We interrupt our scheduled programming for a tribute to Bonnie Tyler, who died on Wednesday. Those of you waiting with bated breath for the Cancel Culture Club postscript... it'll be here next week, I promise. But Bonnie takes priority.
Regular readers of this nonsense will know that I'm a huge fan of the overblown melodramatic glory of Jim Steinman. Nobody has stretched the pure essence of the rock n roll mythos to such wonderfully ludicrous extremes, and in Meat Loaf, Jim found the perfect voice for his theatrical, sturm und drang histrionics.
However, there were times when Meat just wasn't available. Either because he'd knackered his voice from all that bawling... or because he and Jim weren't quite seeing eye to eye. When that happened, Jim tried singing the tunes himself... but most people agreed he wasn't quite up to the job... and that's when he discovered Bonnie Tyler.
Up until then, Welsh chanteuse Gaynor Sullivan had been carving about a pretty decent career singing reasonably average tunes like Lost In France and It's A Heartache. I'm guessing Jim must have heard one of these, because in 1983 he offered her a song written for Meat which looked like it wasn't ever going to get recorded. And the rest is history...
Other Steinman / Tyler collaborations followed - not all of them hits, but all of them amazing.
Losing Bonnie Tyler will be accepted by many people as just another dead star... but for me, after saying goodbye to both Jim and Meat not so long ago, this feels like the end of an era. Still, given the grand mythology of angels and devils, heaven and hell that they all dabbled in... I like to think they'll be re-united and singing with the seraphim as we speak.
We'll close today with another Steinman/Tyler favourite, this one featuring Todd Rundgren on guest vocals...
I went to see the new Indiana Jones film at the weekend. It made me sad.
Not because it's a bad film. It's perfectly acceptable popcorn fare that occasionally recaptures the magic of the earlier movies, if only through the sheer force of Harrison Ford's undimmed charisma. I appear to be in a minority of finding Phoebe Waller-Bridges very, very annoying, and the action sequences relied too much on CGI for my liking, but that's the case with all big budget movies these days. More effort went into movies when I was a kid - building the sets, getting the right stunt people, setting off actual fires and explosions... nowadays it's all done on computers and it feels lazy. The suspension of disbelief required by the audience is the same, only different. Somehow I found it easier to accept cardboard sets and smoke bombs than green screen everything... but that's just Old Man Shaking Fist At Sky.
I was ready for all of the above, so it's not that which made me sad. Seeing Indiana Jones as an old man though... well, nostalgia can work two ways, can't it? It can remind you of your youth... or it can force you (once again) to face up to your own mortality. Harrison Ford will be 81 next week, and it's amazing that he's still cracking the whip and doing a fair few action sequences himself. But still...
Someone said to me recently that the worst part about growing old is that (if you're lucky), you have to watch all your heroes grow old and die before you. Despite hanging up the fedora after this final adventure, Harrison appears to be enjoying a bit of a career resurgence at the moment, and long may it continue. But there will come a point when I have to say goodbye to him, as I have so many others. When you're young, you think it'll all go on forever... lately, every day brings a new reminder that this isn't the case.
I'm reminded of a line from one of my favourite albums of last year. This in turn reminds me of Jim Steinman's Objects In The Rearview Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are, but that's more about the power of memory and how it constantly fools you into thinking 1989 was just last week. Instead, James McMurtry sings here that, "There's more in the mirror than there is up ahead," a sentiment I'm finding it hard to come to terms with. He does, however, manage to put a positive spin on the idea...
Now it's all I can do just to get out of bed
There's more in the mirror than there is up ahead
I smile and I nod like I heard what you said every time
So run another rack
Pour another shot
You don't get it back so give it all you got
While you still got a more or less functional body and mind
Sam had an excellent report at Parents' Evening. He's doing really well in school. He's also really good at sport and regularly scores goals in his football games.
Yet I've rarely been more proud of him than when he heard Air Supply singing Making Love Out Of Nothing At All on the car stereo and said to me, "this sounds like a Meat Loaf song, daddy".
Making Love... was written by Jim Steinman for inclusion on Meat Loaf's third album, Midnight At The Lost And Found. However, the record company refused to pay Jim's going rate, so the songs ended up going to other people. Meat would later record a lot of the tunes Steinman gave to other artists, but sadly never did a version of this one. It remains the best Meat Loaf song that Meat Loaf never sang. Bonnie Tyler did a pretty epic version though, which gives us some clue as to how it might have sounded on a Meat album. The original Steinman demo, with vocals by Rory Dodds, is also worth a listen, for completists.
As for Air Supply... well, their version sounds a bit beefier than their usual melodic soft rock fare. Probably because it's got two E Streeters, Roy Bittan (keyboards) and Max Weinberg (drums) on backing... not to mention a guitar solo from Rick Derringer, formerly of The McCoys, and a frequent collaborator with both Edgar and Johnny Winter. In 1983, Air Supply were held off the Number One position on the Billboard chart for 3 weeks by another Steinman composition some say was originally written for Meat Loaf (though Jim later denied this), Total Eclipse Of The Heart.
