The Greatest Songs of the Man Who Made Meat Loaf a Star

Epic. Operatic. Bombastic. Over-the-Top. Bonkers. Those are just a few of the words that recur in reviews and discussions of the work of the late composer, producer, and performer Jim Steinman. Though he’s most well-known as the composer of one of the best-selling albums in history, Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell, Steinman had a career that encompassed rock, film, and musical theater. He wrote classic hits for the likes of Bonnie Tyler, Air Supply, and Barry Manilow, and his work with Meat Loaf plays endlessly on classic rock radio. Steinman died in 2021; today, on what would have been his 75th birthday, we look back at the Wagner, vampires, and velocity of his timeless brand of symphonic rock.

15. “No Matter What” by Boyzone (1998)

“No Matter What” (Uploaded to YouTube by Boyzone)

Like Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jim Steinman has never been beloved for his subtlety. In 1998, the pair collaborated on the musical Whistle Down the Wind. As a further collaboration that tied in with the musical’s premiere, the popular boy band from Ireland, Boyzone, recorded their version of the track. It went #1 in the U.K. and was the group’s only tune to crack the U.S. Top 40. The gentle ballad is a positively restrained version of Steinman, but the lyrics incorporate his usual swooning romanticism.

14. “Read ’Em and Weep” by Barry Manilow (1983)

“Read ‘Em and Weep” (Uploaded to YouTube by Barry Manilow)

Over his long career, Steinman would frequently reconfigure or rewrite old songs or ideas for use by other artists. This song originally appeared on Meat Loaf’s 1981 album Dead Ringer, but Steinman made some alterations for Manilow. Whatever Steinman did, it worked; Manilow took the song to #1 on both the Canadian and U.S. Adult Contemporary Charts. It was also Manilow’s last U.S. Top 40 hit to date.

13. “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)” by Meat Loaf (1977)

“You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)” (Uploaded to YouTube by Meat Loaf)

When Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman got to work on Bat Out of Hell, they had the odds against them. They’d faced rejection from a number of labels and stinging rebukes from the likes of Clive Davis, who didn’t get Steinman’s orchestral approaches. Nevertheless, when they got their chance to make the record, they made the most of it. The album features several legendary rock talents in key roles: Todd Rundgren produced and played guitar on five tracks; Edgar Winter played sax on three; and Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band contributed on keyboards and drums, respectively. The whole album is an ode of sort to teenage love, lust, and motorcycles, and this track typifies that. It was the first single from the album, and didn’t make the Hot 100. However, after two other tracks were hits (just wait), it was re-released and made the U.S. Top 40.

12. “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” by Meat Loaf (1977)

“Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” (Uploaded to YouTube by Meat Loaf)

Another from Bat Out of Hell, this was Meat Loaf’s biggest single until the next item on the list arrived over 15 years later. Rundgren and Bittan also played on this tune. Though it’s a bit simpler than other Steinman tunes, it’s got his patented subversive wit with lines like, “I want you/I need you/There ain’t no way I’m ever gonna love you/Now don’t be sad cause two out of three ain’t bad.” “Two” spent almost six months in the Hot 100, hitting #11 and selling over a million copies.

11. “I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” by Meat Loaf (with Lorraine Crosby) (1993)

“I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” (Uploaded to YouTube by Meat Loaf)

Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf worked together on six albums, but it wasn’t until 1993 that they officially “sequelized” Bat Out of Hell with Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell. Steinman saw the lyrical territory as a definitive continuation of the themes of that album. Other musicians returned, like Bittan and Rundgren (though this time Steinman produced and Rundgren arranged the background vocals while also performing them on eight tracks). The song is a duet between Meat Loaf and Crosby, credited on the record as “Mrs. Loud.” It plays with many of the same dynamics as the original Bat tracks, including driving piano, defined movements between musical sections, and dueling dynamics (loud/soft/loud). Those sweeping sections that roar up out of almost nowhere have gotten Steinman compared to the German composer Richard Wagner, best known for The Ring Cycle, particularly “Ride of the Valykyries.” The verses of the final two minutes are mostly sung by Crosby.

