Have You Never Been Mellow by Olivia Newton-John

Album: Have You Never Been Mellow (1975)

Charted: 1

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Songfacts®:

In this song, the singer is trying to convince a type-A, high-strung person in her life not to take everything so hard. "Have you never been mellow?" she asks him, perhaps rhetorically. >>
Suggestion credit:
Mike - Santa Barbara, CA
This was written by Australian musician and songwriter John Farrar, who was a member of the group The Shadows. He wrote many of Olivia Newton-John's hits, including "Hopelessly Devoted To You" and "Magic."
Inspiration struck while Farrar was on tour with Newton-John in America. "All the guys in the band were using 'mellow' as their favorite word," he recalled to Billboard.
This was used in the 2006 "Spit & Eggs" episode of Veronica Mars. It was also featured in the 1998 thriller Disturbing Behavior, starring James Marsden and Katie Holmes.
Newton-John earned a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, but lost to Janis Ian for "At Seventeen."
Olivia introduced this song in Las Vegas by saying, "About every 10 years, a really fantastic song comes along. And until it does, I'd like to sing one of mine..."

Comments: 7

Leann Your Baby Sis! from Collierville Martha this us from me to you. I love you more than u can imagine. I could not realize my life without U. This is so us my Big Sis!

Love you
More
LeAnn “LeLe”
Paul from Detroit, MiYou're kidding, Mark.... everything about her voice sounds beautiful in this, her best vocal of all time. Well, "Magic" is a very close second.
Mary from Phoenix, AzI love the way she sings "...kick yer shoes off"
Andrew from Birmingham, United StatesThis song is apparently about trying to convince someone to sit back and take it easy. It uses some sort of soft disco beat, which is ironically common. Some way, somehow, that trend began - but I don't know how. I just think it's sorta catchy.
Richard from Bronx, NyI suggest looking her up on You Tube she has plenty of live performances there her voice is Amazing.
Chris from Saline, MiJohn Farrar has said he was inspired to come up with a song including the word "mellow" in the title because when Olivia was on tour in America in 1974, her backing musicians used the word all the time. The song went to #1 in the U.S. (and even hit #3 on the Country charts), plus was Olivia's singles chart debut in Japan where it made #26 on Oricon. But it was not all that successful elsewhere; it didn't chart at all in the U.K.
Mark from Lancaster, OhIt was this particular effort that led me to believe that Olivia Newton-John really can't sing all that well, or at least not right when they were recording this. The lower register of her voice just sort of crashes on the words 'I was like you.'

But she's quite a lady, and besides that her grandfather was Max Born, the great physicist.

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