Sam might not know any of this just yet, but he was able to spot Jim Steinman's signature sound after only a couple of listens.
And the angels had guitars even before they had wings If you hold onto a chorus it can get you through the night
(The video to that Steinman track is a camp classic, by the way. Worth 4 and a half minutes of anyone's time.)
For your consideration this week...
THE ANGELS #1
Bruce Springsteen was 6 years old when our first group of Angels formed in his home state of New Jersey. Here's their biggest "hit" from one year later in 1956, not to be confused with the Peter Cetera song...
THE ANGELS #2
In 1959, Norwood, Massachusetts, guitarist Joe Serratore formed our second Angels, releasing a track that wouldn't have been out of place at the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance...
THE ANGELS #3
Originally known as The Starlets, latterly The Halos, with various members also recording under the names The Powder Puffs, The Beach Nuts, The Delicates, Dusk & Jessica James and the Outlaws, the original Angels are best remembered for the 1963 US Number One My Boyfriend's Back, a classic "you're gonna get beaten up good" tune if ever I heard one...
Shall we stop there and call it an easy win?
No?
OK, then...
THE ANGELS #4
Here's the week's token bunch of surf-rock dudes, with a 1963 song that might have inspired Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs...
THE ANGELS #5
Swiss band from the late 60s. Also released two other songs called The Creeper and Flying Yankee, both of which I imagine to be more exciting than this instrumental released to celebrate the 1967 Badenfahrt Festival... but this is the only one I can find on youtube.
THE ANGELS #6
Originating in Adelaide in 1974, these Angels scored Top 40 hits in the Aussie charts for the next four decades and are still going strong today. Here's one of their biggest...
THE ANGELS #7
Flemish Electro-Pop from 1983...
THE ANGELS #8
Italian disco track from 1984... all 10 minutes 5 seconds of it, as if you had the time...
THE ANGELS #9
From South Africa, also in the mid-80s (and sounding very mid-80s), here are our final three Angels, aka Marilyn Nokwe, Nonhlanhla Dlomo and Jean Madubane...
There were more. Believe me. I spared you the worst.
But which Angels will take you to Heaven... and which will get kicked out to join Lucifer?
Last April, when his longtime friend and collaborator Jim Steinman died, Meat Loaf gave an emotional interview to Rolling Stone in which he concluded:
"I don’t want to die, but I may die this year because of Jim. I’m always with him and he’s right here with me now. I’ve always been with Jim and Jim has always been with me."
At the time, I wrote my own tribute, My Top Ten Jim Steinman Songs, although only 7 of them were recorded by Meat himself. A couple were Steinman solo (one, a spoken word track that also cropped up on Bat Out Of Hell II) and the other was Total Eclipse of the Heart, which was written for Meat, but for one reason or another ended up with Bonnie.
Anyway, that Top Ten only really scratched the surface. So here's another Ten great Meat/Jim collaborations...
Braver Than We Are, the long-awaited Meat/Jim reunion of 2016, was a treat for fans, though neither man was at his best. Meat's voice was long past its best and Jim had been struggling with health issues for years. But it was still great to see them make one more record together, and this track even brought back both Ellen Foley (the original Bat Out Of Hell female vocalist) and Karla Devito (who took Ellen's role in the tours and those iconic videos). The full length track is 11 minutes long (of course!) but the link above is to the edited video version.
One of many songs recorded on Jim's ill-regarded (still much loved in this household) solo album, though it was originally written for Meat, whose voice just wasn't up to it at that time.
I may never be able to answer the question of which is my favourite song called Surf's Up, this or the one Brian Wilson penned. I'm sure that's a much easier choice for the rest of you.
Much mocked, full of 90s excess on top of the usual Steinman pomp and circumstance, and the fact that it dominated the singles chart in 1993 causes many to lump it in the same category as Bryan Adams' Robin Hood song. Perhaps its ubiquity has even rubbed off on me, since I never place it among my favourites from the terrible twosome, and maybe it's one of the few examples of a Steinman tune where the single edit is better than the full version... at least that doesn't cut the most typically Steinman lyric of all, "Will you hose me down in Holy Water if I get to hot?" That line alone is worth the price of admission. And anyone who tells you that Meat never reveals what it is that he won't do for love clearly hasn't listened to the lyrics.
Jim understood better than anyone that teenage angst was best expressed through hyperbole and, yes, even cliche. All-Revved Up is a song about pent up teenage lust, and Meat could play the role of frustrated teenager loser better than anyone this side of Jilted John. Edgar Winter blows the hell out of that sax too.
"I’ve never told this story, but Jim is gone now and it’s time: We had finished the demos in 1975 when he called me one night. He said, “There’s this guy down here at the Bottom Line.” He didn’t even say “Bruce Springsteen.” It was just “a guy.” This is 11 p.m. at night. He said, “There’s a guy doing what we do down here at the Bottom Line. You have to come down and see the second show.” I said, “Jim, I’m not going to come down there in the middle of the night.”
