Jim Steinman: His Music Was His 'Neverland'

We talk about our lives as though they are movies, pulling scenes from our memories as we recount them, hearing in our minds a soundtrack that has been with us all along. The important times in our lives come with songs that fuel our memories, whether they were literally playing at the time, or they echo the meaning we felt. Music is a powerful force to make us feel, and it is a language we share to say things we might not have the words to convey to another soul.

My soundtrack began with Jim Steinman. I didn't know it at the time, of course. "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" was the biggest song in the world, and all I knew about music was what came through the car speakers on the short jaunts from one place to the next. I was young enough to have never given music much thought, but I could tell there was something special about what I was then hearing. Meat Loaf had caught my attention, and as the next song came along, then the album, then the VH1 special playing some of it live, I was sucked in.

It's a cliche to say that small town life leads us to dive into the realms of fantasy, sci-fi, and even the Gothic. Such socioeconomic thought was well beyond my means at that age, but there was something about the stature and grandeur of the music on "Bat Out Of Hell II" that swept up this person who often felt small. I would later hear recounted Jim Steinman's quote; "If you don't go over the top, how are you going to see what's on the other side?"

I have never been good at putting that into practice, but the psychology meshed with my own. Meat Loaf was a ridiculous man singing ridiculous songs full of ridiculous lyrics. And I loved it.

Part of me, at that age, was convinced it was just because of the line in "Life Is A Lemon And I Want My Money Back" where Meat screams, "you can shove it up your ass!" Another part of me knew there was something more to it than that. The Peter Pan and Three Stooges references were the appeal to the child in me, but underneath the humor was a melancholy you were only supposed to see in passing. Steinman's music was about excess, but also not having what you wanted in excess. He amplified everything up to enormity as a musical phallic pump, which is a joke I'm sure he would crack a smile at.

Jim Steinman knew something it takes a lot of us to learn; we never truly grow up. The names and faces change, the settings shift, but the dynamics of life are never all that different from when we are teenagers. We still struggle with identity, we fight to gain acceptance, and we feel miserable when comparing ourselves to those who seem to have everything. That's why his songs continue to work. Even as he was still writing about being a high school football player, or what the girls at the prom did under the bleachers, it continued to speak to us. We never stopped being those people in those places. We added new layers, but the core remained.

The best Steinman music (and there is bad, don't get me wrong) was defiant. He was defiantly weird and eccentric, and his music stood out from everyone else. Plenty of people have borrowed his style from time to time, from Avantasia to Creeper, but no one ever lived it the way he did. Any song of his was the work of a unique voice. No one else wrote like him, or sounded like him, for that matter. Meat Loaf was the conduit for much of his best work, but only because Meat was an actor who understood how to play the part as he was instructed. It was always Steinman at the helm, pulling the strings to make the piano burn with a fiery passion.

Did I become a sarcastic, sardonic person because of the one-liners in Steinman's songs? That's impossible to answer, but it would be foolish to say I didn't learn a thing or two from him. I cursed him for writing, "There are no lies on your body, so take off your dress. I just want to get at the truth." I cursed him becuse it was such a brilliant line, I wished I had thought of it myself. I cursed him, but I loved him for it. There have been few lyricists over the years whose words truly made me think, made me work to improve my own linguistic turns. Jim Steinman is one of those people. My voice is very different than his, but I notice little threads that give depth to the weave that is my personality, and those come from him. I'm glad now I put a song on my most recent release that was intended as an homage to him. "I Can See You When I Close My Eyes (But Not A Second Before)" was my attempt to tip my hat at the influence he has had on me as a musician, and as I am writing this, it helps to know I realized this before right now.

Perhaps the thing I appreciate the most about Jim Steinman is that he has made people spend the last twenty-five years asking the same question; What is "that"?

The answer was right in front of us, and I've written before what I believe that answer to be, but how many songs have ever been such a mystery? It was almost a riddle he put front and center just to taunt us, because I like to think he was that kind of guy. He had to be. The music he made was not just over the top, it was the ultimate ego trip. He was selfish, because his songs took petty feelings and lustful yearnings, and made them seem and sound bigger than the universe itself. His music was so big and so loud he was daring the world to ignore him, because what he was thinking and feeling was the only thing that mattered.

One of the last songs we got from him was "What Part Of My Body Hurts The Most?" Today, the answer isn't my heart, because there is enough music he left us that will fill the cracks left behind. Jim Steinman was the first songwriter who spoke to me, and I still hear his voice echoing in my mind.

I always will.