Other than school, where years can be easily delineated, I don't have many memories before the time I first heard Meat Loaf. It's that pounding piano intro to "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" which feels like when I first noticed my heart beating. I've never understood exactly why, or how, but it was that song that opened my eyes to the world of music as something more than what was on the radio as the car traveled from one point to another. I knew of music, of course, but I never knew music.
I should not have been the right audience for Meat Loaf's big comeback. I was only turning ten at the time, and I had never heard the original "Bat Out Of Hell" yet, but I found myself caught in the spell of Jim Steinman's music. I remember slipping the cassette single out of the cardboard sleeve, and playing it again and again. Once the album came out, I played it in awe so many times the tape wore out in places. Replacing it with a CD years later makes it one of the few albums I have ever purchased twice, which surprisingly did not come with any sort of anger or frustration.
What amuses me now is looking back at that younger version of myself listening to these epic songs about passion and love, and wondering just what in the heck I thought I was hearing in them. Even today, I can't say I understand what Steinman was writing about when he had Meat's duet partner demanding to be hosed down with holy water. I've never felt that kind of fire at this age, so at that earlier stage I must have been a better dreamer. Heaven knows I struggle with fantasy these days.
Little did I know at the time, but Meat Loaf would become a form of over-compensation. Steinman's songs about emotions taken to the extreme would serve as a replacement for my own lack of them. Self-deprecating jokes aside, the songs do allow me to feel things that have been lacking in my life. They are very much a proxy for the person I would like to be, at least as much as my confusion allows me to think is true.
Or perhaps it is simpler than that, and Steinman's pleas to "the gods of sex and drums and rock and roll", and his belief that "rock and roll dreams come through", was enough of a message to win me over. When things didn't seem all that hopeful, and I was not primed to look to other sources for my salvation, it was music that could provide me with the push toward something satisfying. All these years later, I still look to music to fill that purpose, which probably means it was never successful. And yet, I still find myself putting my hope into records. I guess that means I'm a bit crazy, doesn't it?
One of the real joys of music is finding something that sweeps you up and transports your mind to a different place, a record that can truly be an escape from the troubles of the day. That is what Meat Loaf has always been for me, and continues to be. When I listen to a record like this one, I'm not trying to relive a glory day that has long since passed. What these songs offer me is the ability to spend an hour still caught up in amazement the same way I was back when I first heard them. Steinman's sense of drama, and his long melody lines that bring us to the point of breathlessness, have never lost their potency.
For someone who lacks in excitement, I'm always intrigued by the overly dramatic. I don't quite understand how people do that, how they live that way, and it's a bit of a social experiment to spend a few moments caught up in that rush of feelings.
While many people remained confused, I have long maintained the 'that' Meat Loaf wouldn't do for love is move on and look for it from someone more hospitable to his charms. Like that interpretation, I either won't, or can't, move on and look for another album that can mean to me what "Bat Out Of Hell II" has meant for all these years. Finding it might have been an accident, but it was the luckiest kind.
No comments:
Post a Comment