A Meandering Post that Almost Comes Together at the End

I started reading Tim Lawrence's book Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970–1979 despite my general apathy towards non-fiction, because The Atlantic included it in their list of "Five Books About Going Out That Are Worth Staying In For."  They said:

Versions of this story have been told before, but what distinguishes Love Saves the Day are the more than 300 interviews Lawrence conducted with promoters, partiers, and legendary DJs such as Frankie Knuckles. It’s full of wisdom from the elders of American club culture: how to stagger straight and gay crowds on a Friday night, how to find the next great floor-filling single, how to build a DJ set like a furnace that can burn all night. Lawrence also folds in a number of select club “discographies” so you can reproduce Jimmy Stuard’s set from 12 West, circa 1976, at home (on nice speakers, perhaps, or an iPhone placed in a cereal bowl). 

so I said "Why not?"  I'm about halfway through and I'm not sure that I'll finish, I'm so bored by non-fiction that I haven't taken a history class since high school.  And my main motivation to finish the book--compiling a playlist of all the mentioned songs--was obviated when I learned that someone already did it.

I am not, however, bored by podcasts about non-fiction and I recently stumbled across the One Song Podcast, a show where DJs Diallo Riddle and Luxxury break down the backstory to a song or album.  This isn't just stories about the first time they heard the song or why it's one of their top ten songs, there's some serious music theory.  Here's Luxxury explaining why the bass line to Nas's N.Y. State of Mind sounds so menacing:

The whole episode is great but many of you aren't into Nas and probably don't care who DJ Premier sampled and how he looped it.  Here's an episode I suspect most of you will enjoy.

But the real reason I'm posting all this drivel is their interview with Fab 5 Freddy.  It's two parts and only the first one is out yet, but they talk about some of the clubs and records from Love Saves the Day, so if you don't want to read 400-plus pages of non-fiction just listen to Fab 5 Freddy talk about the good old days of the NYC disco scene, how DJing was invented, the making of Wildstyle, and lots of other interesting stuff.

Dying At the Bottom of a Pit in the Blazing Sun

So many songs to choose from as we parse the wee one’s orders to create riveting musical content by listing our favorite ten songs. However, I chose to write about just one song – the greatest song in the history of rock and roll. Not Stairway or Baba or Born to Run. I’m talking about the greatest, most indulgent, grandiose, vocally spectacular, wailing 9+ minute rock opera of them all – Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell. Before you scoff or chortle, you need to acknowledge (as I do) that a small part of the brilliance of this song is the spectacularly 1970’s-ish feel of this tune. It does not attempt to be transcendent. It lives within the confines of 1977, but turns the conventional pop-rock composition concept on its head. The video below of a live performance of this song is absurdly over the top and of low quality, which makes it all the more fantastic from a dramatic and unintentional comed perspective. If you want the studio version of the song, which features a less masturbatory intro, get it here.



Allow me to indulge you with possibly more than you ever cared to know about a song that was deeply impactful to my early appreciation of rock and roll. It is also a part tribute to my deceased mother, who was a hip, hip lady who turned me on to a lot of cool music as a kid and even quietly tolerated my Weird Al phase when I was eleven.

Background. While the majesty of this song is nothing without the power of Meatloaf’s pipes, his imprint on the song is vocals alone. The brainchild behind the album was arranger Jim Steinman, who wanted to make a good old rock opera. Without his ego and courage, this whole bizarre album would not have happened. And it certainly was bizarre. It had Phil Rizzuto (Phil Rizzuto!)! It had motorcycle sounds! It had a pre-Night Court Ellen Foley! And it had more graphic sexual imagery than you would want to hear from a young, husky Meatloaf.

