![]() ![]() I had to learn how to re-sing “Bat Out of Hell” in the studio. You’ve only given me half a story to work with.” And he looked at me funny and came back and he had the rest of the story. “Took the Words” was the first song he wrote for “Bat Out of Hell,” and he already had “Heaven Can Wait” and “Crying Out Loud,” and then he wrote “Bat Out of Hell.” And I remember when he came in with “Bat,” I said, “That’s pretty good, Jim, where’s the rest of the song?” He looked at me and said, “What?” I said, “Finish the story. What was happening with the early stages of “Bat,” when Jim was writing it? But if they want to say it’s 5, that’s good! Only some celestial accountant knows for sure, right? Somebody mentioned that there’s some newspaper article saying Whitney Houston’s record sold 43 million, and that’s their premise for saying that. Because you can write anything you want on Wikipedia. And after Whitney Houston died, on Wikipedia it was 3, and all of a sudden Whitney Houston became 3. It depends on which newspaper or magazine you get your hands on. “Bat” is considered one of the biggest international sellers of all time, although there never seems to be a clear reading on exactly how many tens of millions it sold or where it ranks. It still does to this day - obviously, you can tell. ![]() Usually people want to hear themselves on the radio, but “Two” would come on and I’d go, “Not gonna listen to that.” “Maybe we can talk all night…” I could walk out there and sing it live like that and sound just like the record, but I’d be a complete fool, because people wouldn’t believe a word of it. When “Two Out of Three” would come on the radio when it was a hit, man, I sounded like Alvin from the Chipmunks! It would come on the radio and I would turn it off. So that’s how much we sped that record up. You could make a symphonic record 53 or 54 and still get some volume out of it, because there’s no drums and no electric guitars. So they sped that record up by almost a minute and a half, because if not, you couldn’t get any volume. And then he said, “Plus, you can’t put it on the record because we don’t have time.” Because we were dealing with vinyl, and vinyl, with a rock record, the maximum was like 49 and a half minutes, and we were almost 52. The song “Who Needs the Young” was originally going on “Bat Out of Hell.” And Todd (Rundgren, the producer) didn’t like it. And besides that, “Bat Out of Hell” had to be sped up to get on vinyl. Because they come to shows, and expect me to sound like I did when I was 26. There will never be another “Paradise.” You might get another pop song like “Took the Words,” which we have, but it’s not like “Took the Words.” But there are people that say they’re fans that only own “Bat Out of Hell,” and it drives me crazy. You’re not gonna ever be able to do “Bat Out of Hell” again. There are fans out there that are gonna not like it, because it’s not like “Bat Out of Hell.” It’s like Springsteen trying to recreate “Born to Run”-it’s not gonna happen. Is it difficult to put out a new album, knowing that it’s going to be rated against a classic? Almost none of that 2016 chat ever saw the light of day, but with Meat Loaf having died on Thursday, it seems like an appropriate occasion for Variety to bring some of our lively conversation out from the vault, as we say a last adieu to Marvin Lee Aday. The purpose of our get-together was to create some press notes for “Braver Than We Are,” but the conversation often detoured toward “Bat,” his history with Steinman, the rejection they experienced before becoming stars, and the working methods he used in firmly believing that he was an actor above all, and a singer secondarily. In 2016, I went into a conference room in Beverly Hills to spend a couple hours talking with Meat Loaf, who had just finished recording what would be his final studio album, “Braver Than We Are.” The project found him dipping into nearly 50 years’ worth of Jim Steinman songs that he’d never gotten to or that had been newly revised, and he also brought in Ellen Foley and Karla DeVito for cameos to really make the project feel like old home week, as much he was adamantly opposed to trying to recreate the sound of his 1977 breakout, “Bat Out of Hell.” ![]()
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