10. “Good Girls Go to Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere)” by Pandora’s Box (1990)

“Good Girls Go to Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere)” (Uploaded to YouTube by Sharman)

Another tune recorded by multiple artists, “Good Girls” was first done in 1986 by Japanese artist Megumi Shiina. In the late 1980s, Steinman assembled what was considered a “girl group,” Pandora’s Box, which featured a number of vocalists whom he’d worked with before. They included Ellen Foley (featured on Bat Out of Hell), Holly Sherwood (from the group Fire Inc.), Elaine Caswell (The Dream Engine), Gina Taylor (Musique), Deliria Wilde, and Laura Theodore. Sherwood took the lead on this track, which careens between the frenzied bounce of Steinman’s piano and the guitar of Eddie Martinez. Meat Loaf would record the song again for Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell.

9. “Nowhere Fast” by Fire Inc. (1984)

“Nowhere Fast” (Uploaded to YouTube by Shout Factory)

Director Walter Hill’s cult classic film Streets of Fire is identified as “A Rock & Roll Fable” right on the poster. The movie follows singer Ellen Aim (Diane Lane), who is kidnapped by gang leader Raven Shaddock (Willem Dafoe); Aim’s ex, soldier Tom Cody (Michael Paré) leads the effort to rescue her. The soundtrack is suffused with great material, including Dan Hartman’s huge hit, “I Can Dream About You.” Lane visualizes two different Steinman tunes in the film, including opening number “Nowhere Fast.” To record the two songs, Steinman put together a group, Fire Inc., which included a number of his usual suspects (Bittan, Weinberg, Sherwood) and Laurie Sargent, who handled lead vocals.

8.  Bonus Pair: “This Corrosion” (1987) and “More” (1990) by The Sisters of Mercy

“More” by The Sisters of Mercy (Uploaded to YouTube by Sarakyel)

The English rock band The Sisters of Mercy formed in 1980. Their one constant member has been lead singer Andrew Eldritch, and he’s always resisted the “Gothic” label that has followed the band. Nevertheless, those trappings frequently appear in the band’s music, including two collaborations with Steinman. Steinman produced the Eldritch-written “This Corrosion” from 1987’s Floodland, and he wrote More for 1990’s Vision Thing. The two tunes are a perfect marriage for Steinman’s approach (there is no such thing as “over the top”) and Eldritch’s dark aesthetic. “Corrosion” in particular features a 40-piece choir.

7. “Bat Out of Hell” by Meat Loaf (1976)

“Bat Out of Hell” (Uploaded to YouTube by Meat Loaf)

The epic title track from the album that sold 40 million copies, “Bat Out of Hell” takes listeners on a journey through streets of terror on the back of a motorcycle that’s destined for a fiery end. You can understand comparisons that the record drew to Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” but Meat Loaf’s ride has a much more fatalistic bent. Whereas Springsteen implores his song’s Wendy to “get out while we’re young,” Meat Loaf expresses the belief that if he “gotta be damned, you know I want to be damned, dancing through the night with you.” You know the crash is coming, but the ride there is exhilarating.

6. “Holding Out for a Hero” by Bonnie Tyler (1984)

“Holding Out for a Hero” (Uploaded to YouTube by Bonnie Tyler)

The Welsh wailer Gaynor Sullivan is better known by her stage name, Bonnie Tyler. She would put her distinctively smoky voice to many Steinman tracks over the years, but one of the best known is this part of the Footloose soundtrack. Steinman wrote the song with Dean Pitchford (the writer of the Footloose screenplay and co-writer of hit songs like “Fame”) and produced it for the soundtrack. Tyler took the song Top 40 in the U.S. and to #2 in the U.K. That same year, E.G. Daily did a version that was used for the TV series “Cover Up.” It’s since appeared in a number of other films, including Shrek 2.

