Song Vs Song: Paradise By The Dashboard Light vs I'd Do Anything For Love

Few artists have ever been as overblown as Meat Loaf. From the very start, his music tested the limits of how much melodrama the public was willing to put up with. Jim Steinman poured cheese into his songs as if the tapes were dipped in a fondue pot, stretching every idea to the absolute maximum. Epic lengths, screeching motorcycles, nothing was off-limits if it could wrench a fraction more drama out of a song.

"Bat Out Of Hell" was the first true album of rock'n'roll excess, with the ultimate motorcycle crash song leading things off, and later on the ultimate car sex song. That's what "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" was intended to be, and with it still lodged in the fabric of our culture, it's hard to argue it isn't.

But is it the ultimate Meat Loaf/Jim Steinman duet? That is the question I am going to answer today, because there is another contender to that crown. "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" can make a claim to have surpassed its predecessor, being Meat Loaf's biggest hit of his career, and a song that also endures in the public consciousness, with people still asking what 'that' is, nearly thirty years after we first heard Meat make that claim.

"Paradise By The Dashboard Light": No one was prepared for this song in 1977. A multi-part suite detailing the escalating dangers of teenage sex in a car, complete with baseball play-by-play narrating the moment the deal is about to be sealed, Jim Steinman gave Meat Loaf an entire stage show in a scant eight minutes. We veer from 50s style rock and roll as the innocent teenagers have the first impulses of a bad idea, to the aforementioned play-by-play, to a full-on drama as they reach the unsatisfing climax of their courtship. The storytelling is wide, but the scenario very real. Steinman took the feelings of lust and disappointment we feel in young love, and asked himself what it would feel like if Wagner composed an opera about it. Updated for modern times, that's precisely what he did.

"I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)": If "Paradise" was an unexpected hit, nothing could be more unexpected than Meat Loaf having a second act to his career that was, in some ways, even bigger than the first. Clocking in at twelve minutes, Steinman only increased the drama as he got older. Teenage hormones were no longer flowing, but their memories were replaced by the more difficult quest of finding that same level of worship once the newness had rubbed off. Meat's vocals were never more passionate than on the first line (which reportedly took dozens of takes to get right), and the woman he is pledging himself to this time knows exactly what she wants, and that Meat won't be able to give it to her. If "Paradise" was about a girl, "Anything" is about a woman.

These two songs are different takes on the same feeling, structured in a way to show us how love changes as we mature. "Paradise" is the energetic song where we are ready and willing to do anything to experience the throes of passion for the first time. "Anything" is the tired song where we have already given everything in search of a longer-lasting love. In "Paradise", they rip their clothes off because they are so hot, metaphorically and for each other. In "Anything", she wants to be hosed down with holy water in such a state. One is a song about sex, the other love, and it's made clear how different the two are.

So which is the better song? Both are classics for a reason, but I find the answer to this question to be completely not a mystery. "Anything" is the better song, and it's not as close a competition as it might seem.

This comes down to two main factors. The first is structure, and the second is meaning.

The structure of "Paradise" is the biggest downfall. The last third of the song, where Meat promises himself to the girl, only to regret doing so, is perhaps my favorite bit Steinman ever wrote. The line, "I'm praying for the end of time so I can end my time with you" is the entire Steinman oeuvre distilled in a single sentence. It's dramatic, overblown, and ridiculous; and perfect because of it. That scene can exist on its own and be more than enough. On an album that lived in excess, that moment was the most real embodiment of human feeling. The problem is that the first two thirds of the song can't measure up. The opening scenes are a decent sketch, but sockhop rock feels dated in a way nothing else does. But the real mire is the narration, where the drama is flattened by the spoken voice that lacks all the power and emotion Meat and Ellen Foley bring. The same job could have been done more musically, and more effectively.

"Anything" does not have this problem. The song builds and builds, growing more dramatic with each line until we reach the crescendo. Then, after a moment to steady ourselves and not climax too early, we start over and build to the moment Meat and the woman realize they will likely never have what they want. In "Paradise", that realization comes as straight anger and resentment, but here it's a pathos as we realize even wanting it, even trying to do everything we can to make it happen, may not be enough. Love is fickle enough we cannot manifest it simply because we want to.

The heartbreak of the song comes when we realize what 'that' really is. Meat will do anything to feel the kind of love he wants, except to admit this isn't it. I don't think Steinman could have written that emotion in 1977, and I know Meat couldn't have delivered it until his voice had been broken and rebuilt. They put together a song that is a mystery, in part, because we don't want to admit the truth.

From the epic piano introduction, to the fiery guitars swirling in the background, to the way Mrs Loud's voice rumbles at it's most fierce, there is no song like "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)". Even the song that could very well be its prelude is just that; a first chapter to the real story.

The winner is clear.