Meat Loaf (Michael Lee Aday) was actually a vegan, which is a perfect summation of his art and public persona.
He was a rock n’ roll sex god who didn’t look like a rock n’ roll sex god, making rock music that owed more to the showmanship and storytelling of musical theater, and despite all that, was an anti-vaxxer who frequently stumped for Republican candidates.
I think we should all be allowed one anti-vaxxing Republican artist to praise without guilt. Meat Loaf is mine.
His most famous song, “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” is a ten-minute rock ballad and karaoke staple told from the point-of-view of a middle-aged man remembering the night his teenage self promised a date literally anything to get some backseat pussy… even if it means committing to lifelong connubial misery with her.
The song is made up of aborted climaxes and bargains, plot twists and character moments. Budding sexuality was never so mythic, so vital, and so unable to live up to its promise. Its middle-aged narrator’s nostalgia for youthful screwing and teenage tomfoolery, when he could have sex with a woman and not respect her, is hard to take seriously. The song’s ending invokes the tired trope of the miserable husband-nagging wife but to the most ridiculous and hysterical ends.
“So now I’m praying for the end of time,” Meat Loaf sings, “So I can end my time with you.”
What does a Midwestern gay nonbinary “boy” identify with in the narrator of “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”? You mean besides an overactive sex drive, a flair for the dramatic, and a tenuous relationship with intimacy?
It’s almost impossible (for me, anyway) to read the song as anything other than high camp. I get the same pleasure out of “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” that I do from the early James Bond movies. With time, their misogyny and retrograde sexual politics hit my ear like satire. This can’t possibly be real. Even though I know there are plenty of people who ingest Meat Loaf songs and James Bond movies without any kind of critical lens.
“Paradise” is a song so steeped in heterosexual nonsense and sitcom-level marital disdain that it begs the age-old question: Are the straights okay? No, and if Michael Lee Aday doesn’t know it, I think Meat Loaf does.
Flamboyant is not often a word we use to describe performances of masculinity. However, the word is completely appropriate for Meat Loaf’s persona. With his howling and growling and yearning vocals and erotically-charged call-and-responses to his female backup singers, his is such a staggeringly overwrought performance of masculine bravado and deadly serious melodrama that only his fierce commitment to putting on a show keeps it from becoming laugh-out-loud ridiculous.
Take the first minute (yes, minute) of the song “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth” in which Meat Loaf has this steamy exchange with a woman.
[Boy:] On a hot summer night would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
[Girl:] Will he offer me his mouth?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] Will he offer me his teeth?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] Will he offer me his jaws?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] Will he offer me his hunger?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] Again, will he offer me his hunger?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:]And will he starve without me?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] And does he love me?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] Yes
[Boy:] On a hot summer night would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
[Girl:] Yes
[Boy:] I bet you say that to all the boys
Meat Loaf’s frequent collaborator, the equally overwrought and flamboyant composer Jim Steinman wrote epic rock arias that perfectly match the singer’s indulgent passion. If his lyrics veer too far into the asinine (which is half the fun) Meat Loaf’s earnest power saves them. The melodies are operatic and narratively ambitious, which gives them more gravitas and complexity than a rock tune with a standard verse-pre-chorus-chorus-verse set-up. There are stakes.
Steinman’s lyrics, always interesting, are made better in Meat Loaf’s hands (throat).
I was nothing but a lonely all-American boy
Looking out for something new
And you were nothing but a all-American lonely girl
But you were something like a dream come true.
Nothing special to read. Meat Loaf makes it sound honest and urgent.
Many of their songs together present Meat Loaf as a gifted, seductive, but emotionally cold lover. He can make you shiver, but he can’t love you. He could lie to you, but he won’t.
Take this song, “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”:
I can't lie
I can't tell you that I'm something I'm not
No matter how I try
I'll never be able to give you something
Something that I just haven't got(—)
And all I can do is keep on telling you
I want you
I need you
But there ain't no way
I'm ever gonna love you
Now don't be sad
'Cause two out of three ain't bad
Patronizing as it is, Meat Loaf sells it. He can’t love you. It’ll have to be enough that he can give you a toe-curling orgasm.
If Meat Loaf didn’t look the way he did, and if he didn’t approach his performances with such theatrical energy and commitment, his posturing and preoccupations with sex would be a lot less endearing.
Despite the way he carried himself, Meat Loaf was not the traditional sex god. He was fat with long hair, bulging cheeks that filled with blood when he sang, a muffin top, meaty arms, and a double chin. He does not look like Marlon Brando, James Dean, or any of the other rebellious, motorcycle-riding dreamboats of the teenage tragedy songs “Bat Out of Hell” feels like a hell-spun perversion of. He looked kind of like me.
When he performs live, he is a force of nature. Eyes bulging, staring into the dark, challenging his audience to a staring contest. Even if you could laugh, you’re a little afraid to. He darts across the stage, wailing and shaking streams of sweat from every inch of his body. The only guy working as hard at a Meat Loaf concert is the guy running his follow spot.
A fun game to play. If you know anything about Meat Loaf and/or Jim Steinman, you know they have some of the best song titles in all of pop music history. Look at a list and come up with a few.
Generally, these titles:
Are melodramatic
(“I’m Gonna Love Her for Both of Us,” “Read ‘Em and Weep,” “Not a Dry Eye in the House,” “I”m Gonna Kill You If You Don’t Come Back”)
Are cheeky or oxymoronic
(“Loving You’s a Dirty Job (But Someone’s Gotta Do It),” “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That),” “I’d Lie for You (And That’s the Truth),” “Good Girls Go to Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere)”)
Are a common phrase or idiom
(“Out of the Frying Pan (And Into the Fire),” “Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are,” “Dead Ringer for Love,” “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth,” “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”)
Refer to Heaven or Hell
(“Bat Out of Hell,” “Back Into Hell,” “Cry to Heaven,” “Heaven Can Wait”)
Most importantly, they’re long and often require parentheticals.
HELL IS HANGRY: BAT OUT OF HELL IV
Liquored Up, Turned On, and Pissed Off
She’s Got a Mean Right Hook (And Her Left Ain’t Bad Either)
Do Not Drive or Operate Heavy Machinery
The Heart is a Hungry Hunter (But Mine's Full Up With You)
There’s No Welcome Mat at Death’s Door
Caution: May Cause Loneliness
I've Got My Mind On Love (And My Hands On You)
Do You Wanna See a Grown Man Cry
Agree to the Terms and Conditions (Before You Play with My Heart)
Sleep Tight, Don’t Let the Hell Hounds Bite
You Can't Have Your Raspberry Tart (And Eat It Too)
Yes I Love You (But Leave Me the Fuck Alone)
To stay on topic for this week’s newsletter, how about a convenient playlist of my favorite Meat Loaf tracks?
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The Red Sweater will be updated once per… let’s just say it’ll be updated once, periodically, until the end of time. It will cover developments in my life, work, and all the stupid little things I care about. More of my writing can be found at Medium.