In 1975 on Broadway and again on screen, Meat Loaf came out of the freezer riding a motorbike and his character Eddie burst into song - 'Hot Patootie - Bless My Soul'. Unfortunately, although he's already scarred and mangled Eddie then comes to a grisly end by being chopped into pieces by Dr. Frank-N-Furter. The Rocky Horror biker was like a pre-cursor to the part Meat played in the first song on his debut studio album, both the song and the album bearing the same name - 'Bat Out of Hell'.
In the song the biker has one last night with his girl before he leaves at the crack of dawn. He gets on his silver black phantom bike and rides 'faster than any other boy has ever gone', but all he can think of is his girl and he doesn't see the bend in the road. The sun comes up and he's lying under his bike, which is on fire. He looks down at his broken body and sees his heart beating, then he gives in to the inevitable and feels himself breaking out of his body and flying away ... 'Like a bat out of hell'.
So, two songs, two motorcycles, two deaths. My advice to Meat Loaf would be, don't ride bikes.
"Boy: On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
Girl: Yes.
Boy: I bet you say that to all the boys..."
'You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)' has a spoken intro but then breaks into a full-throated guitar driven belting theatrical hot and heavy love song with chorus breaks and a clap-along sing-along rousing finish. Fun fact: that's NOT Meat Loaf speaking at the opening. The intro was said to be done by Jim Steinman but there's strong support for it being Todd Rundgren and an actress, Marcia McClain.
'All Revved Up With No Place To Go' is another hard hitting story within a song, but for me the most outstanding element to the whole track is the legend that is Edgar Winter playing the saxophone. He did the same on a couple of other tracks too. Magic.
"I want you, oh, I need you
But there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you
Now don't be sad, cause two out of three ain't bad".
Oh, that's harsh. This is one of those songs that is so easy to get wrong. You start off with Meat telling his girl that 2 out of 3 ain't bad, he wants her and needs her but he'll never love her. It's only by the third verse you realise why. He says clearly that there's only one girl he'll ever love and years ago it was her who said the same to him, leaving him broken and incapable of a full commitment. You can hear it in his voice as the song builds. A power ballad in every sense of the word.
"Though it's cold and lonely in the deep dark night
I can see paradise by the dashboard light"
'Paradise By the Dashboard Light' is a book of three chapters, a play of three acts, a lifetime together based on a single promise.
It's also the only classic rock standard that includes a baseball play-by-play as part of the lyric. Phil Rizzuto, famed New York Yankees announcer calling the game as the pressure builds on the field and in the car where the young couple reach boiling point and the player and the boy both head for home. Suddenly the announcer stops without giving a result of the play at the same time as the girl shouts "Stop right there".
She wants to step back, get a commitment. "I gotta know right now before we go any further do you love me? Will you love me forever?" He's cornered, desperate and answers "Let me sleep on it and I'll give you an answer in the morning".
After a long and heated back and forth the boy breaks and screams like a trapped animal "I started swearing to my God and on my mother's grave that I would love you to the end of time" followed by a switch back to the present day where that promise is still binding and all he can hope for is the end of time to release him from his vow.
Shakespearean in it's dramatic tone, Wagnerian in it's musical characteristics and at 8 1/2 minutes, epic in it's length.
Jim Steinman was the writer behind all the songs on the album and some of the influences are obvious. Things like the teenage songs about tragedy, 'Leader of the Pack', 'Tell Laura I Love Her', that sort of thing. Surprisingly though, originally he wrote a few of the songs for a rock 'n' roll sci-fi version of Peter Pan. After it's release the song and LP were often compared to Springsteen's 'Born to Run' album. It probably didn't help that Roy Bittan played piano and Max Weinberg was on the drums. They were both members of Springsteen's E Street Band.
Todd Rundgren produced the album and was in the band of musicians and singers playing on the LP. As mentioned, Edgar Winter was in there, along with Rory Dodd (who sang with Bonnie Tyler on another Jim Steinman song, 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'). Ellen Foley sang backup on 4 tracks and was the lead female singer on 'Paradise ..'. After the album came out Karla DeVito replaced Ellen for touring and sang live in concerts. There is confusion about the music video though. Karla appears on the video but the live footage of her was synced with Ellen's studio vocal.
The album has been described as silly to epic and everything in between, but there's no denying that it is worthy of it's standing as one of the best selling best known albums of all time.
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