By Ralph Greco Jr.
dr Emmett Brown, the character from Back to the Future played by Christopher Lloyd, famously says at one point in the film series, “You’re going to see some serious shit.”
This was as serious for me as it got!
Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman, the team behind one of my favorite albums of all time, bat from hell, came together to write, develop and release in 1992, 16 years after the album bat from hell II, back to hell, the continuation of what would become the second in a bat from hell Trilogy.
Bat from Hell II, Back to Hell It peaked at number one in the US, UK and Australia and spawned five singles, with “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” reaching number one in 28 countries.
Who said you can’t go back home?
I saw Meat Loaf on Broadway in New York Bat from Hell II Trip. It was the perfect setting for a theatrical artist like Mr. Loaf. The audience was on their feet as he strutted onto the stage for the inevitable piano opening of “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)”. It was Steinman who manned the ivory, much like my very first rock concert – May 13, 1978 at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, New Jersey, in support of the first bat from hell Album.
Meat Loaf, noticeably slimmer in the ’90s, and Steinman – hair now gray but so rocking and rebelliously long – were still the most unlikely rock couples, conquering the stage, hearts and ears with their unpretty good looks and tongues – Pose in-cheek skirt. Sure, Steinman songs were always over-the-top rock operas, and Meat Loaf was a force of nature (Steinman claimed Meat Loaf didn’t need special effects on stage because he was his own best special effect). The couple mirrored our lives as screwed up, often lonely, always uncomfortable teenagers we all coddled to our hearts well into our 40s.
When I saw Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman back together that night in the early ’90s – a decade that proved to me at a young age that I was as alien to music as the one just passed – on a hit album and better than ever crying on stage gave me such a rush of rock ‘n’ roll justification that I had tears in my eyes. It started the moment Meat Loaf took the stage and started a wild two and a half hour show of songs I knew all the lyrics to.
All the years after its release, bat from hell still sells an estimated 200,000 copies annually and is one of the best-selling albums of all time.
Meat Loaf died on January 20, 2022 at the age of 74. Steinman rode his own motorcycle to hell or wherever on April 19th. I miss them both very much.
The visual presentation of the “Brand of the Bat” stuff, as well as the voice we know so well, are clearly the more recognizable of the two – Meat Loaf’s oeuvre spans some other fine albums than the three bat from hell Records. There is hell in a hand basket, originally only released in Australia and New Zealand in 2011 (it was released worldwide in 2012, although it went largely unnoticed). There are also 2016s braver than us, which turns out to be both Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman’s final album.
Male born Michael Lee Aday also managed some fantastic acting turns during his lifetime. There’s his iconic role as “Eddie” in the equally iconic cult film, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He also played “Bob” in fight club with Brad Pitt.
Meat Loaf’s life story, as revealed in his autobiography, Meatloaf: To Hell and Back, was sometimes harrowing, sometimes hilarious. It was the journey of the most unlikely of rock stars, a working singer and actor’s struggle against type and competition, a grand homage to friendship and all its trials and tribulations.
We’ve always loved the great man who sometimes endured a Herculean struggle, twirling around in the music business for years, then catching a huge wave of success, then being thrown back onto a mediocre career only to find success again and gain cult status.
RIP meatloaf
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