28 September 1981, Los Angeles: the single “Physical” by Olivia Newton-John is released on MCA Records. Five weeks later - #1 Billboard Hot 100. And it holds there for 10 consecutive weeks. It's the longest run at #1 Billboard Hot 100 of the entire 1980s - a record no one would break in the 80s. Only in 1992 would Whitney Houston's “I Will Always Love You” hold for 14 weeks - a decade and a half after “Physical”. For Newton-John it was her fourth Billboard #1 and her most controversial: the BBC and many US radio stations tried to ban the track for the “over-eroticism” of the lyric. Global sales by end 1982: 8 million copies. Billboard named “Physical” its #1 single of 1981 and included it in the top 20 best-selling singles of all time.
Who Olivia Newton-John was before 1981
Olivia Newton-John was born on 26 September 1948 in Cambridge, England. In 1954 her family moved to Melbourne, Australia. From 15 she sang in the cover group The Sol Four, at 17 she returned to England and signed with Decca Records. The first four singles of 1966-1970 flopped, until in 1971 “If Not for You” (a Bob Dylan cover) reached #7 UK.
1978 - Grease with John Travolta. Two singles from the film hit #1 Billboard: “You're the One That I Want” and “Summer Nights”. From 1978 to 1980 Newton-John had three Billboard #1s (including “Magic” in 1980) and status as one of America's leading female pop stars. But by early 1981 her career was heading for a dip: her last two 1980 singles had not made the top 10.
Producer John Farrar, who had worked with Newton-John since 1971, proposed a radical image shift: from folk-country-ballad singer to cool-sex-aerobic-pop. The album Physical was planned exactly that way.
How Steve Kipner wrote the track
“Physical” was written by two Los Angeles songwriters: Steve Kipner (born 1950) and Terry Shaddick (1944-2017). They had worked together since 1978, writing for Manilow, Rod Stewart, Manhattan Transfer. The idea for “Physical” came to Kipner in June 1981, watching Jane Fonda's aerobic TV show - “Jane Fonda's Workout” was just becoming a trend.
Kipner's original lyric was conceived as “a sexual metaphor for sport”: “Let's get physical” - a double meaning, both fitness and sex. Kipner showed the demo to Rod Stewart and Tina Turner - both declined. Tina Turner said: “too provocative for my audience”.
John Farrar heard the demo in a studio in July 1981 and immediately offered it to Newton-John. She hesitated for two weeks - her manager Helen Reddy warned her that “this will destroy your family-singer image”. The decisive argument was that the double meaning let the listener choose the interpretation.
“I asked myself: what's worse? To record a bold song that might be a hit, or a safe ballad that might flop? I chose the first. After that track my career never went back to the old image - thank god”, - Olivia Newton-John in People Magazine, 2017.
Tracking at Record Plant - August 1981
Recording ran 2-11 August 1981 at Record Plant in Los Angeles. Producer - John Farrar, engineer - Terry Dunson. Budget - US$85,000. Tracking took 9 days.
- Yamaha CS-80 - chorus string pad
- Sequential Prophet-5 - bass line
- LinnDrum LM-1 - drum machine (a rare early LM-1 appearance in a top pop production)
- Fender Stratocaster - guitar (Toby Chapman)
- Bass guitar - Music Man StingRay, live (Bob Birch)
- Neve 8078 32-channel console
Newton-John tracked vocals on 7 August, 14 takes in one day. Farrar insisted on a “half-hushed” vocal - no wide range, no operatic notes. Newton-John speaks more than she sings on the record.
The lyric scandal
The single came out 28 September 1981. In the first week BBC Radio 1 put the track in unrestricted daytime rotation - British editors didn't immediately read the lyric's double meaning. In America, Utah station KCBY-FM and 11 other Bible Belt stations banned the track immediately. The reason - the line “I wanna get physical, I wanna get into you” (alternately read as about sex).
In South Africa and Saudi Arabia “Physical” was banned outright. In Mormon Utah the track could only play after 10 PM. But that scandal turned the single into a #1 hit: banned tracks always sell better.
The video and the Billboard record
The video, directed by Brian Grant for $180,000, depicted a gym where Newton-John worked out with overweight men. In the final frames the men turned into slim athletes and walked into the locker room together in pairs. It was possibly the first visual pop video in mainstream TV history to carry a homosexual subtext.
MTV (launched 1 August 1981) put the clip in heavy rotation in mid-October. The single reached #1 Billboard Hot 100 on 21 November 1981 and held there until 23 January 1982 - 10 consecutive weeks.
Numbers
- US: #1 Billboard Hot 100, 10 weeks (November 1981 - January 1982); 2× platinum
- UK: #7 UK; 400,000 copies
- Canada: #1 RPM, 7 weeks
- Australia: #1, 4 weeks
- New Zealand: #1, 8 weeks
- West Germany: #13
- Japan: #4 Oricon
- Total global sales by end 1982: 8 million copies
- Billboard Year-End 1982: #1 single of the year
Spotify 2024 - over 480 million streams. YouTube video - 67 million views.
“Physical” as a cultural phenomenon
The track coincided with the launch of the aerobic revolution in the US. In September 1981 Jane Fonda released the first “Jane Fonda's Workout” video - it would sell 17 million VHS copies by 1984. By end of 1982, fitness centres had opened in 45% of American cities. “Physical” became the unofficial anthem of the era.
Up to “Physical”, American pop female singers had mostly built their image as romantic/family types. Newton-John with “Physical” opened the road for “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper (1983), “Like a Virgin” by Madonna (1984), “What's Love Got to Do with It” by Tina Turner (1984) - every female pop singer whose 80s commercial image was built on sexual agency rather than passive romance.
After “Physical”
The next Newton-John single “Make a Move on Me” (1982) - #5 Billboard. The album Physical sold 10 million copies worldwide, 4× platinum US. But she never matched the 10-weeks-at-#1 success. By 1985 her hits no longer hit the top 20; by 1990 she had gone into semi-retirement.
In 1992 Newton-John was diagnosed with breast cancer. She went through treatment and performed with a limited schedule until 2017, when the cancer returned. She died on 8 August 2022 in California, aged 73. In Australia a state funeral was held for her.
“Physical was banned by half the radio stations and changed my career forever. It's the song I was criticised for most and the one I'm proudest of”, - Olivia Newton-John in her autobiography Don't Stop Believin' (2018).
Related: “Billie Jean” Michael Jackson, “Call Me” Blondie, “Take My Breath Away” Berlin. “Physical” is a Billboard record that stood for 11 years, until Whitney Houston's “I Will Always Love You” in 1992. 10 weeks at #1 with one song - more than “Thriller”, “Billie Jean”, “Bette Davis Eyes”, and “Total Eclipse of the Heart” combined in their peak years. A twice-expatriated Australian-British singer turned into an American pop icon, with a controversial fitness hit - one of the strangest commercial triumphs of the early 80s.