5. “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” by Air Supply (1983)

“Making Love Out of Nothing at All” (Uploaded to YouTube by VideosMusicaVEVO)

Graham Russell of England and Russell Hitchcock of Australia formed Air Supply in 1975. Beginning in 1979, they had a string of hits around the world with songs like “Lost in Love,” “Every Woman in the World,” and “Even the Nights Are Better.” They’ve racked up a number of gold and platinum albums and had 11 Top 40 hits in the U.S. “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” went all the way to #2 in 1983 and sat there for three weeks, denied the top spot by . . . just wait. While the soaring vocals of Hitchcock fit right in with the tune, Steinman brought in Bittan, Weinberg, and guitarslinger Rick Derringer to up the epic quotient.

4. “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” by Celine Dion (1996)

“It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” (Uploaded to YouTube by Celine Dion)

Determined to top himself with the “most romantic, most passionate” song he was capable of making, Steinman composed “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” for Pandora’s Box. The composer was inspired by the novel Wuthering Heights and its themes of love surviving death. Elaine Caswell sang the version on the 1990 Pandora’s Box album, Original Sin. A few years later, Celine Dion would cover it for her album Falling Into You. Dion, who often shows the same disdain for subtlety as Steinman, embraced the song’s epic nature and let fly for nearly eight minutes. The tune stayed at #2 for five weeks in the U.S., held back by (regrettably) “Macarena” and (we’ll let this slide) “No Diggity.” The single sold more than two million copies. In 2006, Meat Loaf covered it as a duet with Marion Raven on Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose.

3. “Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young” by Fire Inc. (1984)

“Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young” (Uploaded to YouTube by 김인수)

The climactic tune of Streets of Fire, “Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young” was sung by Steinman’s frequent collaborator Holly Sherwood. The song wasn’t released as a single and wasn’t a hit, but it’s an outstanding example of Steinman at the height of his powers. It’s become a beloved cult tune, reappearing in Fire’s low-budget sequel, Road to Hell, and has even been covered by show choirs. It’s also the final song in a very special stage musical, which we’ll address in a bit. The song is quintessential Steinman with its long build, revving engines, and increasingly explosive vocal heroics.

2. “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” by Meat Loaf with Ellen Foley (1976)

“Paradise by the Dashboard Light” (Uploaded to YouTube by Meat Loaf)

Without a doubt, this was late New York Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto’s finest musical hour. The Hall of Famer makes an immortal appearance in the middle section of the song, giving a play-by-play that mirrors the male protagonist’s attempt to “score.” Meat Loaf sang his part at full tilt, while Ellen Foley provided the alternately encouraging and suspicious female lead (Karla DeVito, who sang with Meat Loaf live on stage for the tour, is seen in the video). The song went Top 40 in the U.S., and then basically never left rock radio. It’s widely regarded as one of the great duets in rock and has certified sales of a million singles. Of course, it’s one of the engines that drove Bat Out of Hell to 40 million copies sold. It’s epic structure and length, Todd Rundgren’s terrific guitar, and the last minute narrative twist make it a stone-cold classic.

1. “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler (1983)

“Total Eclipse of the Heart” (Uploaded to YouTube by Bonnie Tyler)

The following is one of this writer’s favorite bits of music trivia: “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was originally written for Steinman’s long-gestating vampire musical. Steinman wanted to do a musical based on the F.W. Murnau silent horror film classic, Nosferatu (itself an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula). For various reasons, that would never come together.

Bonnie Tyler entered the picture in 1981. She’d already had hits like 1977’s “It’s a Heartache,” but she wanted to work with Steinman after seeing Meat Loaf live. The third song that Steinman pitched to her would be “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Tyler recorded it for her album Faster Than the Speed of Night. Among the musicians were, no surprise, Derringer, Bittan, and Weinberg.

The song was a worldwide smash. The aching ballad hit #1 in the U.K. and the U.S., where it topped the charts for four weeks. Its stay held “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” to #2, but put Steinman in the rarified company of writers (like Lennon/McCartney and Barry Gibb) who got to hold #1 and #2 simultaneously. The single sold more than six million copies. It’s been covered numerous times; in 1995, English singer Nicki French stormed the U.S. charts with her hi-NRG cover, taking it to #2.