I didn’t go. Jim stayed for both shows. And Jim thought that [E Street Band keyboardist] Roy Bittan was legitimate. I guess Jim liked Springsteen. He felt Roy Bittan was one of the best piano players in the world and he wanted him on this record. He said, “This guy is better than me.”
"What Barry Manilow didn’t understand is that you can’t just have a great voice and sing a Jim Steinman song. You have to become a Jim Steinman song. You have to be the song. You don’t singthe song. You are the song."
Lyrically, starts out as a very Manilow song. Not the way Meat sings it, of course. And then it builds and builds, in that typical Steinman fashion of keeping building even after he runs out of bricks. That's the other thing about these songs: you need a colossal pair of lungs to get through them in one piece.
Maybe higher than it deserves to be, one of the lesser lights from Bat Out Of Hell II, but this song for me sums up both Meat and Jim in one crystal clear lyrical metaphor. Nothing succeeds like excess.
"I sang every song we ever did in character. I left me. I was not method. I didn’t have to find something in my past life to be able to sing his songs. I became the song and he saw the ability for me to become the song."
Who else could have sung lyrics as overblown as those and made them real? The very essence of rock 'n' roll. And this was the song that broke them too...
"A [radio station] program director in Buffalo, New York named Sandy Beach put it on [the playlist] because in “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” there’s the line, “you’ll never find gold on a sandy beach.”
1. For Crying Out Loud
"I will argue with anyone that wants to argue with me on this point: I dare them. “Crying Out Loud” is the best love song in history. Please come and argue with me on this point. I’ll take you down every time."
I'm not going to argue with Meat. I reckon he could still take me down, even from beyond the grave.
I'm not done yet, in case you were wondering / praying...
Meat Loaf arrives at the gates of Heaven. A band of leather-clad angels riding silver Black Phantom bikes gather to greet him, their engines purring like the helicopters in Apocalypse Now.
St. Peter takes one look at Meat and his face turns to granite. "No way!" the gatekeeper thunders, with a deep, dark voice like the Big Bopper gone bad. "You ain't coming in here, boy!"
"But," says Meat, "why not? I led a good life. I brought nocturnal pleasure to millions of people across the world. I made them laugh, I made them cry, I made them sing so loud they tore a hole in their throats until the words came pouring out like a hundred desperate convicts fleeing Alcatraz. I was Eddie, I was Bob, I drove the bus in Spice World, for god's sake! I remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday! I never took myself too seriously, I treated my fans with great respect, I did anything for love... except that. And every night, EVERY NIGHT, I got down on my knees and I prayed to the God of Sex and Drums and Rock 'N Roll!"
"That God ain't here, boy," says St. Peter, and his voice cracks the tarmacadam with every booming syllable. "And this paradise certainly ain't for the likes of you!" Then all the angels start to cackle and roar, the faces of the Seraphim and Cherubim turning Chuck Berry red and splintering into the fiendish reflections of every lost boy and golden girl cast out into the darkest shadows of the world, every one of them glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife.
And in that twisted moment, St. Peter reaches into Meat's chest, tears out his flaming heart and hurls it down to the Netherworld. Meat has no choice but to follow.
Standing outside the gates of hell, at the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun, stitching the still burning heart back into his chest, Meat hears the heavy clank of a padlock. The noise echoes through all the nine circles, like a million Harleys screaming in heat.
Meat turns, ready to face Satan, Beelzebub, and all the evil little bastards who called him fatso in high school... but when the gate swings open, he just sees a tall man dressed in ill-fitting black leather, with long grey hair and mirrored sunglasses that shine with the light of a billion virgin suns. Yet it's the face that causes Meat's still-pounding heart to stand still: a face he immediately recognises. And then his body starts shaking like a wave on the water, and Meat stutters:
"J-Jim?"
"About time you got here, pal."
"Is this some kind of punishment, Jim? Were we really so bad? Have we been condemned to the fires of eternal damnation together?"
"Not at all, man," says Jim, laughing as he claps an arm around his old friend's shoulders. "Someone must have blessed us when he gave us those songs."
"What are you saying, Jim?" asks Meat, and all at once he feels his knees grow weak... while his soul starts flying high above the ground.
"You've been through the fires of hell," says Jim, leading Meat through the great iron gates, "and I know you've got the ashes to prove it. But down here, Meat, the angels had guitars even before they had wings and everything's louder than everything else. You see, they've been waiting for us, buddy. Me and you, Meat... we're taking over this place!"
Well, I know that I'm damned if I never get out, And maybe I'm damned if I do, But with every other beat I've got left in my heart, You know I want to be damned with you.
I always imagined it was BBC interns in the Blobby suit that Edmonds played some weird fetish game with by making them wear the suit...
