If you’ve been following along, you know that since the beginning of the year, we’ve been releasing a new cover song by *Smallpox* every other week, which we are offering for a dollar each, or for $18 for the entire album, imaginatively called _The Covers Album_.

We can promise you that there will be some surprises, and this week’s cover is one of them: Olivia Newton-John’s “Hopelessly Devoted To You,” popularized on the soundtrack to the movie _Grease_.

And while the _Grease_ soundtrack can be found for fifty cents in the used bin of every record store in America, the Smallpox version of this song is only available “here”:https://dromedaryrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-covers-album.

From Daniel Smith of *Smallpox*:

_”No fuckin’ way, dude.”

That was Bob’s (Smallpox drummer Bob Diamond) response about that one. Actually, at first I think he thought it was a joke and just laughed at me. Luckily, his girlfriend at the time was a huge _Grease_ fan.

For the record, it wasn’t a joke. Nor was it meant to be ironic in a hipster kind of way. My childhood crush on Olivia Newton-John goes back to 1974 (way before the movie, in kid years). And as much as I’ve never really been a big fan of country music, I’ve always been a sucker for female vocalists: off the top of my head, Karen Carpenter, Connie Francis, Rita Coolidge, Roberta Flack, Skeeter Davis, Pat Benatar, Teri Nunn, Dale Bozzio, Aimee Mann, Sade, Sinead O’Connor, Fiona Apple, Sara McLachlan, Tori Amos, Liz Phair, Imogen Heep, Bjork, Lana Del Rey…

But growing up, I was in fucking love with Olivia Newton-John. And there goes any street credit that I once might’ve had._