Why the Hell Do You Care About this Song and Album So Much, TR? Let’s start with that album cover. I have vivid memories of being a young boy and going through my mom’s album collection with my older sister. It’s a shame that music won’t be as vivid a multi-sensory experience to future generations as it was to me growing up. An album was a THING. You could hold it, stare at the front, the middle, the back, the lyrics in the middle and wonder about all the thought that went into the packaging. As a kid, I remember the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine album, the Stones’ Tattoo You album, which featured a goat hoof in a high heeled shoe, and, of course, Bat Out of Hell. As a kid, you could not help but be drawn to it. It was evil and enticing all at once. There was a dude on a motorcycle. Exploding out of the ground. At night. In a cemetery. While a mega-bat sitting on a mausoleum squawks in the background. How badass is that? Very. It felt like I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to when I was staring at that thing, which made it that much better, probably because it had “the H word” on the cover. I’m not sure how much I would’ve liked Devil Went Down to Georgia at that same age without the “I’ve told you once, you son of a bitch…” line. Cursing was cool to five year-old me.

Part I - The Intro (0:00 to 1:45). I don’t know of any song that goes from 0-60 quicker. The first 105 seconds of this song (the first 100, to be precise, since it really starts ripping five seconds in) are EPIC. Pure bravado and excess. It reminds me of the conclusions to some of my favorite old Phish jams. And that’s just the start. I dare you to crank this part in your car and not feel better about your life for having done so.

Part II - The Story Unfolds (1:45 to 2:57). There is a bit of mystery as to a possible secret meaning to the lyrics. Many see it as a Springsteen tribute or Springsteen parody. Making this more intriguing is the fact that E Street Band pianist Roy Bittan and drummer Max Weinberg were the session drummers for the entire album. Bittan’s ivory tickling here is especially E Street Band-esque. We’re getting an opaque orgy of dismal imagery, offset by a boy’s love for a girl. But it’s just a tease. Meatloaf hasn’t even started wailing yet! This song was actually part of a Neverland-themed play that Steinman had composed in the past. But that’s less relevant. Who gives a shit about Peter Pan?

Part III - The Chorus (2:57 to 3:37): Meatloaf starts wailing! When I was younger, I used to think the lyrics were about a one-night stand, but who the hell knows. This part can be interpreted many ways. But most involve visualizing Meatloaf making love, so let’s not go too deep here.

Part IV – Motorcycle Conquers Teen Angst (3:37 to 5:23): Segue to traditional teen anthem – motorcycles, decaying city, teen angst. Speeding on a motorcycle will prove to be a bad thing later, Meatloaf! This section also features my favorite cheesy lyrics in the song: “Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls.” I love this, because Meatloaf’s voice pulls off all the goofy lyrics. He could read the ingredients in a bag of Doritos and have me riveted. Maybe that’s just because I eat too much and love Doritos. But Meatloaf is pretty clear here – he is qualmless about being damned for dancing through the night with a special woman. Pretty minor offense to be damned for, IMO.

Part V – Chorus Reprise (5:23 to 6:12): Same chorus, but extra em-PHA-sis on the last words. And we get the motorcycle revving at the end, letting us know it’s time to get back on our hog for one last fateful trip.  

Part VI – Solo (6:12 to 6:54): Dueling motorcycle-piano solo!  You never hear Asia, Styx or Boston doing that. 

Part VII – Motorcycle Accident! (6:54 to 7:40): Speed proves to be Mr. Loaf’s problem, as he “…never see(s) the sudden curve ‘til it’s way too late.” More motorcycle sounds are added to reinforce the obvious. There’s been a wreck. And it's bad.

Part VIII – Is Meatloaf’s Heart Jesus Christ? (7:40 to 8:52): My favorite verse in the song gets repeated twice. First slowly, then with the power of those pipes. “I’M DYING AT THE BOTTOM OF A PIT IN THE BLAZING SUN.” Fuck. Yeah. And then we get the cathartic after-math. His heart, still beating, is breaking out of his body and flying away, like, you guessed it, a bat out of hell. And if you’re scoring at home, that’s eight seconds that he takes to hold that least hellllllllllllllllll. After his sixth time of saying that line. You try to do that shit and see how it goes. Song fades out and we all take a deep breath and think about having a smoke.

Part IX – What Comes Next on the Album: We get this gem. Tremendous intro.