Who was the death?
Jim Steinman.
The Footloose guy? Wasn't that the other day?
I only saw it today. He didn't write Footloose. That was Kenny Loggins. He did write Holding Out For A Hero, but that's a lesser work. He also wrote all the good Meat Loaf songs, plus Total Eclipse of the Heart and some stuff that Celine Dion murdered, but was done far better by others.
Chuck Berry + Phil Spector + Springsteen + Wagner + a shameless sense of melodrama and hyperbole = Jim Steinman.
Wagner as in...?
Or Wagner as in...?
Richard.
Seems like it could be a little of both, actually.
I think that's a fair point.
Did I ever tell you about how one of my old best mate's girlfriend's parents were Rod Stewart and Tina Turner tribute acts? Big ones.
They had a house in Penistone. One of the massive ones on the river.
We used to stay over a lot. They were really nice and loved hosting us all the time. They had a recording studio in their garden where they, and other tribute acts would record.
One of the most surreal moments in my life is waking up, hungover, walking into their kitchen and seeing Rod Stewart, Marc Bolan and Meatloaf smoking weed.
Sounds like that Pulp video...
I don't think I've ever seen the video. I thought it was the video to Disney Time. No idea why.
And now I remember that Disney Time is on Cocker's solo album.
I'd forgotten that track completely.
Some forgettable tunes on that album. Especially when it starts with the swagger of Don't Let Him Waste Your Time. It definitely trails off.
Maybe. I love that final Pulp album though.
It's the one I've listened to the least. Listening priority in order: This Is Hardcore, His N Hers, Different Class, PULP. Does anybody even count the first two?
By Pulp do you mean Intro?
There were 4 albums before Intro / HnH. All contain interesting material, but not up to later standards.
Fairgroundis a terrible song and that's all I can think about with their old stuff.
For me, We Love Life is the perfect coda to their career. I love TIH (favourite album of 90s) but I prefer that they went out on a happy note.
Scott Walker too. Pop sensibilities SW, not mad old hermit making unlistenable twaddle SW. Quite an achievement.
First text from the boss this morning came through at 6.20.
Tell her to leave you alone. That is not just not on, it's absolutely pathetic.
I have.
Send her an envelope full of flour. Make her think it's ricin or anthrax.
She'd only ring me up and ask her what I thought she should do with it.
Well, this week's Taskmaster should hopefully cheer you up. A very funny one.
One word.
Casserole.
I await the vague upward curl at the edge of my mouth.
In reply, Ben sends the following video...
I think that's the least hip song you've ever sent me. I respect that.
No. That would be this one...
I found this record in a shop years ago. And I'm still not positive that Tennille is not actually attracted to muskrats.
Nah. Captain & Tennille are acceptable kitsch.
That song should never be acceptable. And The Cap is a prick.
*Was* a prick
I didn't realise you knew him.
We used to go to the same milk bar.
I've never been able to hear Secret Smile in the same way since someone told me it was a metaphor for a vagina.
That's uncomfortable.
Maybe you're mixing it up with the film, Teeth?
Was that the Barry Gibb biopic?
That's what I thought I was settling down for...
That film would have been even scarier if her nether regions had Barry Gibb's face. And maybe a big medallion and huge white collars.
That needs to be optioned as soon as possible.
My Saturday night treat this week is my Covid jab.
Well, you're lucky. I'm still here without one.
Just got down to the under 50s. But I thought you might have been fast tracked because of your history.
Nah. That'd involve competence at a national level.
Maybe they have you down as an insurgent. You'll be last on the list, after Putin's undercover agents.
On a more positive side of all that, last year this week I was sat gasping for breath walking up stairs. Today I ran 10k for the first time in my life.
Marathon next?
I think I'm going to try for a half marathon next year. Maybe Manchester, which is flat compared to Sheffield.
Rol replies with the following image... which Ben chooses to ignore.
I wish I could grow a 'tache like that man in the background.
I have a weird obsession with middle age men and moustaches.
My hair is too blonde otherwise I would definitely just have a 'tache.
Has to be like an 80s businessman 'tache, though.
When I was a child, I used to watch the Thin Blue Line. I was too young to understand it but it had Mr Bean and I liked the moustache man.
That's a real generation gap thing. For my generation, Mr Bean was a betrayal of Blackadder, and we never forgave Atkinson.
My early years were spent watching the Three Stooges, Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes etc, so Mr Bean was right up my alley. As was Baldy Man.
I had to Google Baldy Man. Never knew he had a TV show. I only remember the Hamlet ad.
I don't remember much of it, just that I used to find it hilarious.
I miss the Hamlet ads. When I was a little, my dad smoked cigars. I loved the smell. Eventually he graduated onto pipes. Then one day, in my late teens, the doctor told him: they're killing you. So he quit. Cold Turkey.
That's admirable.
I think I'm too young to remember smoking ads.
I feel like I've seen them but not sure how much of that is due to seeing them on shows later.
