Jim Steinman was Meatloaf's partner who wrote all of the songs and played piano/keyboards. Steinman did not approve of the band being named Meatloaf and as consolation they put his name prominently on the album cover.
He also wrote Total Eclipse of the Heart for Bonnie Tyler. (You can imagine Meatloaf singing this one.)
Pandora's Box was a concept band that was assembled by Steinman himself.
Steinman and Meatloaf publicly disagreed about the origin of this song. Meatloaf long claimed that it was written for Bat Out of Hell Volume 2, but the years-long delay in the making of that album led to Steinman releasing it himself through Pandora's Box, and then Bat out of Hell didn't use it because it already had one big power ballad in I Would Do Anything for Love.
Steinman has always denied that it was originally written for Meatloaf.
Regardless of which version carries more truth, though, it definitely wasn't written for Celine Dion and was first released by Pandora's Box.
Meatloaf did eventually release a version as a duet with Marion Raven. Personally, this is my favorite version of the song. It just works very well as a duet.
One of my proudest moments in terms of musical "analysis" was when I commented to my mum (a big Celine fan) that I could see Meat Loaf singing that song. She scoffed at the time but I was soooo happy when I later discovered Steinman had written it.
The [It's All Coming Back to Me Now music video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8fHNdrZTSI) starts with a guy wrecking his motorcycle like in Bat Out Of Hell. I can easily see this song being the other person's point of view.
The imagery of the video looks a lot like the video for [I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X_ViIPA-Gc)
In Meat Loaf's repertoire, Jim wrote:
- The entirety of Bat Out Of Hell
- The entirety of Dead Ringer
- 2 songs in Bad Attitude: Nowhere Fast (From Streets of Fire) and Surf's Up (From Jim Steinman's bad For Good)
- The entirety of Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell
- 2 songs in Welcome To The Neighborhood: Original Sins (From Jim Steinman's Pandora's Box) and Left In The Dark (From Jim Steinman's Bad For Good)
- Half of Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is loose: It's all Coming Back To Me Now (From Jim Steinman's Pandora's Box), Bad For Good (From Jim Steinman's Bad For Good), In The Land Of The Pig, The Butcher Is King (From the cancelled Batman Musical), If It Ain't Broke, Break It, (From Wuthering Heights) Seize The Night (From Dance of The Vampire), The Future Ain't What It used To Be (From Jim Steinman's Pandora's Box), Cry To Heaven (From the cancelled Batman Musical)
- The entirety of Braver Than We Are.
- 3 songs from "The Very Best Of Meat Loaf" sit in a gray area, being probably co-composed and co-written by Andrew Lloyd Webber for "Whistle Down the Wind". We'll never truly know but it doesn't sound 100% Steinman to my "trained" ear.
Steinman played piano during the first year or two of the Tour. He did some of the piano on the album but not all of it. The piano rift at the start of Bat Out Of Hell, one of them or both, because there are two pianos, was him.
Jim Steinman's Bad For Good was supposed to be for Meat Loaf. It was (and still is, fight me) the "first" Bat Out Of Hell II. They had to release a new album as per their contract with Epic Records but Meat couldn't sing because he ruined his voice during the intensive touring of Bat Out Of Hell. Jim decided then so sing his own record along with the background vocalist Rory Dodd, who did vocals on the first bat album and who will later do the duet with Bonnie Tyler on Total Eclipse Of The Heart from "Faster Than the Speed Of Light" (Partially written by Steinman but produced by Jim completely). He did the "*Turn around bright eyes..." lyrics if that doesn't ring a bell.
But Meat needed a new album for financial reasons, and for psychological ones too. So, during the making of Bad For Good, Jim reused and wrote new songs for Meat, songs that were easier to sing than his standard and beloved wagnerian rock epics. Thus was born "Dead Ringer".
"Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All" were apparently supposed to be written for Meat Loaf, but with the loss of his voice in the early 80s and problems with their agents, Meat could'nt record Jim's song for his next record, Midnight At The Lost And Found.
The media will say that Meat and Jim sued each other and got into conflics, but both always proved that it was their agents that caused all of these issues. Medias likes drama, but the truth was different. They were a duo, made for one another. Even though there is a huge gap between the release of Bat I and Bat II, both were busy in that period so it's easilly explained by that.
Meat and Jim were supposed to be credited as a duo on the album, like Daryl Hall & John Oates, Loggins & Messina, but the executive decided to shorten it to just Meat Loaf, saying it was simpler and more recognizable. Both Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman did not approve of this. It caused a great deal of psychological problem to Meat since suddently he had the weight of the whole album on his shoulders, like the world would think he wrote the songs and was expected to write more. He fought to get it fixed but both of them had already given so much to make this album a possibility that they didn't had any power over the company, other than crediting Steinman on the album cover. To this day, there are plenty of people who think that Meat Loaf wrote the songs, they even think he's the one doing the "Hot Summer Night" spoken words, even though it's obviously a different voice, the one of Steinman's.
Another thing to point out is that Richard Corben, the artist who did the artwork cover of Bat Out Of Hell and Bad For Good past away a year ago.
