Thursday, April 28, 2016

X is for Xanadu

When I was 7 or 8 years old, my mother took me to G.C. Murphy's, where I purchased my very first LP album with my own money.  That album was Olivia Newton-John's Greatest Hits Volume II.


I remember playing that record on my "blue jean pocket" record player that, if I'm not mistaken, came from Sears.


The last song on the album was a song called Xanadu.  


I had no idea that the song Xanadu was the theme song from the "romantic musical fantasy"  film of the same name that also starred Olivia Newton-John. According to several online sources, the film was pretty much a flop, but the soundtrack was a big commercial success.  I've never seen the movie, so I can't attest to how bad it is or isn't.


During the time when I was playing Olivia's album on my uber cool blue jean pocket record player, the only thing I knew about Xanadu was that it was the name of what my father called a "disco" in Myrtle Beach, SC.  He had a t-shirt that featured the nightclub's name on the back. It looked like this:

Via
It wasn't until I started composing this piece that I learned that Xanadu was also the name of the summer capital of Kublai Khan's Yuan Dynasty.

I suspect that Xanadu might be a very popular post topic for those participating in the A to Z Blogging Challenge due to the challenge of finding topics to write about that start with the letter X.  But, then again, a lot of folks may choose to wax poetically about x-rays, Xena the Warrior Princess, X-Men, or xylophones.

Are you familiar with the song or the movie Xanadu?

As always, thanks for stopping by!



This is the twenty-fourth of twenty-six alphabetized blog entries I am publishing this month as a part of the 2016 Blogging A to Z Challenge.  Many bloggers who participate in this challenge, select a theme.  My theme is - "Whatever I Think Of."  

For more information on the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge, click here.

9 comments:

  1. All correct. I wrote about Xena today.
    I also saw the film Xanadu, my sister loved watching it. It wasn't bad, but it was a musical and I never used to be into musicals so much. But I did like the soundtrack. I don't know what ever became of the cassette, but I do remember my friends sister owning the LP of it.

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    1. I'll have to check our your Xena post. I fell asleep EARLY yesterday evening and didn't get a chance to respond to comments or to check our a few other blogs. Thanks for stopping by!

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  2. I never saw the film, but I like a lot of the songs from the soundtrack.

    Arlee Bird
    A to Z Challenge Co-host
    Tossing It Out

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  3. There's also a poem about Xanadu by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

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  4. Like you, I didn't see the movie, but loved the song. I think that is a fairly common phenomena. I've heard the movie was "not great."

    Isn't it funny how you never forget your first record you bought??? Mine was Grease. Ironically, or maybe not, still Olivia Newton-John.

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    1. I still remember clutching my $5 bill in my handing and slowing handing it over to the cashier!

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  5. I had to let you know that I saw the title of this on my Feedly yesterday and didn't get to open it but have been singing Xanadu in ever since (just the word) and my co-workers are ready to murder me.

    Happy weekend! LOL

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