I remember the billboard ads for Lambert and Butler.
TV was pretty much all smoking ads and booze ads when I was a kid. And scary ads warning us all not to die or get murdered.
And only one channel could show ads.
Indeed.
Have you seen The Offspring's Covid inspired song? It defies belief.
I last listened to Americana.
I know the singer got his PhD in infectious disease over the past few years though.
That probably explains the covid germs flying around in the video.
Why would anyone want a PhD in infectious diseases?
The death of Jim Steinman will probably go without much attention to most people, but for me it's a huge hammer blow in a year that keeps on kicking me in the teeth.
I've written numerous times on this blog about my adoration for Steinman's song-writing, taking the best bits of Chuck Berry, Phil Spector, Born To Run era Springsteen and Richard Wagner, setting them on fire, then adding dynamite. There was little subtlety to Jim's work, but there was plenty of drama, passion, hyperbole, sturm und drang and a savage sense of humour. He didn't just write teenage love songs, he made them into epic mythologies, complete with screeching motorbikes, angels and devils, and hearts ripped literally out of the protagonists' chests. And yet, I never got the impression he took it seriously - yes, the work itself, he took very seriously, hence the perfectionism of his arrangements and the huge rows with his collaborators. But the storytelling... there was a tongue-in-cheek quality to the melodramas he crafted that suggested Jim knew how ridiculous it all was - how ridiculous the very medium was - but that was why he adored it so much.
Putting together a Top Ten Jim Steinman Songs was, for me, an impossible task. There are so many I want to take with me to the grave. But if they bury me with headphones on and these ten tracks playing on eternal loop... I could die reasonably happy. I think Jim would appreciate that imagery.
Not a song so much as an intense, Steinman-voiced monologue; this first appeared on Jim's only solo album, Bad For Good, originally intended for Meat Loaf, though the Loaf was having throat problems at the time. It was then re-used on Bat Out Of Hell II, still voiced by Steinman.
I could recite the words to this by heart. To me, it defines the importance of rock n roll in our lives, builds the tension to a frightening climax, and then throws it all away with a stupid gag that never fails to make me smile.
It should come as no surprise that Jim Steinman's favourite story was Peter Pan, as it deals with a group of boys who never grow up. That, to him, was what rock n roll represented - the chance to remain young forever. The title track of Steinman's solo album (later re-recorded by Meat - who was undeniably a far better singer than Jim, although I still have great affection for Steinman's own recordings) was originally written for a never-finished rock n roll musical based on the Peter Pan story. It's a classic example of Steinman's way of piling image on image, metaphor on metaphor, repeating and building long after other songwriters would have cut back to the chorus. That very excess was what I loved about Jim.
The sea is whipping the sky
The sky is whipping the sea
You can hide away forever from the storm
But you'll never hide away from me
The icy cold will cut us like a knife in the dark
And we may lose everything in the wind
But the Northern Lights are burning
And they're giving off sparks
I want to wrap myself around you like a winter skin
Another song close to the heart of this blog. Look at the Springsteen quote at the top of the page, then compare it to this...
Think of how we'd lay down together
We'd be listening to the radio so loud and so strong.
Every golden nugget coming like a gift of the gods.
Someone must have blessed us when he gave us those songs
Another song from the ill-fated solo album, later re-recorded (and, in this case, bettered) by Meat. It also contains the quintessential Steinman line...
In what world does Dead Ringer - arguably the ultimate rock n roll duet* - only rank at #6? Like a demonic outtake from the Grease soundtrack. Perfection.
A man he doesn't live by rock 'n roll and brew alone
It opens with another irresistibly OTT Steinman monologue, incorporating werewolves, blood, passion and a corny gag at the end... then it kicks into a full-blooded power ballad where teenage lust is expressed in pure hyperbole. Taking it's cue from 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) - another tale of teenage romance on the beach, late at night - this builds into an explosion of passion through trembling bodies, weak knees, licked lips and a kiss so powerful it steals your soul. To listen to this song is to relive full-blooded teenage lust afresh... even if you never experienced it the first time. (Clue: I never did, but Jim helped me through that.)
Bonnie Tyler's biggest hit was originally written for Meat Loaf, but he had that bad throat year and this was another casualty. In many ways, I find it hard to believe that this was a Number One single, since it's so ridiculously over the top, I'm surprised it connected with such a large audience. Then again, look at Bohemian Rhapsody. It's a song about yearning and desperation, those are the best words I can find. And it contain another quintessentially Steinman line...
We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks
(At this point, I should mention one of the other big Steinman tunes that Bonnie brought to life, another great duet with frequent Steinman collaborator and BOOH producer Todd Rundgren, Loving You's a Dirty Job but Somebody's Gotta Do It. It wasn't a hit, but damn, it should have been.)
