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 gonna see some serious shit.”
This was, for me, as serious as it got!
Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman, the team behind one of my most favorite albums of all time, Bat Out Of Hell, came together in 1992, 16 years after the album to write, develop and release Bat Out Of Hell II, Back Into Hell, the sequel to what would become the second in a Bat Out Of Hell trilogy.
Bat Out Of Hell II, Back Into Hell hit number one in the U.S., U.K., and Australia, and spawned five singles, with “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That”) reaching the top spot in 28 countries.
Who said you can’t go home again?
I saw Meat Loaf on Broadway in New York during the Bat Out Of Hell II tour. It was the perfect setting for such a theatrical performer as Mr. Loaf. The audience was on its feet as he strutted out onto the stage to the inescapable piano opening to “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That).” It was Steinman manning the ivories, very much like he did at my very first rock concert — May 13, 1978 at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey in support of the first Bat Out Of Hell album.
Meat Loaf, considerably slimmer in the 90s, and Steinman — hair now gray but as rock and rebel long — were still that most unlikely of rock pairing, taking stage, heart, and ears with their less-than-pretty-boy looks and tongue-in-cheek rock posing. Sure, Steinman songs were always rock-opera over-the-top and Meat Loaf was a sheer force of nature (Steinman claimed Meat Loaf didn’t need any special effects on stage because he was his own best special effect). The pair reflected to us life as messed up, often lonely, always uncomfortable teens we’ve all kept coddled close to our hearts, even well into our 40s.
Seeing Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman back together that night at the beginning of the 90s — a decade that was proving to me, even early into as I was, as much bereft of music I could care about as the one just past — riding a hit album and wailing away on stage better than ever, gave me such a rush of rock and roll justification I had tears in my eyes. It started the minute Meat Loaf took the stage and began a wild two-and-a-half-hour show of songs I knew all the words to.
All these years after its release, Bat Out Of Hell still sells an estimated 200,000 copies annually, and ranks among the top 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 the year before on April 19. I miss them both dearly.
Decidedly the more well known of the pair, the visual presentation of the ‘brand of the Bat’ stuff, as well as the voice we know so well — Meat Loaf’s oeuvre includes some fine albums other than the three Bat Out Of Hell records.There’s Hell In A Handbasket, released initially in only Australia and New Zealand in 2011(it enjoyed a wider global release in 2012, though it was largely unnoticed). There’s also 2016’s Braver Than We, which, as it turns out, serves as both Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman’s final album.
The man born Michael Lee Aday also managed some fantastic acting turns during his lifetime. There is 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 he reveals in his autobiography, Meat Loaf: To Hell And Back, was sometimes harrowing, other times hilarious. It was the journey of the most unlikely of rock stars, a working singer and actor’s struggle against type and competition, a great tribute to friendship and all its trials and tribulations.
We always loved the big man who endured a Herculean struggle at times, knocked around the music business for years, then caught a great big wave of success, then was thrown back to a middling career, only to succeed again and achieve iconic status.
RIP Meat Loaf