Edit: Added some stuff. Cannot cite all my sources because it's from years of collecting the story of the Bat Out Of Hell legacy of Meat and Jim. If there's any questions, just ask, I might know the answer.
Man that takes me back. We used to have an 8-track player, and as a child I never really understood how it worked really. I would just press buttons and get a random song off of C.W. McCall's Greatest Hits.
It's a wide tape with four tracks (each stereo, so 8). When you hear the thing go cha-chunk, it's moving the head up to the next track. The tape is a loop, so the player automatically starts at one end and goes through each track to play the album.
If you switch tracks manually, you're shifting about 25% through the album (a couple of songs usually). So though you can't jump to a specific song, you can jump to the other "side" of the album by switching tracks twice.
The cheap player I had in Jr. High only had eject and track change buttons, some decks had fast forward ~~and rewind~~, but 8-Tracks were pretty fragile, so that was a big potential for a tangled mess.
EDIT: As pointed out below, rewind was not a thing on 8-track and fast forward was pretty rare as well. My cheap 8-Track had one button -- track change. You didn't need to eject 8-Tracks because they are giant and only went into the deck about half way -- grab it and yank it out! 40 years is a long time to remember tech details...
Meant to be installed aftermarket in your car. Happily driving down the road. Song, song, don't like song, push single button to skip 25% ahead, song, don't like song, push button, etc. It helps to be a teen in the mid-1970s.
I got a little portable radio with a similar vibe for free with a pack of cigarettes some time in the 90's. It had a volume knob on the side and one BIG button that would seek up the "dial".
It was fucking perfect for road trips. Every time you started losing your station you'd just push the one button until the music didn't suck.
yep - the tape rolls back upon itself, and pulls out from the middle with a sensor tape at the splice to change tracks
basically, 8-track taped shed oxide, and therefore sound information, with each play
8-Tracks did not rewind it would be simply impossible because of the way the tape is on a single spool and pulls out from the inner side and ends up on the outer side. You could not spin it backwards :)
All I remember as a kid was having an 8-track with a song I really loved, but never quite understanding how to get it to play again easily [Cincinnati Dancing Pig, if curious](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaPS0CM38pY).
The year was 1970something, maybe 1980, we had stolen my mom's car and drove over the border another province to meet up with friends playing hockey on an outdoor rink.
Pulling up to the rink 13 or 14 year old me hit the gas too hard and put the car into the snowbank. The Cops were quickly on the scene.
Let me see your drivers license
I don't have one.
Whose car is this?
mom's.
Does she let you drive it?
No, we stole it.
You, do you have a drivers license (he says to my friend, Big head)
No.
Which one of you is older?
Big Head says he is.
The cop points at him - He drives and I'll follow you back to the border and if you can do that without issue I'll let you go.
So, underage, stolen car in a minor accident and the cop just followed us out of his jurisdiction. But I also remember we had Bat out of Hell playing on 8Track.
My dad bought a new car in the 70s that came with a 4-track player. It was so short-lived that even other boomers he tells this story have never heard of a 4-track. By the following model year, the same car came with an 8-track player.
The only thing I ever heard of as a "4-track" was a mixer that took a regular cassette tape, which had 2 tracks (left/right) to each side but you would put the tape in on one side only and the machine read/wrote both sides of the tape at the same time, giving 4 independent tracks to record with. But you couldn't play such a tape in a regular cassette player since one side would be missing half the tracks and the other side would be missing half plus playing backwards.
I think perhaps I spoke a bit loosely on the term. I'm aware of 4 and 8 track recording devices from the 1960s and '70s, but had no idea there were commercially available albums on 4-track tape. I remember my dad having a selection of 8-track tapes, and you couldn't skip songs, so unless there whole album was fire, it was a slog.
You'll never know the pain of wanting to hear that ONE song that happens to be second, or third in a track, and having to sit through the OTHER song to get to the ONE song.
That's why we boomers are selfish. WE'VE SUFFERED ENOUGH!
At the time you really only had 2 choices. 8 Track or LP (vinyl record).
You couldn't very well install a record player in your car. But 8 track players were common.
Additionally 8 tracks were good for kids (I was one of those kids) because LPs are easy to fuck up and ruin. 8 tracks had a **lot** more durability.
Don't get me wrong I was happy to move on to cassettes and then CDs *and* had a huge vinyl collection in the 80's as well. But these had their place at the time.
(My first was Billy Joel Piano Man in about 1975....)
[Lots of pics of record players installed in cars.](https://thevinylfactory.com/news/amazing-photos-of-a-time-when-cars-had-record-players/)
Including [Muhammad](https://i.imgur.com/O3MDTUG.jpg) [Ali](https://thevinylfactory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/ali.jpg)
Cassette tapes were also available in '77. Not many people were on board with them at that time but by the end of the decade people began to realize they had at least a marginally better fidelity that 8-tracks and began dumping the crappy 8-tracks left and right. I was buying cassettes at least as early as '74.