*Above, while writing about Dead Ringer, I placed an asterisk next to the phrase "the ultimate rock n roll duet*", because... well, there's this. It is a duet, with Ellen Foley giving as good as she gets from Meat (although it's Karla DeVito in the video), but it's much more besides. The term "rock opera" gets thrown around far too liberally, but this is the real deal. Like many Steinman songs, it veers dangerously towards the ten minute mark, but there's so much going on in its three act structure, it's hard to get bored... or even catch a breath. Boy meets girl. Boy tries to get girl to go all the way. Girl says she will if he promises to love her forever. They go back and forth on this until the boy is whipped up into such a frenzy that he'd agree to anything... and then immediately wishes he hadn't. Classic Steinman twist, made even more exciting through the use of a metaphorical baseball game to symbolise the consummation.
Frankly, if you don't love this record, you don't love life.
What is there to say about Bat Out Of Hell that hasn't already been said? (Other than why isn't it Number One?) The only thing I will say is that you should never, ever, ever listen to the radio edit. It is pure blasphemy... and also a pretty shocking edit that even I, with my crude music editing skills, could have done a better hack job on.
No, you really need the full 9 minutes and 52 seconds to appreciate this tune in all its pomp and glory.
1. More Than You Deserve
Probably the least known track on this list, and you probably think I'm being all muso for putting it at Number One, but More Than You Deserve has long had a special place in my heart. I knew I'd written about it before, but I had to dig into the archive of my old blog to find what I wrote. Excuse the youthful exuberance...
I swear that in the future, there will come a critical reappraisal of the songwriting genius of Jim Steinman, and I will be vindicated. As with every subject Steinman tackles, this is infidelity turned up to eleven - hell, twelve! - and only the melodramatic madness of vintage Loaf could do it justice. The song begins with a simple betrayal...
From the very first moment I saw you,
I knew our love would be so strong
And the very first moment I kissed you,
I knew our joy would last so long
And then I saw you making love to my best friend,
I didn't know whatever to say
I saw you making love to my best friend
So I looked him right in his eyes and I said - listen boy...
Won't you take some more, it's what you came for
And don't mind me, I won't throw you no curves
Have yourself a ball with my good woman
Won't you take some more boy, it's more than you deserve!
But of course, in Steinman world everything is always louder than everything else, and so by the end of the song things are so much worse...
Now I think I'm gonna have to leave you
Because I'm feeling much too weak to share
And the pie, oh it's cut in too many pieces
The flavour that I crave is no longer there
Then I saw you making love to two of my best friends
I didn't know whatever to say
I saw you making love to a group of my best friends
So I looked them right in their eyes and I said - listen here, group!
Won't you take some more boys, it's more than you deserve!
Nothing succeeds like excess!
Oh, and I'd forgotten the video too. The video is an absolute hoot...
This is the first Top Ten I've ever written without having to listen to any of the songs. So indelibly ingrained into my subconscious are they. Rest in peace, Jim, buddy. I think somebody somewhere must be tolling a bell...
Cover Me Monday was a regular feature on this blog, pre-lockdown... and then the world fell apart, and so did most of my regular features. Late last week, I stumbled across a classic forgotten cover version that made me want to resurrect the feature... particularly as it had stopped at #13, and I'm a bit superstitious that way. What if I caused the world to fall apart, just by stopping this feature at #13? (I realise that's a rather egocentric view of the world, but I have limited contact with anyone else at the moment... I'm starting to wonder if you're all just figments of my imagination.)
Anyway: Lambchop covering The Sisters of Mercy. From the bonus disc of their 2002 album Is A Woman. I'm sorry, this record can not be almost 20 years old. Where has my life gone?
First, here's the original, because I adore it. (Though I'm betting a few of you don't.)
The Sisters of Mercy produced by Jim Steinman. Like trying to put out a fire by pouring petrol in it. According to Andrew Eldritch, "I called Steinman and explained that we needed something that sounded like a disco party run by the Borgias. And that’s what we got."
Strip away that "disco party run by the Borgias" though, and you're still left with a top song. As Kurt Wagner reveals here...
And while we're on the subject, I'd be remiss if I didn't post this. It's as different from the two tracks above as can possibly be, but together they make up three sides of one very interesting triangle.
They don't throw him a parade
He just comes in on a train
One suitcase in his hand
And an old army backpack
From the second world war
From a Leipzig secondhand store
Pick the keys up from the agent
Everything's been taken care of
No big changes in the roadways
Since you've left that I'm aware of
A few old buildings gone to dust
And some new ones in the way
They'll look just like the old ones
When the winds have had their say
I do take issue with the "No big changes in the roadways" line though, since back in the late 80s, early 90s, I found it pretty easy to get around Leeds in a car. The inner loop is a Kafka-esque nightmare now though.
After completing my Top Ten tribute to the work of Phil Spector on Tuesday evening, I couldn't help but feel like there was something missing. Yes, I'd covered the very best of Spector's own musical output... but what of his legacy? If it hadn't been for his influence, chances are we wouldn't ever have heard any of the songs below... at least not in the way we know and love them.
