I Honestly Love You

Steyn On-line ^ | January 26, 2020 | Mark Steyn

[Twotone]

Happy Australia Day to our readers Down Under. The future shows up so fast in Oz that it's already Post-Australia Day in Australia, but the national holiday takes longer to work its way around to my neck of the woods, and the great merit of our tardy overseas jubilations is that they don't seem to be afflicted by the paroxysms of self-loathing, virtue-signaling and guilt-tripping with which the Aussie media now observe the occasion (which may be why my old chum Julie Bishop is celebrating the day from the safe distance of Earl's Court).

Anyway, this is the first Australia Day since Olivia Newton-John pulled off an impressive double: in the Queen's Birthday Honours last June, she was made a Companion of the Order of Australia; in the Queen's New Year Honours a couple of weeks back, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. I am not generally in favor of knighthoods for rockers, but, since they seem de rigueur, I'll take Dame Olivia before most of the alternatives. (I'm having a run of bad luck at the bookies, but I'll bet on Dame Kylie before the Twenties are out.) We all love Livvy, not just for the early stuff but also the luster of her presence in the more recent undoubted Australian cinematic masterpiece A Few Best Men.

So it seems appropriate to pick a Newton-John smasheroo for our Australia Day Song of the Week. Unfortunately, most of her greatest hits were written by either UK songwriters (including our friend Don Black) or US songwriters (Grease).

[Rummyfan]

Olivia Neutron-Bomb was quite the hottie back in the day.

[dp0622]

So was I, what good does that do me now? :)

[Albion Wilde]

Mark Steyn is such a wonderful writer, conveying a wealth of detail studded by gems from his vast vocabulary.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Didn’t her last boyfriend have to fake his death to get away from her?

[Twotone]

This wasn’t one of my favorite songs. But she did have some good ones. The comment about ‘white bread’ is hysterical.

[SamAdams76]

If she had married her “Grease” co-star, her name might have been Olivia Newton-John Travolta.

[Viking2002]

Olivia Newton-John a 'rocker'? Mark, you must have your brain stuck on AM Top 40, circa 1979. Throw her in with Captain & Tennille, Air Supply, and a thousand other 'yacht rock' (and I use the term 'rock' as loosely as a public housing brood mare's womb) acts, and there you have the genesis of a merciful decade of classic 80's and early 90's MTV bands who didn't want to make you slit your effing wrists.

Too bad MTV degenerated into an obscure B-list cable outlet that promoted Seattle based, shoe-gazing, flannel-wearing dropouts from society, knocked-up, jailbait LA barrio chicks, and three foot tall elfin sluts. The most culturally significant contribution it's made in the last 25 years is a forgotten pair of animated pubescent dimbulbs. If I wanted this, I'd have stayed married to the gangrenous little broom pilot I married two decades prior. Prophetic in it's way, I suppose.......

[Eagles6]

Let he who has not faked his own death or had a woman do it to him...

I did it to get out of that Columbia Record House mail order thingy back in the 70s.

[Jack Hammer]

I’ve met and befriended several Ozzies. Great folks. Top hole, all of ‘em.

[Twotone]

The column is more about the song-writer & singer than the song. He always has interesting tidbits that I find amusing.