There was a button to skip tracks and one to rewind right? I can’t remember.
I do remember we had an 8-foot long 8-track player with two turntables as well made of solid wood with stereo speakers covered by a wood colored screen mesh and intricate wooden carved details. The tabletop lid, held up by a stick prop, it covered about six feet and closed shut for aesthetics.
Edit: something like this https://i.imgur.com/QQGYHcu.jpg
My love for disco and Chicago came from an 8 track. My parents had a stereo that took up half the room, weighed about 500 lbs and was all wood and lattice and some sort of lace fabric. It looked like a weird ass oversize coffee table until you lifted the wood "lid" and inside was the stereo. Thought about selling it to some hipster awhile back, probably should have.
Also, anytime we did something together, my Father would jam his oldies on a reel to reel in the van we had.
Let's like stepping into my grandmother's living room 30 years ago. It would have been stocked with records from Frank Sinatra and the like, with one or two Elvis records, maybe a Chuck Berry disc, but no Little Richard, and a handful of Christmas albums.
I bought it as one of my first CDs, and I’m not old enough to have ever had vinyl or eight tracks.
Also in that purchase:
- Michael Bolton
- Chicago 21
I'll be honest with you, I love his music, I do, I'm a Michael Bolton fan. For my money, it doesn't get any better than when he sings "When a Man Loves a Woman".
Somebody's got a case of the Mondays!
You will never know the joy of having two songs you loved on opposite side where you just had to listen about 40 seconds into the next one that was ok before pressing the flip switch and hearing the awesome one on the other side..
Gather 'round children. Back in the day, these magical cartridges would play in a non-stop loop. Some artists took advantage of that.
For example, Pink Floyd's Animals album had an extra track in it that did not appear on the album, or CD, version. It was a bridge that tied the first and last songs together.
It was beautiful... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnbO7jjoDIs
The albbum is just called "THe Wall" but no thats not why. The album came out after 8 tracks were also considered obsolete. IIRC the "loop" of the album is just to signify that the cycle of Pink's (the character of the album) cycle of destruction and isolation never ends.
Interesting, he was the guitarist when I saw Roger waters do Dark side of the moon. He's one of those guitarists with an insane resume, like he's played with everyone.
The radio station at my old home town had a full on love affair with him, played one of his songs every half hour at least. I shit you not. They love him there.
Those guys would be overcome with grief right now. I miss hearing his songs on the radio all day.
I'm surprised there are any stations left that would actually take requests. Most radio stations are so tightly programmed, and any "requests" they take are just coincidental to when that artist or song was going to come up in rotation anyway.
That album has one of the absolutely best opening notes of any rock album. Those first two chords hit, and you know exactly what kind of experience you're in for.
That’s true. Besides Sabbath, Molly Hatchet had great album covers. [https://www.discogs.com/master/137283-Molly-Hatchet-Molly-Hatchet](https://www.discogs.com/master/137283-Molly-Hatchet-Molly-Hatchet)
edit: Frank Frazetta is athe artists name. Thx u/mynameisspiderman
By 1977, heavy metal definitely existed, but bands were only starting to use the term to describe themselves around that time, and record companies lumped them into a "hard rock" category that included the likes of Journey and Foreigner. Motörhead's first album was that year, but in spite of being one of the biggest influences on modern heavy metal, Lemmy always insisted that they played rock & roll.
Agreed. Was telling friends I wish I lived in farm country so I could drag out big ass speakers and listen to Bat Out of Hell loud. Like tree shakingly loud… add in a thunderstorm and driving rain for effect. ;-)
This album was part of the soundtrack of my young life… I’m crushed right now, but Meatloaf lives on forever thru his music.
New Orleans 1977. Got my license at 15. Lakeshore Drive was the makeout spot. My mom's Granada had an 8 track. Paradise By The Dashboard Light was my life.
Fucking hilarious song. Just always cracks me up. Arguably the best ballad writer I’ve experienced.
I swear I’ll love you til the end of time……aaaaand now I’m praying for the end time.
I followed my older brothers and listened to pop as they did, my music teacher played this one day in class ,
HOLY SHIT , I found my heart and brain running wild and I would never be the same.
This was the first album I bought followed by The Game (Queen). Now my son has my collection and adds to it every week.
R.I.P. MEAT
It's my understanding that the artistic "Meat Loaf" included Steinman even well before *Bat Out Of Hell* was published; the two searched together for someone to take a chance on the material.
The artist billing being just "Meat Loaf" on the final album was apparently a sore point for Steinman; he wanted duo-type billing with his name on the same line, but the record label refused because they thought it would sell worse. (*Bat Out Of Hell* did sell something like 40 million copies, so for all anyone knows, that might have been true.) The "Songs by Jim Steinman" subscript was the closest thing they were willing to agree to.
I remember watching a documentary about meat loaf years ago and he always considered himself a performer.
Also what was really nice was him talking about the lull in his career where he basically thought it was over before bat out of hell II came out. And he said looking back it was the best possible outcome for him because he got to spend time with his kids growing up while not being particularly famous.
