And while, on the surface, it's about heartbreak, the reality is that this is a teen sex musical (even if Grease's actor's are a lot older), and what Danny is actually torn up about is not being able to "make it" with his intended girlfriend. He's worried about what people will think of him at school on Monday, and not getting laid (which is what the stage musical is all about) more than anything.
And if you missed the subtlety of what he's singing because John Travolta's performance is so convincing (including when he's essentially howling at the moon), there's a handy reminder in the background in the form of the commercial showing a hotdog repeatedly jumping into an open bun.
10. Beauty School Drop-Out
After the opening number by Frankie Vallie, "Beauty School Drop-Out" boasts the second big cameo in Grease in the shape of late 1950s teen idol Frankie Avalon. The song is also the musical's only real morality lesson, as Frenchy (Didi Conn) wrestles with her future and the looming threat of "blowing it" by not sticking in at school and getting an education.
The angel dream sequence is great fun too, particularly seeing the T-Birds and Pink Ladies in full heavenly costume. It's the only hard lesson in the whole musical, with as Frenchy's crush on Avalon crashes into her apparently frivolous dreams. Considering the rest of the film's message, this one sticks out like a thumb.
9. Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee
Most of Grease's songs are mostly good-natured and dedicated to romance or lust (for people or fantasy motor vehicles and the associated bragging rights), but "Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee" is the musical's only openly nasty number. Sung by proto-Mean Girls Pink Lady Betty Rizzo (The West Wing's Stockard Channing) to the gleeful encouragement of her gang, it's a petty attack on the new girl because she represents a threat to the status quo. In that respect, it's just as appropriate for a teen high-school musical as anything about love.
The sequence that comes along with the song is a guilty pleasure too, as mean as it is funny, even as it attacks Sandy for everything that makes her a nice person. And it scores bonus points for sticking with Grease's more adult stage spirit by sneaking in a bonafide dirty word.
8. Hopelessly Devoted To You
In some theories on Grease, Sandy is the musical's biggest victim. By the end, she's given up everything that defined her for a boy, including her morals and her straight-edge lifestyle, and her future married to Danny probably isn't all flying cars. But "Hopelessly Devoted To You" is the answer to why she does it: it's the film's bleeding heart and one of its most emotionally raw songs with a side of self-awareness.
There's an element in the lyrics that would make the song a perfect cover for emo rock outfits like My Chemical Romance, because, curiously, the defining emotion - coupled with Olivia Newton John's isolated performance of it in the movie - is of sadness and not joy.
7. Grease
Commonly misremembered as being called "Grease Is The Word", the opening credits song - sung by the legendary Frankie Valli - is as good as you'd expect from something created by a Bee Gee (Barry Gibb) and the lead singer of the Four Seasons. And the lyrics offer a potted summary of everything the culture at the heart of Grease stands for: passion, defiance, rebellion, and the teenage fight to explore and discover.
That it comes with a repeated refrain of "Grease is the word" and a brilliantly creative animated opening sequence and still manages to capture all of that is a testament to the writing.
6. We Go Together
The final song of Grease, which ends triumphantly with an illogical maiden flight by Greased Lightnin' is one of the most famous nonsense songs ever recorded. It's an anthem for the final, heady days of high-school, with the promise of the future yawning ahead and firm agreements that nobody will ever forget their best friends. The reality that they will lends the song a completely different meaning, but it's hard to ignore the infectious positivity of it all.
Set against the backdrop of the carnival, "We Go Together" is a big number for the big finale, combining every individual element of what makes Grease so enjoyable: youthful energy, a pure message, and a side of silliness.
5. Greased Lightin'
Putting aside how inappropriate it is for a school auto-shop class to focus on making a hot rod, "Greased Lightnin'" is Grease's brilliant ode to youthful masculinity and bravado. While the girls are singing about romance and finding their true place, the T-Birds sing about building their iconic vehicle, which is as much about asserting their dominance with "chicks" as it is with rival gangs.
The song and dance number is John Travolta's opportunity to really show off his T-Bird side, rather than the boyish element that makes Sandy's love for him believable, and the star is irresistibly watchable, cock-sure and smirking as he gyrates and thrusts. The song's greatest achievement, though, is getting everyone to sing about "a fuel injection cut-off and chrome plated rods."
4. Born To Hand Jive
Often overlooked as somehow not a Grease song, on account of it being performed as part of the National Dance-Off hosted at Rydell High, "Born To Hand Jive" is easily one of the musical's best-constructed songs. It's also a Broadway original inclusion, rather than just an addition for the movie adaptation, so it deserves its place in any official ranking just as much as the other songs.
Performed by in-movie band Johnny Casino & The Gamblers (real-life band Sha-Na-Na in disguise), "Born To Hand Jive" is a note-perfect nod to 1950s music and the dance craze. It's a great song on its own, but the choreographed dance routine - thanks to Grease 2 director Patricia Birch - takes it to another level. And fittingly for Grease, Birch has revealed the dance was referred to as the "hand job".
3. Summer Nights
Arguably Grease's second most famous song, "Summer Nights" speaks to the whole story's focus on conflict - of how Sandy and Danny's worlds collide and leans heavily on the humorous differences in how young men and young women view romance. The collision of crude "locker talk," which never quite goes far enough for the T-Birds to be anything but ludicrous, and besotted idealism is the hook. And Rizzo's side serving of cynicism adds a perfect extra bite.
Just as great musical numbers are marked by how well you remember the dance sequence when you hear the song, great songs are defined by their catchiness. And "Summer Nights'" "tell me more, tell me more!" is among the most infectiously singable parts of the entire film, and fans will get to see the story behind it when the Grease prequel Summer Lovin' is released.
2. There Are Worse Things I Could Do
While Danny and Sandy are presented as the heroes of Grease, Rizzo is the most important character, because she's the only one who stays true to herself. She's the only one owning the same behavior that basically every other character is singing about and while she's got a nasty streak, she's the product of her treatment. "There Are Worse Things I Could Do" is a sad, defiant meditation on her condition and on the double standards of the entire culture around her and it's one of the only songs in Grease that helps a character find themself.
It's the musical's most important song in terms of its message and how pertinent it still is for young women and the delivery of the song by Stockard Channing makes the performance really shine.
1. You're The One That I Want
Grease is fundamentally a story about teenage romance and what anyone is willing to give up for the one that they want. While Sandy's transformation into leather-wearing, suddenly smoking vamp is the subject of much debate, the finale of Grease shows that Danny is willing to give up his own image. Ultimately, he's not asked to do so, and even if a compromise might have been nicer, the message there is a pure one of love, which is all wrapped up nicely in "You're The One That I Want."
And crucially, the message of Sandy's power is still in the lyrics. Danny sings about electrifying feelings and "chills" in a thinly veiled allusion to sexual arousal, while Sandy is using that energy against him to tell him what she demands and that he won't get his own way entirely. Yes, it's an anthem for teenage yearning, but it's a toe-tapper that's helped brilliantly by the funhouse dance sequence. And it deserves its place as Grease's best song and the franchise's best (until the Grease's musical prequel comes along).