Meat Loaf Gave Us One of the Cleverest Songs Ever Written
R.I.P. Michael Lee Aday
Meat Loaf’s songs made you rock — but they also made you laugh. They bordered on parody and might have been dismissed as “novelty” hits were it not for the fact that he kept churning them out and that they were so fun.
Following his death at 74, he is already being hailed as a consummate entertainer and rock demi-god. And, of course, his 1977 “Bat Out of Hell” is the third or fourth best-selling album of all time.
But is it for one of the songs on that album that he should be best remembered. “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is arguably the cleverest rock song ever written.
It actually came from the pen of Jim Steinman, who also gave us Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. But it was Meat Loaf’s song, heart and soul.
“Paradise” essentially tells the story of a teenage guy and his girl making out in a car. He wants to go all the way; she wants to make sure he loves her first. It all ends with him saying that he told her he will love her to the end of time and is now, as a result, “praying for the end of time”.
That is clever, of course. But the true genius comes in the middle. As the lovers grapple — it’s not exactly a #MeToo song — the dashboard radio broadcasts a baseball…