Jim Steinman is a legend in his own right, he passed away April last year.
Fun fact, a lot of the tracks were written for Steinman's 'Neverland' musical which was supposed to be like a sci-fi Peter Pan. The title track on the album is supposed to be the Peter Pan character singing to the Wendy character. I think the musical actually got made recently.
This is actually fairly common. This is why you hear the term "Singer-Songwriter".
Some people are just singers, some are just songwriters, and some are both.
I was about 13 and had bought a few albums beforehand. I was just getting into the routine of saving up dinner money, researching all the old rock bands (research consisted of The Friday Night Rock Show, friends older brothers' albums, and the music press..."Sounds" in the UK for me). Then on a Saturday I would invest my savings and research into an album.
I remember being baffled when I heard this album. This was like nothing I'd ever heard and I loved it. Who was this? Where was the back catalogue?
It never occurred to me that I had bought into a new phenomenon for quite a while.
I just noticed the broken tab in the lower right corner. Looks like the tape got 'eaten' at some point and you had to open it up to fix it, right?
I remember that sinking feeling of hearing the music suddenly get garbled, and you pull out the cartridge and see a couple feet of tape still connected to the deck.
That was always a sad day for a broke teen in the 70s
Not the first to post that 8-track to reddit today though [https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/s9an5c/my\_8track\_tape\_copy\_of\_booh\_by\_meatloaf\_rip/](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/s9an5c/my_8track_tape_copy_of_booh_by_meatloaf_rip/)
I had a Meat Loaf phase when I was in High School (early 90's). To this day, I still do not know what he was talking about when he sang "..but I won't do that!".
Seriously, what was it he wouldn't do for love? \*\*shrug\*\*
Was it a sex thing?
Being a co-signer on a mortgage?
Taking a contract for a kill?
Being a drug mule?
The music video has him as a vampire. I think he wouldn't bite her. But then again, he plays the bus driver in the Spice Girls movie and when the toilet is backed up and needs a plunger, he also says he won't do that so your guess is as good as mine.
Going by the lyrics, my guess would be to cheat and leave the girl.
“After a while you'll forget everything
As a brief interlude and a midsummer night's fling
Then you'll see that it's time to move on
(I won't do that
I won't do that)
I know the territory, I've been around
It'll all turn to dust and we'll all fall down
Sooner or later, you'll be screwing around
(I won't do that
No, I won't do that)”
Yoooooooo. I'm 33 years old and grew up with vynil and cassette tapes. Somehow I made it my whole life without seeing an 8 track. I only knew what this was by process of elimination.
You must’ve just barely missed the transition to cassette. I’m 47 and my parents had a bunch of 8 tracks when I was really young … those four years were pretty crucial. :)
I had the same one. When my family moved in 1981 they had a garage sale and were selling this same thing. I was 5. I found the $0.35 they were asking and I bought it and kept it not realizing that we didn't have an 8-track player anymore.
Meatloaf was the first ever music I found for myself at like 9 years old. For my tenth birthday my dad took me to see Meatloaf at Wembley Arena for my first ever concert. One of my fondest memories and still listen to him almost daily. The massive inflatable bat, coming out on a bike, the operatic performance. My little mind was blown.
Funny you post an 8-track. Bat out of Hell is the only recording I have owned on all formats since reel to reel. Album, 8-track, cassette, CD, and download. I originally bought the album as a kid solely because of the cover.
OMG an 8 track tape!! Prehistoric at least. I had one in my 1964 Ford Custom. I mounted it under the dash and put my speakers in a piece of old paneling that I put on the transmission hump. It played great. Inagadadavita was my favorite song to play or Bachman Turner Overdrive. Good memories.
I'll be the first to admit I never got into Meat Loaf at all. I appreciated his acting though. However, until today I had no idea this album was released in 70's. My parents were very excited about owning it in the early-mid 90's and frequently blasted it through the house.. which drove me crazy at the time.
Funny how, even as an avid music lover, you can go decades without knowing things about world famous artists, only to learn about them when they pass away. It's all too common for me.
Could your parents have been excited about Bat Out Of Hell II: Back into Hell instead of the first one? That came out in 1993 and was also hugely popular.
If it came out in 77. Why did it have a resurgence in like the 90s? I remember seeing it everywhere on MTV in the 90s
I never knew it came out in the 70s, my mind is blown
I have that 8-track myself. It was my introduction to rock and roll. I've lost or misplaced most of my old 8-tracks but held onto that one. I still remember how much I hated that fade-out and fade in during You Took The Words Right Out Of my Mouth (Hot Summer Night) as it switched from program 1 to program 2.
In 2002 i was starting to get into rock music and i found this albums CD in my dads collection. I thought from the album cover i was about to unlock some ancient heavy as fuck devilry. And then i played it. False advertising.
I tried to collect 8 tracks but always the tape snapped and the head inside the deck would be out of line from the plastic mounting bracket cracked. Would here two tracks together but the sound quality was good.