Like other Steinman songs, “Total Eclipse of the Heart” has never gone away. It’s stuck around in films, commercials, and on the radio. And though the lyrics could clearly be interpreted as having more than a little to do with vampires, many people dismissed the song’s origin as an urban legend. It seemed like that story would eventually fade, even though it certainly inspired the Dracula musical that’s a running bit in the 2008 comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Steinman realized a different version of his stage musical dream in 1997. With German writer Michael Kunze, Steinman took part in mounting a vampire musical in Vienna. Tanz der Vampire was adapted from the classic Roman Polanski film The Fearless Vampire Killers, also known as Dance of the Vampires (the musical’s name was the German version of that title). Steinman included a number of his songs, with a German twist, in the production. The closing number was a version of “Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young.” But the mid-point showstopper, the first song of Act II, was “Total Finsternis,” the adapted version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

“Total Finsternis” (Uploaded to YouTube by Inspirada Bythesun)

The musical was a big hit in Europe. An attempt to bring the show to Broadway was botched by too many parties that wanted it to be too many things; the compromised English version closed in January 2003 after fewer than 56 performances. But overseas, the show endured, and through 2020 many productions were mounted across a number of countries. Steinman would fare far better in 2017 when Jim Steinman’s Bat Out of Hell: The Musical launched. The show features most of Steinman and Meat Loaf’s classic tunes; the show has a residency in Las Vegas and is set to tour Europe and Australia through 2023.

Obviously, the music of Jim Steinman isn’t for everyone. Yes, it’s operatic and melodramatic and occasionally the finest type of cheese. But it’s emotional, swooningly romantic, and shot through with the spirit of rock and roll. Though he died last year, Steinman achieved the kind of immortality that eludes all but the most supernatural of talents. The songs broke out of his body and flew away . . . like a bat out of hell . . . and popular music was all the better for it.

Vampire Soap Opera Dark Shadows Crept into Film 50 Years Ago

It’s unusual, but not unheard of, for a TV series to break out into theaters as the regular show continues to run on television. It’s slightly more common with animation (or puppetry), with examples like The Simpsons, South Park, and The Muppet Show all pulling it off during their runs. In terms of live-action, the list is much smaller, with notable efforts being the 1960s Batman and The X-Files, which scored a hit film between seasons five and six of the series. However, Dark Shadows managed to put a feature film on the big screen featuring a number of main cast members while the series continued to run daily. It wasn’t a surprise that the show bucked tradition or expectations; after all, it had been doing just that since its 1966 debut.

Dark Shadows was the brainchild of Dan Curtis, a writer, director, and producer whose output had a seismic impact on the horror television genre. Over the years, Curtis hopped back and forth between television and film. His 1975 TV movie Trilogy of Terror, based on three stories by Richard Matheson, is routinely listed among the best horror films ever made for the medium. He adapted a number of classic horror novels for TV to great success, including the 1973 version of Dracula with Jack Palance in the lead. In the 1980s, he adapted Herman Wouk’s World War II novels The Winds of War and War and Remembrance into a pair of mini-series that were nominated for a combined 19 Emmy Awards, Remembrance winning for Best Mini-Series. He also directed The Night Stalker, the film that introduced Jeff Rice’s intrepid reporter character Carl Kolchak to wider audiences; the 1972 TV film was the highest rated TV film of all time at that point, with 48 percent of all TV viewers in the U.S. tuned into the movie on the night it ran. That film led to a hit sequel, The Night Strangler, and the spin-off series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

Curtis formed the idea of Dark Shadows around a dream he had of a woman on a train. Encouraged by his wife, his successfully pitched his concept of a Gothic soap opera to ABC in 1965. He teamed up with Art Wallace, a seasoned writer with years of genre TV experience, to flesh out the overall idea and story bible for the new series. Wallace and Curtis wrote the first eight weeks of the series (40 episodes), and then Wallace traded back and forth with screenwriter and playwright Francis Swann on the next nine weeks.

