Son, it’s time we talked about that Meat Loaf music video from 1993
Son? Could you come in here for a moment? There’s something important I need to discuss with you.
Your mother and I were checking your browser history, and we saw something that worried us. We think you may have come across some material that you don’t fully understand. Material that you might have important questions about but are too embarrassed to ask us.
We know you watched Meat Loaf’s “I Would Do Anything For Love”. Multiple times. You liked. You commented. You subscribed.
I knew early on that you would grow up to like the spooky and the macabre. But I hoped you would aspire to be an undertaker, or an Egyptologist, or even a horror con cosplayer — you know we’d still love you even if you cosplay.
But this? This is too much.
We were barely seventeen when, exactly twenty five years ago, a sweeping Wagnerian rock masterpiece was set to video. The lighting was shadowy, the set pieces Gothic, the music completely overwrought. Borrowing shots as it did from Coppola’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” and given that it was from an album titled “Bat Out Of Hell II: Back To Hell”, we all thought we were watching a vampiric rock opera.
We were so naive.
I remember everything. See, it opens with a sunset chase scene, followed by the motorcycle-riding-rebel diving into a mausoleum to escape his pursuers. Can you blame us for thinking we were in for a ghastly treat? A robe-clad, pointy-eared, long-fingernailed demonic Meat Loaf then launches tender vocals — a golden voice which we knew would get more bombastic because we had learned a hell of a lot about rock and roll.
But music videos don’t live by rock n roll alone. By the time the three vampy ladies crept into the ingenue’s bed, seducing and caressing and presumably preparing to bite her, we were convinced that we were doubly blessed; something in the vein of Carmilla and Dracula finally had a number one billboard hit.
Don’t interrupt! You know damn well you watched a music video directed by Michael Bay and now you are going to hear from me!
Most important, we knew that Jim Steinman had written the song that supported this pre-Del Toro visual treat. And that gave us confidence. “But Jim Steinman only writes forgettable off-off-off-Broadway musical-theater rejects,” you may protest.
For crying out loud, son, didn’t I teach you anything? Don’t you know that Jim Steinman composed the music for Tanz Der Vampire? We did. Or that he produced some of the biggest songs for goth-rock titans The Sisters of Mercy? We were very aware. Or that he co-directed every Tim Burton film?
But we were lied to. The first release off of Meat Loaf’s comeback album wasn’t an agitating undead rock opera at all. In fact, there were no vampires present. This, despite the setting of a graveyard, a ruined castle, and the backdrop of Meat Loaf’s career having been dead for ten years — this album was to be his highly anticipated resurrection.
According to the lord of excess himself, the song was a Beauty & The Beast tale. There also seems to be a little Phantom of The Opera in there. And what’s this, Meat Loaf peering through branches while the ingenue bathes? And then he watches while the vampire brides assault her? And now he’s shuddering as he stares at his own reflection? And now he’s pursued and persecuted by the locals for a crime he didn’t commit? Is this just every fucking horror trope casserolled into one?? No, I’m not raising my voice, son; I’m expressing my frustration and you need to respect that!
Look, your mother and I are just concerned that you might see Michael Bay/Jim Steinman/Meat Loaf’s conflation of every possible trope into a power ballad prog rock pussy-loosener as somehow normalized. It is not. It is simply —
Oh for Christ’s sake, I forgot the part at the end where the ingenue accepts the Disfigured Meat Loaf for what he is, and suddenly he transforms into a Normal Meat Loaf. Like that wouldn’t be equally as horrifying to any young woman? Like that isn’t just a goddamned Princess And The Frog fingerfucking Hunchback Of Notre Dame?
Pass me my drink, son. Daddy needs his medicine.
Look, both Steinman and Loaf are in their 70s and are still doing songs about teenagers losing their virginity. What does that tell you? What’s that? Yes, I know their music is damn catchy and that’s what makes me so angry!
Listen, if you and your friends really want tickets to the very real and not at all imaginary hot new stage production of Bat Out of Hell: The Musical, I guess you can go. But you need to be attending for the right reasons and also I’ll need to chaperone. And when you catch me mouthing the words to “All Revved Up” or “Out Of the Frying Pan” or throwing a defiant fist in the air, just know that I’m actually mocking Meat Loaf and pretending to punch him. And if they choose to reprise Meat Loaf’s breakout song from the Rocky Horror Picture Show— holy shit can you imagine?!?— I mean, we will calmly wait it out. And if they dare taunt us with a second encore, then we will have no choice but to break out of that theater and fly away like a… like a…
Sorry I can’t think of a good simile to finish with.
Toothpickings is a blog that you can read. It is generally about vampires and rarely gets all Pitchforky about classic rock.
image credits: Virgin Records, Shutterstock
