His words fearlessly dove into the ludicrous, screaming about his mystical guitar bleeding “Chuck Berry red” after the murder and allowing him to play notes he could never play before. He was winking and throbbingly sincere at the same time. The words are spoken by Steinman himself, a cut and paste from his 1981 solo album and the moment I realized just how truly singular a writer he was. I don't remember if it was Telecaster or Stratocasterīut I do remember that it had a heart of chrome, and a voice like a horny angel I was barely seventeen, and I once killed a boy with a Fender guitar I remember every little thing as if it only happened yesterday Bat out of hell-shit. If you can reckon with this dead f’ing serious goofball tale, you open the gateway into the fires of Steinman and the Loaf. Steinman’s story is like that, but bat-shit. Bruce would tell this on stage and then he’d take that god damn guitar and plow into his coming of age classic “Growing Up” as the crowd roared. This is not a song, but a story, like the one Springsteen tells about his Dad who referred to his guitar as “that god damn guitar” all his young life.
“Bat out of Hell II” contains four songs resuscitated from that commercially buried solo Steinman album. The strangest of these is “Wasted Youth” which was renamed from its original title “Love and Death and the American Guitar”. Years later, with Meat and Jim back together, that historical mistake could be repaired. The album tanked. Steinman fell to Earth. After Meat’s voice disappeared, Steinman had made the unfortunate decision to record it with his own limited pipes - which, if you’ve heard them, is a move you would only make sky high on success. Jim Steinman had actually already recorded a sequel to “Bat out of Hell” in 1981 called “Bad for Good”. Sweaty, disheveled, Meat heaved for breath at the musical finish, then looked up at his old friend. It’s….gone”! That night at the party in 1992, Jim took to the piano and for old times sake they belted out the entire album together, the passionate creation that took them to the stars and back. I imagine the scene like something out of a 50’s melodrama, Meat grabbing his throat, and mouthing “My voice. The pressure to record the follow up to their 1977 smash “Bat out of Hell” had given Meat Loaf a psychological block and he couldn’t sing. The two had gone separate ways a long time ago. Like the Frank Frazzetta Conan the Barbarian painting they’re trying to bring to life, they contain within them: damsel, monster, hero.īy 1992, their glory far faded, Jim Steinman came over to a party at Meat Loaf’s house. Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf are yin and yang, a perfect pair.
If they couldn’t win, they’d spin out in a ball of flames. These guys were never going to get the girl, and so they went BIG. One of Steinman’s gigs before “Bat Out of Hell” was music for a puppet show. Where Springsteen was cool, a street poet, and a total catch, these guys were true outcasts. Their music idolized the motorcycle, the car, the crash of either, and the desperation of first love. “Bat out of Hell” was written by Jim Steinman and performed by Meat Loaf. The sisters and nothing else were in that cassette player until the snow melted in the Spring. In my car, one tape would play, the other would dangle. But like all siblings they were different - one was within the realm of good taste, and the other didn’t care. I called them “the sisters” for their spiritual connection to the drama of youth. I tied a ribbon to unite them and walked around with one tape in the back pocket and the other dangling. I drilled two small holes into the corner of my cassettes “Bat out of Hell” and “Born to Run”. I went home to my shack down by the docks. When I was older than a teenager but younger than a man, I was living in the wilds of Connecticut, adrift.
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