 

The series began by leaning on the more traditional tropes of Gothic romance, with Curtis’s “woman on the train” becoming Victoria Winters, who was drawn into a Jane Eyre-inspired plotline. Less than a year into the run of the show, ratings were less than great. In an effort to boost interest, Curtis went all-in on the horror angle by introducing vampire Barnabas Collins, played by Jonathan Frid. The show exploded in popularity, picking up three million viewers in a year. The daily timeslot (usually 4 p.m., though it had runs at 3:30 p.m.) gave teens the chance to discover the show after school, and they became a solid component of the audience. Emboldened by their success with Barnabas, the creators went full steam ahead with ghosts, witches, werewolves, and more. Time-travel became a component, with entire weeks of the series spent in different time periods; of course, Barnabas (as a vampire) and others could appear up and down the timeline, while some actors simply played their ancestors or descendants as needed.

A scene from House of Dark Shadows (Uploaded to YouTube by Warner Bros. Entertainment)

With the show, and Barnabas in particular, taking off, Curtis started pitching for a theatrical film spin-off and sold MGM on the idea. One early concept had the creative team re-editing series episodes into a film, but that was abandoned in favor of doing a tight, film-length version of Barnabas’s main story. Curtis and the writers and producers of the daily show coordinated to write out the necessary members of the main cast for when they would needed during the six-week film shoot. Some of the same sets and locations were used. However, the film milieu obviously provided greater leverage for violence and scares, allowing for things that were out on TV (like dripping blood from vampire fang-induced neck wounds) to be shown. The film was released on August 25, 1970, and while it wasn’t a runaway success, it did double its budget, allowing MGM to greenlight a second film.

The Night of Dark Shadows trailer (Uploaded to YouTube by Warner Bros. Entertainment)

Unfortunately, the ratings for the daily show started to taper off. After a high of seven to nine million viewers a day in mid-to-late 1969, viewership went into a skid. There are a number of theories for this, running from the 1970 recession forcing budget cuts, to the loss of ratings leading to local stations dropping the show and feeding a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. Whatever the final reason, Dark Shadows aired its last episode on April 2, 1971. A few months later, the second film, Night of Dark Shadows, hit theaters. This time, due to the unavailability of Jonathan Frid, who had gone on to other projects after the cancellation of the series, the movie focused on Barnabas Collins’s descendant Quentin and the witch Angelique. At the last minute, MGM forced Curtis to cut more than 35 minutes from the film to get its run-time down; all involved felt this hurt the film in a number of ways. When the movie opened, it made back its budget, but that was it for the original TV and film incarnations of Dark Shadows.

Over the years, the show has been subject to a number of reboot attempts. NBC put a new version on the air in early 1991, starring Ben Cross as Barnabas. Initial ratings were huge, but the show was quickly derailed by pre-emptions brought on by ongoing coverage of the Gulf War. The show was cancelled after a single season. A pilot was made for the WB in 2004, but didn’t get a series order. Tim Burton directed a new big-screen version in 2012, which starred his frequent collaborator Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins; although the film made money, it was something of an overall miss. Jonathan Frid put in a cameo for the film, which was his last screen appearance before he passed away that year. Since the fall of 2019, Warner Bros. Television and The CW have been developing a sequel to the original series, tentatively titled Dark Shadows: Reincarnation. Dan Curtis passed in 2006, but his daughters Tracy and Cathy hold the rights to the series and are involved in the production of the potential new version.

The work of Dan Curtis in general and Dark Shadows in particular continues to resonate across media. The X-Files creator Chris Carter spoken often of the debt his show owed to Kolchak. You can see its echoes in Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, among others, and in the number of daytime soaps that adopted supernatural plotlines, including Days of Our Lives and the almost entirely supernatural General Hospital spin-off, Port Charles. Perhaps a new version will jump up and seize the zeitgeist again; maybe it will even be popular enough to produce new films while the new series runs. If Dark Shadows has taught us anything, it’s that nothing stays dead for long.

Featured image: Ironika / Shutterstock