(As to the photo above, Bruce probably regrets that now almost as much as the ill-advised Ben Affleck goatee.)
Prior to the sessions that produced this, Ring Ring, and other Spector-esque Abba classics, engineer Michael B. Tretow read Richard Williams' book Out of His Head: The Sound of Phil Spector. After that, he layered on the overdubs, and Abba's sound changed forever.
Roy Wood made no secret of the fact that he was aiming to recreate the Wall of Sound on songs like this one and I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday. The kitchen sink was full utilised.
From the opening echo-drenched drumbeats, stolen directly from Be My Baby, there's little doubt that the Mary Chain had been listening to a lot of Phil Spector.
Producers Johnny Franz and Ivor Raymonde set out their stall as the British equivalents to Phil Spector, and this is probably the song that came closest to emulating the Wall of Sound sound. Ironically, it was released in 1966, the same year Spector became demoralised with the music industry following the weaker-than-expected chart performance of his masterpiece, River Deep, Mountain High.
Produced by George 'Shadow' Morton, who aimed to take Spector's sense of melodrama to the next level... and arguably succeeded on tracks such as this and Past, Present & Future. Morton wore a cape in the studio, but - as far as I know - never pulled a gun on anyone.
As much as Jim Steinman stole from Bruce Springsteen, he stole far more from Phil Spector. If Spector created the Wall of Sound, Steinman built another three walls and then a roof on top. Many see this as excess, but it's that very excess that appeals to me in Steinman's work. He might get more respect if he had a little more restraint... but he's all right in my book.
Back in the 90s, record company bosses tried to get Spector to work with Steinman... to produce, of all people, Celine Dion. Spector refused, saying he had no desire to work with, "amateurs, students, and bad clones of yours truly."
Steinman, in typically Steinman-esque fashion, replied, "I'm thrilled to be insulted by Phil Spector. He's my God, my idol. To be insulted by Phil Spector is a big honour. If he spits on me, I consider myself purified."
I'm sure George will have something to say about me placing this at #2, or for choosing it ahead of anything from Pet Sounds, which Brian Wilson described as an "interpretation" of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound production technique. I will freely admit that I consider God Only Knows to be a better song than Good Vibrations (and maybe even my #1)... but God Only Knows doesn't sound as Spectorish to me as this does.
Brian Wilson created Good Vibrations with the aim of portraying his "whole life performance in one track", telling himself, "This is going to be better than You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling". Spector pulled the song apart, saying there was way too much "tape manipulation" and too many edits for it to be a "beautiful" record.
1. Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
Well, I'm nothing if not predictable, am I?
Producer Mike Appel explains how Bruce came to him before the recording of Born To Run and said, "I’m trying to meld my lyrics with more Phil Spector-type songs and I’d like to use his production values", which Appel then helped him develop.
“Phil’s greatest lesson," Bruce later said, "was that sound, sound, sound is its own language.”
Usually when I offer a long song on a Monday, I get in a massive panic that Drew or The Swede or Walter or even Swiss Adam will have featured it before.
No worry of that this week.
I've written too often before about how I consider Jim Steinman the greatest EPIC songwriter in the history of pop. Nobody else turns it up to 11, breaks the knob off, then sets fire to the record player, like Jim does. Nobody else understands in quite the same way that pop music is both essential to our very being, and yet also utterly, utterly ludicrous. Nobody else has ever trod the line so cleverly between rip-your-heart out sincerity and... taking the piss like nobody's business.
But that's not why I'm posting this here today. Some days you just want to turn the music up in your car and scream out the lyrics of a song like this till your throat is hoarse... because it's the only therapy you can afford.
You may know the story. The album Bad For Good was written by Jim Steinman as the sequel to Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell. But Meat's voice was wrecked and he and Jim weren't on a great terms, so Jim went and recorded it himself. I truly believe that in years to come, Jim Steinman will be remembered as one of the greatest songwriters in the history of rock n' roll... and although many would mock that opinion, I'm not alone. Here's journalist John Aizlewood...
"...nobody writes songs like Jim Steinman: he is, perhaps, the lost genius of pop, stranded - lamentably unlauded - in a world of rock with opera's attitude, where life has stopped at the point of adolescence that childhood dreams are shattered. It's how "soul" music should have turned out: every chorus is like losing your virginity, every verse is like killing your parents. It's as if Phil Spector and Richard Wagner were making records together."
As a performer though, Steinman doesn't really cut it... especially when compared to his most famous mouthpiece, the mighty Meat. I love the album Bad For Good, but I understand why it didn't make Steinman a household name. Most of the songs have subsequently been re-recorded and improved upon by Meat Loaf and others... such as Barbra Streisand, whose version of Left In The Dark is surely one of the highpoints of her entire career. Hey, if it's good enough for Kris Kristofferson, it's good enough for you...
