For Crying Out Loud

One of the challenging things about blogging is coming up with things to blog about. For some people, it's very easy, especially when their focused on one topic with a lot of material to work with. Gardeners, for example, can blog for years without repeating themselves. Pop culture bloggers have a lot to talk about, too. But I've had plenty of occasions when I struggled to come up with a topic.

And then there are the days where life just hands you something to write about.

On September 24, 2020, my family finished packing up our mini-convoy and hugged Nana one last time before beginning our four-day (actually five) trek from Ontario to PEI. Tanner sat in the passenger seat beside me in my car, with the Puppy-Girl in a cage in the back seat. As we pulled out of her driveway, I got the Bluetooth going and hit 'Play' on the phone.

The first song that came on? "Bat out of Hell," by Meat Loaf. In fact, we listened to the whole Bat album, and a few hours later we got the live version as we passed through Toronto. Is there a more perfect song to start a road trip? I can't think of more than five that might be more suitable.

Today, the world lost a titan of music. At the age of 74, Meat Loaf is gone. I never saw him live in concert, I only owned the first two Bat albums in my late teens and twenties, and would never have been considered a mega-Meat fan. But I always enjoyed those albums, among the very best rock music ever offered. So, I'm going to talk about what Meat Loaf's music means to me.

To me, what made Meat Loaf stand out from his contemporaries was the sheer operatic awesomeness of the Bat albums. There were plenty of rockers, bigger names like Kiss and Aerosmith, but a Meat Loaf song was more than just a song; it was an event. He did his best work with Jim Steinman (who died last year; they were roughly the same age), as Meat Loaf's bombastic vocals were a perfect match to Steinman's expansive compositions.

That first Bat album (which, of course, I'm playing as I write this) is only 46 minutes, but it packs a lot into its seven songs. There's the thundering opening title track, a couple of epic ballads in Heaven can Wait and For Crying Out Loud, and of course the signature song, Paradise by the Dashboard Light. Ironically, my first exposure to Meat Loaf was this song, but not in a setting you might expect.

In my grade 9 religion class, the teacher spent a couple of days using this song as a way to teach us tender teens about the risks of premarital sex. I really wasn't into hard rock at the time; I preferred old 50s' rock n' roll, swing and classical music. But even then, I got the sense that this was different. Sure, it was loud, it went on and on and on, and there was an interesting baseball metaphor that I hadn't heard before. But there was something about it that separated this artist from the crash-bang metal music that had literally hurt my ears. (You try listening to a Grade 8 cover-band of Ozzy Osbourne with Spinal Tap-level amplifiers in a small school gymnasium.) There was more. There was a story. And I wouldn't admit it to myself then, but I liked it.

I forgot about Meat Loaf until almost a decade later, when he made his big comeback with the Bat sequel, Back Into Hell. At this point I was more interested in classic rock, and seeing a new Meat Loaf album getting rave reviews grabbed my attention. My gamer friends were even claiming that the inspiration for the video for I'd Do Anything for Love was the Ravenloft D&D module. I knew the module and saw the video, and I suppose you could make a case for it, although I wasn't very familiar with the Ravenloft story except that it was basically Dracula in D&D.

Regardless, I made a point of buying the album, and grabbed the original Bat album as well. It was a heck of a one-two punch. The sequel album was much longer than the first one, since it wasn't restricted to vinyl limits. Objects in the Rear View Mirror might be his best song ever, although I don't like the radio edit. I mean, you can't shorten a Meat Loaf song. It's like reading the Lord of the Rings but leaving Two Towers out. Or skipping Empire Strikes Back. You need the full song for the right effect. Most of Meat Loaf's radio edits are like that; the one for Paradise by the Dashboard Light is nigh-unlistenable. These songs are epic in scope. Both Steinman's music and Meat Loaf's voice don't work well in a cut-down format. They need room to breathe, to expand, and to express a movie's worth of emotions. Of all the songs they did together, none is under four minutes in length, and only a small number are under five.

Over time, I ended up getting the rest of his albums in digital format, although I still don't have the original Stoney and Meatloaf from the early 1970s. He's one of my favorite rockers, and the world is a little less epic today. So, raise a toast, rev that bike, and let the rubber hit the road, because there will never be another one like him. Heaven couldn't wait any longer.