Today's blue plate special: Meat Loaf
No, not the dish. The singer. (Although I've eaten some meat loaf in my time that could have passed for 58.)
Though he has become a familiar face as a character actor appearing in such films as The Rocky Horror Picture Show (in which his initial appearance onscreen inspires this exchange from the audience: "What's for dinner?" "Meat Loaf!"), Fight Club, and one of my personal guilty pleasures, Leap of Faith those who hit adolescence in the 1970s still revere the man called Loaf for recording one of the seminal albums of the decade, and, indeed, of all time: Bat Out of Hell.
Although this will sound blasphemous to partisans of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, Bat Out of Hell may well be the most perfectly developed concept album in the rock era the most complete synthesis of performer (the Loaf himself, pouring out his soul in every anguished note), producer (Todd Rundgren would never generate anything this consequential on his solo albums), songwriter (Jim Steinman at his bombastic best did anyone else ever cram as much of the dictionary into a rock lyric as Steinman?), even packaging (who, having once seen it, can forget that incredible cover painting by comic artist Richard Corben?).
And the songs...oh, my goodness, the songs...
- Bat Out of Hell: A biker, a babe, a breakup, and flaming death in a heap of twisted metal.
Nothing ever grows in this rotten old hole
Wasn't everyone's adolescent experience fraught with angst like this? Well, maybe not, except maybe those goth kids with the dyed-black hair and chrome handlebars through their noses. And that's probably a good thing.
And everything is stunted and lost
And nothing really rocks
And nothing really rolls
And nothing's ever worth the cost
And I know that I'm damned if I never get out
And maybe I'm damned if I do
But with every other beat I got left in my heart
You know I’d rather be damned with you - You Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night): Probably the weakest track on the album, but even the one clinker is a diamond in the rough.
While you were lickin' your lips
Then again, I've never been partial to lipstick. And what was that wacked-out spoken-word intro all about?
And your lipstick shinin'
I was dyin' just to ask for a taste
Oh, we were lyin' together in a silver linin'
By the light of the moon
You know there's not another moment
Not another moment
Not another moment to waste - Heaven Can Wait: One of the truly transcendent rock and roll love ballads. Simply orchestrated with a piano and Meat Loaf's matchless voice wringing every drop of pathos out of the lyrics.
Give me all of your dreams and
I'm not the most sentimental cuss on God's green earth, and especially not about the misbegotten poetry of rock song lyrics, but this one chokes me up just a little every time. If there were a barbershop arrangement of "Heaven Can Wait," I'd make the quartet learn it.
Let me go along on your way
Give me all of your prayers to sing and I'll
Turn the night into the skylight of day
I got a taste of paradise
I'm never gonna let it slip away
I got a taste of paradise
It's all I really need to make me stay
Just like a child again
Heaven can wait
And all I got is time until the end of time
I won't look back
I won't look back
Let the altars shine - All Revved Up With No Place to Go: Right up there with Elton John's "Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting" and Sam Cooke's "Another Saturday Night" among the quintessential weekend anthems.
I was nothing but a lonely all-American boy
Brings back memories of midnight movies at the United Artists theater in downtown Santa Rosa, and vanilla Cokes at the Swenson's ice cream parlor next door.
Looking out for something to do
And you were nothing but a lonely all-American girl
But you were something like a dream come true
I was a varsity tackle and a hell of a block
And when I played my guitar, I made the canyons rock
But every Saturday night
I felt the fever grow
All revved up with no place to go - Two Out of Three Ain't Bad: Perhaps the most cynically honest song a guy ever sang to a girl.
I want you
Truer words were never sung. Except maybe in this next number...
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 - Paradise By the Dashboard Light: The soundtrack of high school summer in America. A boy, a girl, the front seat of a car, and the push-pull of raging hormones, complete with play-by-play carefully constructed out of baseball metaphor and delivered by the Scooter himself, Phil Rizzuto. Heard on the soundtrack of about a gazillion motion pictures.
Ain't no doubt about it
Don't get all goody-two-shoes on me. You know you've lived that song. Or got slapped trying.
We were doubly blessed
'Cause we were barely seventeen
And we were barely dressed - For Crying Out Loud:
For taking in the rain when I'm feeling so dry
Pretty much says it all, doesn't it?
For giving me the answers when I'm asking you why
And my, oh my
For that, I thank you
For taking in the sun when I'm feeling so cold
For giving me a child when my body is old
And don't you know
For that, I need you
For coming to my room when you know I'm alone
For finding me a highway and driving me home
And you gotta know
For that, I serve you
For pulling me away when I'm starting to fall
For revving me up when I'm starting to stall
And all in all
For that, I want you
For taking and for giving and for playing the game
For praying for my future in the days that remain
Oh Lord
For that, I hold you
Ah, but most of all
For cryin' out loud
For that, I love you
The Loaf eventually crawled back into the studio in the early '80s with a dreadful collection of Steinman castoff numbers (Dead Ringer), followed by a string of increasingly tedious records that resulted in little chart or critical success until Loaf and Steinman rejoined for Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell in 1993. These days, Loaf (whose real name, by the way, is Marvin Lee Aday the nickname was allegedly bestowed by a high school football coach) mostly appears in films and tours on occasion.
But for crying out loud, Meat, you know we love you.
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