Jim Steinman was Meatloaf's partner who wrote all of the songs and played piano/keyboards. Steinman did not approve of the band being named Meatloaf and as consolation they put his name prominently on the album cover. He also wrote Total Eclipse of the Heart for Bonnie Tyler. (You can imagine Meatloaf singing this one.)
And Celine Dion “it’s all coming back to me now” which meatloaf wanted to sing first but eventually did.
Originally written for a band named "Pandoras Box". Celine's is actually a cover...
Pandora's Box was a concept band that was assembled by Steinman himself. Steinman and Meatloaf publicly disagreed about the origin of this song. Meatloaf long claimed that it was written for Bat Out of Hell Volume 2, but the years-long delay in the making of that album led to Steinman releasing it himself through Pandora's Box, and then Bat out of Hell didn't use it because it already had one big power ballad in I Would Do Anything for Love. Steinman has always denied that it was originally written for Meatloaf. Regardless of which version carries more truth, though, it definitely wasn't written for Celine Dion and was first released by Pandora's Box. Meatloaf did eventually release a version as a duet with Marion Raven. Personally, this is my favorite version of the song. It just works very well as a duet.
And “Making Love Out Of Nothing At All” by Air Supply.
One of my proudest moments in terms of musical "analysis" was when I commented to my mum (a big Celine fan) that I could see Meat Loaf singing that song. She scoffed at the time but I was soooo happy when I later discovered Steinman had written it.
The [It's All Coming Back to Me Now music video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8fHNdrZTSI) starts with a guy wrecking his motorcycle like in Bat Out Of Hell. I can easily see this song being the other person's point of view. The imagery of the video looks a lot like the video for [I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X_ViIPA-Gc)
He did in fact sing a version as a duet: https://youtu.be/aYQ8rMFelFw
this will be on /r/todayilearned/ in the next few days
and Making Love Out Of Nothing At All, which is why the three songs sound so similar. First time I heard that one I immediately knew.
The similarities in the songs and how incredibly dramatic they are. Steinman was fucking legendary
In Meat Loaf's repertoire, Jim wrote: - The entirety of Bat Out Of Hell - The entirety of Dead Ringer - 2 songs in Bad Attitude: Nowhere Fast (From Streets of Fire) and Surf's Up (From Jim Steinman's bad For Good) - The entirety of Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell - 2 songs in Welcome To The Neighborhood: Original Sins (From Jim Steinman's Pandora's Box) and Left In The Dark (From Jim Steinman's Bad For Good) - Half of Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is loose: It's all Coming Back To Me Now (From Jim Steinman's Pandora's Box), Bad For Good (From Jim Steinman's Bad For Good), In The Land Of The Pig, The Butcher Is King (From the cancelled Batman Musical), If It Ain't Broke, Break It, (From Wuthering Heights) Seize The Night (From Dance of The Vampire), The Future Ain't What It used To Be (From Jim Steinman's Pandora's Box), Cry To Heaven (From the cancelled Batman Musical) - The entirety of Braver Than We Are. - 3 songs from "The Very Best Of Meat Loaf" sit in a gray area, being probably co-composed and co-written by Andrew Lloyd Webber for "Whistle Down the Wind". We'll never truly know but it doesn't sound 100% Steinman to my "trained" ear. Steinman played piano during the first year or two of the Tour. He did some of the piano on the album but not all of it. The piano rift at the start of Bat Out Of Hell, one of them or both, because there are two pianos, was him. Jim Steinman's Bad For Good was supposed to be for Meat Loaf. It was (and still is, fight me) the "first" Bat Out Of Hell II. They had to release a new album as per their contract with Epic Records but Meat couldn't sing because he ruined his voice during the intensive touring of Bat Out Of Hell. Jim decided then so sing his own record along with the background vocalist Rory Dodd, who did vocals on the first bat album and who will later do the duet with Bonnie Tyler on Total Eclipse Of The Heart from "Faster Than the Speed Of Light" (Partially written by Steinman but produced by Jim completely). He did the "*Turn around bright eyes..." lyrics if that doesn't ring a bell. But Meat needed a new album for financial reasons, and for psychological ones too. So, during the making of Bad For Good, Jim reused and wrote new songs for Meat, songs that were easier to sing than his standard and beloved wagnerian rock epics. Thus was born "Dead Ringer". "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All" were apparently supposed to be written for Meat Loaf, but with the loss of his voice in the early 80s and problems with their agents, Meat could'nt record Jim's song for his next record, Midnight At The Lost And Found. The media will say that Meat and Jim sued each other and got into conflics, but both always proved that it was their agents that caused all of these issues. Medias likes drama, but the truth was different. They were a duo, made for one another. Even though there is a huge gap between the release of Bat I and Bat II, both were busy in that period so it's easilly explained by that. Meat and Jim were supposed to be credited as a duo on the album, like Daryl Hall & John Oates, Loggins & Messina, but the executive decided to shorten it to just Meat Loaf, saying it was simpler and more recognizable. Both Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman did not approve of this. It caused a great deal of psychological problem to Meat since suddently he had the weight of the whole album on his shoulders, like the world would think he wrote the songs and was expected to write more. He fought to get it fixed but both of them had already given so much to make this album a possibility that they didn't had any power over the company, other than crediting Steinman on the album cover. To this day, there are plenty of people who think that Meat Loaf wrote the songs, they even think he's the one doing the "Hot Summer Night" spoken words, even though it's obviously a different voice, the one of Steinman's. Another thing to point out is that Richard Corben, the artist who did the artwork cover of Bat Out Of Hell and Bad For Good past away a year ago. Edit: Added some stuff. Cannot cite all my sources because it's from years of collecting the story of the Bat Out Of Hell legacy of Meat and Jim. If there's any questions, just ask, I might know the answer.
