About this song
- "Physical" is a song by singer Olivia Newton-John from her eleventh album of the same name. It was released as the album's lead single on September 23, 1981. The song was produced by John Farrar and written by Steve Kipner and Terry Shaddick, who had originally intended to offer it to Rod Stewart. The song had also been offered to Tina Turner by her manager Roger Davies, but when Tina declined, Davies gave the song to Olivia, another one of his clients. "Physical" (originally "Let's Get Physical") was initially intended for a "macho male rock figure like Rod Stewart", according to Kipner. When Olivia's then manager Lee Kramer accidentally heard the demo, he immediately sent the song to her, and she became interested in recording it. Olivia recalled that she later had misgivings about the song because of its innuendos and asked that the song be pulled from release. However, she was told it was too late and the song was already performing well on the charts. The song's guitar solo was performed by Steve Lukather, best known as a founding member of pop band Toto. The song sparked controversy due to it's implied sexual subject matter, with it also being innovative and provocative for the time. The song's suggestive lyrics were heavily censored and even banned in some markets, and helped change Olivia's longstanding clean-cut image, to a sexier and more assertive persona that was strengthened with follow-up hits like "Make A Move On Me", "Twist Of Fate" and "Soul Kiss". The song's accompanying music video for Physical, directed by Brian Grant, finds Olivia as a trainer dressed in a tight leotard trying to make several overweight men lose weight. The men fail comically and Olivia leaves the room to take a shower, when the men work out on their own, they suddenly transform into muscular, attractive men. A stylistic shot shows a muscular man glancing at his overweight self in a mirror. Olivia is shocked when she returns and starts to flirt with them. Two of the men secretly go out, holding hands, implying they are gay. This surprises Olivia, as does the sight of two more of the men leaving with their arms around each other. Finally, she finds that the last of the overweight men is heterosexual and they run off to play tennis together. A revamped bossa-nova version of the song was released on Olivia's 2002 album (2) as a bonus track, and this version replaced the original in Olivia's tours. Her duet with Jane Lynch was included in the episode "Bad Reputation" on the television series Glee. Physical's chorus is heavily interpolated on Doja Cat's "Kiss Me More" featuring SZA in 2021. It was also interpolated on Benson Boone's "Mystical Magical" in 2025. Physical's chorus was similar in the song "Physical" by Melissa B. in 2022. Physical jumped from #14 to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 the week of November 14, 1981, the following week it rose to #1 and remained for a staggering 10 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 between November & December 1981 & January 1982. It became Olivia's most successful song and her fifth & most recent #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100. Physical at the time tied Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life" for the record of the longest running #1 song in the Billboard Hot 100's history, and became the most successful song on the Billboard in the 1980s. Physical was both preceded and followed on the #1 chart position with songs by pop duo Hall & Oates, with "Private Eyes" being dethroned by Physical on the week of November 21, 1981 and Physical being overthrown by the duo's follow-up single "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" on the week of January 23, 1982. It was during this time that Physical blocked Foreigner's "Waiting for a Girl Like You" from reaching the top spot of the Hot 100 for 9 weeks and "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" later rose above & also blocked "Waiting for a Girl Like You" from the #1 spot, keeping it stalled at #2 for a tenth consecutive week. Physical remained in the top-10 for a total of 15 weeks, thus making it the longest run of 1981, as well as tying it for the longest run of the decade among #1 singles. Billboard ranked "Physical" at #1 on its Billboard Year-End list of 1982, mainly because the tracking week of the chart started in November when it first rose to the top, Physical also ranked #6 on its "All Time Top 100" list, #1 on its "Top 50 Sexiest Songs of All Time" list, and #1 on its "Top 100 Songs of the 1980s" list. . User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply. — lastfm
- "Physical" is a song recorded by British-Australian singer Olivia Newton-John for her 1981 eleventh studio album of the same name. It was released as the album's lead single in 1981. The song was produced by John Farrar and written by Steve Kipner and Terry Shaddick, who had originally intended to offer it to Rod Stewart. — wikipedia
Chart history
Peak position and weeks on chart across Australian community countdowns.
| Chart | Peak | Most recent | Weeks on |
|---|---|---|---|
| ARIA Top 20 Australian Albums | #13 | 2022-08-22 (#15) | 3 |
Featured in
- episode · film
- Glee · tv_show
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