Gentleman of a certain age - even ones who think they are immune to the charms of Ms. Streisand - may find they need a cold shower after that video. But I digress. This is a Talky Songs post, isn't it?
The one track on Bad For Good then that could not be improved upon? The one so great that even Meat Loaf used Steinman's version on the eventual Bat Out Of Hell II album? It's this: Love & Death & An American Guitar. A song that takes the infamous talky bit from Jim Morrison's The End and makes a hilarious piece of musical theatre out of it... with a punch-line that is... figuratively... to die for. And if you don't agree with me... well, you've got a hell of a lot to learn about Rock And Roll!
George tried his best, checking into all the London prisons he could think of... but old lag Martin had already done time with this bunch so he recognised their mugshots immediately.
4. Syd was pretty tough - and loaded!
Syd Barrett.
Tough = strong.
If you're loaded, you have "LOADSAMONEY!" (You had to be there. Yes, I bought that. Listen musos - William Orbit was involved in that, so it must have been cool. I was 16, OK? Give me a break.)
Despite an initial confusion with the footballer (!?!) Earl Barrett, George nabbed this one.
3. German stone guy makes a Take That song even worse.
Stein is German for stone.
Take That did Bad For Good (possibly Gary Barlow's finest hour, though I prefer Robbie Williams' solo version: you have to stick with it past the first 50 seconds. I saw him do that live. Twice. One time, he rode a toilet round the stage while doing it. Don't tell me Robbie Williams isn't great. I won't believe you.)
In my humble opionion, Jim Steinman is one of the greatest songwriters ever to have set foot on this planet.
After Tuesday's Top Ten Chuck Berry Songs, The Swede asked if there was any danger of a Volume 2. I'm sure this isn't quite what he meant, but hopefully it'll do...
It was inevitable Chuck would find his way into the lyrics of some of the musicians he influenced. Here are ten of the best Chuck references I could find...
Jeffreys had been making music for over 20 years when a racist insult led him to record this track asking for a little acceptance, reminding the bigots that the black fathers of rock 'n' roll such as Chuck, Little Richard, Bo Diddley and Fats Domino paved the way for Elvis, Gene, Buddy and Jerry...
Hey - remember the Rainmakers? Let My People Go-Go? Those guys. They didn't just have one record, you know.
Well, we're rounding St. Louis and heading for the coast When we pick up Chuck Berry in a little rowboat With one oar in the water and one in the air A lightning rod for a white guitar And lightning struck once, and lightning struck twice And I said "If there's a God, He sure ain't nice" And Chuck said "God is an Indian giver I don't trust nothing but the Mississippi River"
Obviously more a song about John Lennon than Chuck Berry ("I could sell your songs to Nike"), but Chuck does play a very important part...
When John called the wind an opera Making love with every chakra When he said her voice would carry And when he whispered old Chuck Berry Only then would Yoko set him free
They came this mornin' with a dog on a chain They came and took my little brother away His generation never even got a name My momma was a rocker way back in ´53 Buys them old records that they sell on T.V. I know Chuck Berry wasn't singin' that to me
Dar Williams and Amy Rigby in the same post... that's the power of Chuck Berry. Wreckless Eric fans, you'll find Mr. Rigby accompanying here too.
I saw my baby sitting there at the breakfast table His hair a mess and he forgot to shave And I wished that he would get up, make it all better Stop drinking so much, learn how to behave Then the radio was playing a Chuck Berry song And he was looking at me asking what was wrong I made a list of the things I could say But he gave me a wink and it all went away, I told him Hey I love you, you're perfect, don't ever change Don't ever change
First person to point out that Don't Ever Change was a Crickets song loses a point.
The greatest guitarist I've ever seen play live is Richard Thompson. It was a solo show, but I swear it sounded like there were three of him. I've seen some amazing guitar players before and after, but nothing that quite matched RT.
Here he is showing his chops, playing tribute to some of his own guitar heroes... including Les Paul, Django Reinhardt, The Shadows and Chuck Berry.
Jim Steinman is, officially, as mad as ten lorries, so when I say to you that this spoken word story, first featured on his ill-fated solo album and then rechristened and reused many years later on Bat Out Of Hell II... when I say to you that this is Jim's greatest moment of pure insanity... that's saying something. Obviously inspired, in part, by Jim Morrison's lyrics to The End, this features Young Jim S. bashing the shit out of his guitar till it bleeds the colour of wild berries... yes, it's "Chuck Berry red"... before taking the poor guitar upstairs to his father's bedroom to bash the shit out of his old man.
The story doesn't end the way you expect.
1. ELO - Rockaria
Jeff falls for an opera singer....
She's sweet on WagnerI think she'd die for BeethovenShe loves the way Puccini lays down a tuneAnd Verdi's always creeping from her room
And she ain't gonna rock 'n' roll. How will he convert her?
Well we were reelin' and a rockin' all through the nightYeah, we were rockin' at the opera house until the break of lightAnd the orchestra were playin' all Chuck Berry's greatest tunes...