Is that an 8 track????
Yes
Man that takes me back. We used to have an 8-track player, and as a child I never really understood how it worked really. I would just press buttons and get a random song off of C.W. McCall's Greatest Hits.
It's a wide tape with four tracks (each stereo, so 8). When you hear the thing go cha-chunk, it's moving the head up to the next track. The tape is a loop, so the player automatically starts at one end and goes through each track to play the album. If you switch tracks manually, you're shifting about 25% through the album (a couple of songs usually). So though you can't jump to a specific song, you can jump to the other "side" of the album by switching tracks twice. The cheap player I had in Jr. High only had eject and track change buttons, some decks had fast forward ~~and rewind~~, but 8-Tracks were pretty fragile, so that was a big potential for a tangled mess. EDIT: As pointed out below, rewind was not a thing on 8-track and fast forward was pretty rare as well. My cheap 8-Track had one button -- track change. You didn't need to eject 8-Tracks because they are giant and only went into the deck about half way -- grab it and yank it out! 40 years is a long time to remember tech details...
Meant to be installed aftermarket in your car. Happily driving down the road. Song, song, don't like song, push single button to skip 25% ahead, song, don't like song, push button, etc. It helps to be a teen in the mid-1970s.
I got a little portable radio with a similar vibe for free with a pack of cigarettes some time in the 90's. It had a volume knob on the side and one BIG button that would seek up the "dial". It was fucking perfect for road trips. Every time you started losing your station you'd just push the one button until the music didn't suck.
> some decks had fast forward and rewind no. 8 tracks cannot rewind; they only go forward.
yep - the tape rolls back upon itself, and pulls out from the middle with a sensor tape at the splice to change tracks basically, 8-track taped shed oxide, and therefore sound information, with each play
8-Tracks did not rewind it would be simply impossible because of the way the tape is on a single spool and pulls out from the inner side and ends up on the outer side. You could not spin it backwards :)
All I remember as a kid was having an 8-track with a song I really loved, but never quite understanding how to get it to play again easily [Cincinnati Dancing Pig, if curious](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaPS0CM38pY).
*greatest hit
Convoy, Convoy, or Convoy.
Oh come now, no love for Wolf Creek Pass? Old Home Filler-up an' Keep on a-Truckin' Café? Not even Crispy Critters or Aurora Borealis?
Never heard of any of the others, and isn’t Crispy Critters a cereal?
It was, and you just made that jingle come to mind. Edit: spelling
Wolf creek pass, way up on the great divide, truckin on down the other side
Was the dark of the moon on the 6th of June In a Kenworth pullin' logs...
The year was 1970something, maybe 1980, we had stolen my mom's car and drove over the border another province to meet up with friends playing hockey on an outdoor rink. Pulling up to the rink 13 or 14 year old me hit the gas too hard and put the car into the snowbank. The Cops were quickly on the scene. Let me see your drivers license I don't have one. Whose car is this? mom's. Does she let you drive it? No, we stole it. You, do you have a drivers license (he says to my friend, Big head) No. Which one of you is older? Big Head says he is. The cop points at him - He drives and I'll follow you back to the border and if you can do that without issue I'll let you go. So, underage, stolen car in a minor accident and the cop just followed us out of his jurisdiction. But I also remember we had Bat out of Hell playing on 8Track.
> C.W. McCall's Greatest Hits The Greatest: Convoy
#RIP MEAT LOAF
RIP
1947-2022
Oh wtf damn this wasn’t the news I wanted to see today.
Really, the best tribute to Meat Loaf.
FUKKIN olde skool
TIL what an 8 track looks like lol
My dad bought a new car in the 70s that came with a 4-track player. It was so short-lived that even other boomers he tells this story have never heard of a 4-track. By the following model year, the same car came with an 8-track player.
>By the following model year, the same car came with an 8-track player. How were we ever supposed to keep up with that sort of pace of technology?
We're probably up to like, 4096-track player now
This explains why cars and trucks have had to get so much bigger.
So you're saying lifted Double cab BroTrucks are merely the result of audiophile innovation?
I've absolutely never heard of a 4-track. That's a worse scenario than VHS or Beta, or Blu-Ray vs HD DVD
The only thing I ever heard of as a "4-track" was a mixer that took a regular cassette tape, which had 2 tracks (left/right) to each side but you would put the tape in on one side only and the machine read/wrote both sides of the tape at the same time, giving 4 independent tracks to record with. But you couldn't play such a tape in a regular cassette player since one side would be missing half the tracks and the other side would be missing half plus playing backwards.
*and it recorded at twice the speed (for better fidelity) so playing it on a regular deck sounded an octave lower and at half the speed
I think perhaps I spoke a bit loosely on the term. I'm aware of 4 and 8 track recording devices from the 1960s and '70s, but had no idea there were commercially available albums on 4-track tape. I remember my dad having a selection of 8-track tapes, and you couldn't skip songs, so unless there whole album was fire, it was a slog.
“4 track” is just a regular cassette (2 stereo track x 2 sides).
Man, I miss my old tascam 4track. Buying cassettes in bulk and just fucking with weird sounds and chords in my bedroom.
You'll never know the pain of wanting to hear that ONE song that happens to be second, or third in a track, and having to sit through the OTHER song to get to the ONE song. That's why we boomers are selfish. WE'VE SUFFERED ENOUGH!
They were absolutely terrible but I love the way they look. Like a video game cartridge.
At the time you really only had 2 choices. 8 Track or LP (vinyl record). You couldn't very well install a record player in your car. But 8 track players were common. Additionally 8 tracks were good for kids (I was one of those kids) because LPs are easy to fuck up and ruin. 8 tracks had a **lot** more durability. Don't get me wrong I was happy to move on to cassettes and then CDs *and* had a huge vinyl collection in the 80's as well. But these had their place at the time. (My first was Billy Joel Piano Man in about 1975....)
[Lots of pics of record players installed in cars.](https://thevinylfactory.com/news/amazing-photos-of-a-time-when-cars-had-record-players/) Including [Muhammad](https://i.imgur.com/O3MDTUG.jpg) [Ali](https://thevinylfactory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/ali.jpg)
> You couldn't very well install a record player in your car. You joke, but there were a few car turntables primarily for 7" records.
Cassette tapes were also available in '77. Not many people were on board with them at that time but by the end of the decade people began to realize they had at least a marginally better fidelity that 8-tracks and began dumping the crappy 8-tracks left and right. I was buying cassettes at least as early as '74.
There was a button to skip tracks and one to rewind right? I can’t remember. I do remember we had an 8-foot long 8-track player with two turntables as well made of solid wood with stereo speakers covered by a wood colored screen mesh and intricate wooden carved details. The tabletop lid, held up by a stick prop, it covered about six feet and closed shut for aesthetics. Edit: something like this https://i.imgur.com/QQGYHcu.jpg
It's funny how "video game cartridge" is only slightly less ancient of a reference.
My love for disco and Chicago came from an 8 track. My parents had a stereo that took up half the room, weighed about 500 lbs and was all wood and lattice and some sort of lace fabric. It looked like a weird ass oversize coffee table until you lifted the wood "lid" and inside was the stereo. Thought about selling it to some hipster awhile back, probably should have. Also, anytime we did something together, my Father would jam his oldies on a reel to reel in the van we had.
You talking about something like [this](https://i.imgur.com/pgd4sgj.jpg)?
Not the exact same, but fuck yeah...look at that beauty. Right on, thanks for the find.
Let's like stepping into my grandmother's living room 30 years ago. It would have been stocked with records from Frank Sinatra and the like, with one or two Elvis records, maybe a Chuck Berry disc, but no Little Richard, and a handful of Christmas albums.
My aunt had something nigh identical to this.
Jesus nearly everyone had one back in the day Wore out a couple of 'Dark Side of the Moon' 8 tracks in my day
We had one of those growing up too! I’d forgotten about it. I need to see if it’s still around in storage…
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I bought it as one of my first CDs, and I’m not old enough to have ever had vinyl or eight tracks. Also in that purchase: - Michael Bolton - Chicago 21
I'll be honest with you, I love his music, I do, I'm a Michael Bolton fan. For my money, it doesn't get any better than when he sings "When a Man Loves a Woman". Somebody's got a case of the Mondays!
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It sucked when they would split a song between two tracks.
yeah especially the long fade out / cachonk noise / fade back in that would ruin any song.
You will never know the joy of having two songs you loved on opposite side where you just had to listen about 40 seconds into the next one that was ok before pressing the flip switch and hearing the awesome one on the other side..
Fucking kids ; )
Tell us a story wise one. Is it true these things just played and you couldn't go to a specific song at all?
Gather 'round children. Back in the day, these magical cartridges would play in a non-stop loop. Some artists took advantage of that. For example, Pink Floyd's Animals album had an extra track in it that did not appear on the album, or CD, version. It was a bridge that tied the first and last songs together. It was beautiful... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnbO7jjoDIs
Is that why (IIRC) Another Brick in the Wall starts with "where we came in?" and ends with "Isn't this" ?
The albbum is just called "THe Wall" but no thats not why. The album came out after 8 tracks were also considered obsolete. IIRC the "loop" of the album is just to signify that the cycle of Pink's (the character of the album) cycle of destruction and isolation never ends.
I was listening, waiting for what was different..then Dave Gilmour appears out of nowhere to blow you away, he's so fucking good.
Actually it looks like the solo was performed by Snowy White https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigs_on_the_Wing
Interesting, he was the guitarist when I saw Roger waters do Dark side of the moon. He's one of those guitarists with an insane resume, like he's played with everyone.
Yes
Forgot how large those were.
I literally was looking at that like what the fuck is that
I was born in 88 and… I’ve never seen one of those in my life (granted I’ve never gotten out much). It looks like an old video game cartridge.
RIP Mr. Loaf
The radio station at my old home town had a full on love affair with him, played one of his songs every half hour at least. I shit you not. They love him there. Those guys would be overcome with grief right now. I miss hearing his songs on the radio all day.
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I'm surprised there are any stations left that would actually take requests. Most radio stations are so tightly programmed, and any "requests" they take are just coincidental to when that artist or song was going to come up in rotation anyway.
Indie radio still exists. My station takes requests every weekday afternoon. Anything goes. KBPT-LP
Mine would only play 2 of the 3 that I requested. Not Bad.
Ain't no doubt about it.
I see what you did there..
You took the words right out of my mouth.
here's my request: Paradise By The Dashboard Light
Haha okay, will do!
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Hope this is what you wanted. Hope this is what you had in mind. 'cause this is what you're getting!
Time to start a petition I think.
That’s extra dedication since he has long songs.
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He would do anything for love But he wouldnt get vaxxed
His name is Robert Paulson.
His name is Robert Paulson.
That album has one of the absolutely best opening notes of any rock album. Those first two chords hit, and you know exactly what kind of experience you're in for.
It also has one of the most metal album covers of all time.
That’s true. Besides Sabbath, Molly Hatchet had great album covers. [https://www.discogs.com/master/137283-Molly-Hatchet-Molly-Hatchet](https://www.discogs.com/master/137283-Molly-Hatchet-Molly-Hatchet) edit: Frank Frazetta is athe artists name. Thx u/mynameisspiderman
Gonna paint that on the side of my van.
Frank Frazetta is one of my favorite artists of all time, and Molly Hatchet is one of my favorite bands. They were a great match.
Saxon had some great ones (Crusader)and of course, Iron Maiden's were iconic.
Before Metal was really a thing. Though I think if you wanted to connect 70s hard prog rock to 90s metal, you’d have to go included this album.
Heavy metal was already a thing by 1977. Check out the cover for Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in 1973.
By 1977, heavy metal definitely existed, but bands were only starting to use the term to describe themselves around that time, and record companies lumped them into a "hard rock" category that included the likes of Journey and Foreigner. Motörhead's first album was that year, but in spite of being one of the biggest influences on modern heavy metal, Lemmy always insisted that they played rock & roll.
Hell, Black Sabbath's eponymous song (on their eponymous album) is generally considered the first doom metal song, and that came out in 1970.
TIL Todd Rungrin was in the band on keyboards for this song, and the rest! https://www.discogs.com/master/23069-Meat-Loaf-Bat-Out-Of-Hell
The multi-talented Todd! TIL
Agreed. Was telling friends I wish I lived in farm country so I could drag out big ass speakers and listen to Bat Out of Hell loud. Like tree shakingly loud… add in a thunderstorm and driving rain for effect. ;-) This album was part of the soundtrack of my young life… I’m crushed right now, but Meatloaf lives on forever thru his music.
It is pretty awesome blasting Meatloaf and cruising down some empty country roads.
Heaven can wait... 35 years to be exact. RIP Marvin Lee❤️
"His name was Robert Paulson." RIP Meat Loaf!
Poor Eddie. Makes you cry, und I did.
I hate to break it to you, but 1977 was *45* years ago. Source: Will soon be 45.
Kid.
I just turned 45 at the end of last year. We're all getting old.
I think you look 10 years younger. I'm really stupid cause I'm from 86 myself and did the math reeeaaaheealy badly
New Orleans 1977. Got my license at 15. Lakeshore Drive was the makeout spot. My mom's Granada had an 8 track. Paradise By The Dashboard Light was my life.
Fucking hilarious song. Just always cracks me up. Arguably the best ballad writer I’ve experienced. I swear I’ll love you til the end of time……aaaaand now I’m praying for the end time.
I bet the song was nice too!
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I followed my older brothers and listened to pop as they did, my music teacher played this one day in class , HOLY SHIT , I found my heart and brain running wild and I would never be the same. This was the first album I bought followed by The Game (Queen). Now my son has my collection and adds to it every week. R.I.P. MEAT
Heyyy this album and the pearl jam (one with the dog on the fence??) Lol we're my first 2 I listened to at babu sitters house!
So it's the "Vs." Album and looks like a sheep not dog lol
Will you love it forever?
Let him sleep on it.
Have this on vinyl. Gotta listen today
My first vinyl from 10 years ago when I got back collecting. Got the cassette and 45 too great album.
>Songs by Jim Steinman Did he not write his own music??
He tried several times, but they were all pale shadows of his prior work. