I remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday…
As the story goes, a young actor and a young composer/lyricist met after the composer had tried writing a musical called Neverland. A post-apocalyptic retelling of Peter Pan, it never quite jelled, but Marvin Aday and Jim Steinman did. They would play songs from the show at small clubs around the country while trying to sell record labels on recording an album. A minor label bit after they got one major champion: Todd Rundgren.
Marvin Aday was, of course, Meat Loaf. And the album was Bat Out of Hell. (Supported by a band called The Neverland Express.)
The story above is the broadest of outlines. If I’d included the plot of Neverland, it, too, would be the broadest of outlines. By most accounts, it wasn’t very good. But the music — my lord, the music — operatic, transcendent, and at times silly. Which is when Steinman would double down. Combined with Meat Loaf’s three-octave voice, it’s distinctive, it’s thrilling, and then there’s a play-by-play of a baseball game in the middle of “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.”
Before they recorded that album, Meat Loaf had found some notoriety playing Eddie/Dr. Scott in the stage production The Rocky Horror Show, recreating the role of Eddie in the film version. Maybe that helped, maybe that didn’t. But that’s how I found him. 11-year-old Derek seeing The Rocky Horror Picture Show a little too young, but being overwhelmed and internally utterly changed. An older cousin raved about this record Bat Out of Hell, and I had this one thing on him: I’d seen Meat Loaf in a movie that he hadn’t. (Yet.)
My parents let me get the 8-track of Bat Out of Hell, and to this day I still mentally put a pause where track 3 faded out “For Crying Out Loud” and then faded back in at the beginning of track 4. No one track could hold Meat Loaf.
I worked at a Sam Goody in West L.A. in the late 80s, a former Licorice Pizza. Whenever someone came in asking “what’s good?” I’d say there’s this album that’s a little old but I guarantee that you’ll like it. And then I’d sell a copy of Bat Out of Hell. Once a customer even came back to tell me I was right.
Plus there’s a comics connection — Heavy Metal great Richard Corben painted the cover art for Bat Out of Hell, and it’s an indelible image. (I just learned that Bernie Wrightson painted the cover to Meat Loaf’s follow-up album, Dead Ringer.)
Back to that Neverland.
How much survived into the West End musical Jim Steinman’s Bat Out of Hell, I don’t know. But it puts all the songs from the album into the context of… a post-apocalyptic version of Peter Pan. The book still really isn’t very good, but the music — including from Bat Out of Hell II and songs made famous by other acts like Celine Dion and Air Supply — that remains sublime and rocks the house. All together, it’s a spectacle. Because even though Meat Loaf did not directly participate, he’s all over it.
My then-fiancee (now my wife) didn’t understand why the sight of the poster on the London Underground excited me. But our London theater trip was carefully coordinated with only… one… evening… free…
And that’s how my now wife discovered the brilliance of that album. Though the spectacle of the silver-black phantom bike getting totaled on stage, then flying up to reform as a metal bat THEN Meat Loaf’s tattoo didn’t hurt, that wasn’t what drew her in. It was that music. Those amazing over the top twists and turns of phrase and the sheer rock, performed by Andrew Polec as Strat, the stand-in for Meat Loaf. How a guy that thin could recreate the swooping full-throated, full-bellied tenor of Meat Loaf, I’ll never know. He was good. Probably still is.
But he’s not Meat Loaf.
The man passed away today, 1/21/2022. In recent years, I didn’t like his politics. I admit it. But it doesn’t matter. Because this, ahem, husky sixth-grader discovered this incredible performer who showed that you didn’t have to be thin to be powerful and magnetic. Somewhere in between then and now, I played Dr. Scott on stage, and Meat Loaf’s shadow was behind me all the way.
The morning’s come, and Meat Loaf is gone.
We still have that music and the memories. Now don’t be sad. ‘Cuz 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.
