So you're watching the Meatloaf "Behind the Music" and you've just watched the part where, following several commercial flops in the United States, Meat is forced to play small bars in Poland to make ends meet. And then the narrator says, "But the winds were about the change for Meatloaf" and then they show clips from the music video from "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" and you find yourself wondering: if things were turning around for Meatloaf, why does he look like a Morlock?
"I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)"- True story: this song made its premiere when I was a freshmen in high school, and they played it at the first couple of school dances that year. They still also played Paradise by the Dashboard Light, meaning that there was only enough time left to play three other songs before it was 11pm and time to go home, but there you go. But there was a student teacher there who was really trying to be hip with all the kids, so he asked me when this song started playing, "What is it that Meatloaf won't do for love?" and I answered "Oral sex" and then he stopped trying to be my friend, and then started grading my papers for Geography really hard. I wish I could tell you that the intervening 16 years have given me greater insight into this song, but despite the fact that it is over 12 minutes long, most of the song is just Meatloaf repeating the title over and over again. So yeah, I guess I'm going to go with oral sex.
"Life is A Lemon (And I Want My Money Back)"-One way that I know that the reunited Steinman/Meatloaf team is completely self-unaware: they start out the second song on this album with background singers chanting "I want my money back", almost like they were echoing the millions of people who bought this album because they loved the first Bat Out of Hell. It just seems like a dangerous idea to implant the idea of refunds because merchandise (life in the song, the album in real life) has not delivered what it promised. This album promised me fun, bombastic rock n'roll songs about not getting laid. And apparently a guy on a floating motorcycle punching a giant bat. You've still got nine chances, Meat. Don't let me down.
"Rock N'Roll Dreams Come Through"- I think there're few things I hate more than songs about the transformative power of rock n'roll songs. Because honestly, music clearly is something that is very important to me. But I don't believe that "Cat Scratch Fever" ever really saved anybody's life. In this song, rock n'roll dreams help you get through the fires of hell. But then there's a soprano sax solo. So I'm just getting conflicted messages all over the place from this song. And since it is longer than Das Boot, they're just going to keep on coming. If only I had a good rock n'roll song to listen to that would change my life.
Yeah, sorry Meatloaf, this song is definitely not doing it. The only Rock N'Roll Dream I have now is that this song were six minutes shorter.
"It Just Won't Quit"- If you're talking about this album, then, yeah, no shit.
"Out of the Frying Pan (Into the Fire)"- WHAT.THE.HELL.IS.WITH.ALL.THE.PARENTHESIS. ON.THIS.ALBUM. Also, Jim-fucking-Steinman, give your audience some credit. If the song is called "Out of the Frying Pan", anybody who is older than seven will understand that you leave the frying pan and end up in the fire. You don't need to spell it out for them. Or do you? You seem like a guy who needs help with the obvious. For example, things I thought were self-evident that you seemingly don't get: rock songs really shouldn't go much beyond six minutes, and that's only if you've written Kashmir. So your need to write songs longer than a Republican filibuster every time is really starting to piss everybody off.
"Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are"-I wrote about this last week while I was listening to Pearl Jam, so I don't have too much to say about it, other than it's really damn long, and while the title is pretty apt, having Meatloaf repeat it eleventy-zillion times kind of robs it of a lot of its poignancy. Also robbing the song of its poignancy? The image of the girl you're having sex with in the backseat of your car "rising up like an angel rising out of a tomb." I mean I guess the word 'angel' is nice, but man, there are few words that are bigger boner killers than 'tomb.'
"Wasted Youth"- Jim Steinman loves his spoken word intros. On Bat I, he was a werewolf or something. So here, because excess is the keyword of the day, he doesn't do a spoken word introduction, he has his own spoken word track. (Which I think might've been something Meatloaf pushed for so that way people could just skip over it.) So he's not a werewolf here, but I guy who gets some kind of magically enchanted guitar that "moaned like a horny angel" and "howled in heat" and instead of using it to become a famous rock n'roll star, which I feel is the plot of at least two Corey Haim movies, he decides instead to go around and kill people with it. At one point he violently screams about smashing the guitar against the body of a varsity cheerleader, which makes me sad, because in 1993 Jim Steinman was probably close to fifty years old, and he's still angry that girls from high school wouldn't sleep with him, even though he looks like Jessica Tandy. The first Bat album was full of the kind of braggadocio of a guy who had never gotten laid (Remember that scene in the 40-year Old Virgin where Steve Carrell talks about how breasts feel like bags of sand? Every song about sex written by Jim Steinman sounds like that) but this second one just has some kind of angry sadness to it. This spoken word song starts with Steinman growling, "I remember everything" and I just want to tell him that maybe that's his problem. Also? Still no giant bat punching. F-minus.
"Everything Louder Than Everything Else"-This is my favorite Meatloaf song, hands down. When I was taking AP Calculus in high school, I used to put this song on repeat when I was taking practice tests, much to the consternation of my classmates. But this song is the perfect song to get you pumped up to spend three hours taking integrals. I'm not sure that's the effect that Jim Steinman was going for, but at this point in the album he's probably getting arraigned for beating cheerleaders to death with his guitar, and I hope they throw the book at him.
"Good Girls Go to Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere)"-Do you know how annoying your need to use parenthesis on every title to spell out everything to your audience is?(Very annoying.) This song is probably the closest in spirit to those from the first Bat album. The tone isn't angry, like many of the other songs on this album, but instead doing that bragging thing about how awesome loose women are that only shows that you've never actually been within six feet of real lady parts. At some point, Meat sings about getting erotically burned, and while I'm not going to pretend that I'm some kind of sex expert, I think one thing that the phrase "erotically burned" denotes is that you have no idea what sex is like. That this song also contains a bass solo denotes that you have no idea what good music is like, either.
"Back Into Hell"-This is a synthesizer instrumental. I'm guessing this is where the giant bat gets punched.
"Lost Boys and Golden Girls"- I would literally sell my soul for this song to be about Estelle Getty and Bea Arthur. But it's not. If the first Bat Out of Hell record was meant to capture the anticipation of sex, then maybe this one represents first consummation: long, awkward, and totally disappointing.
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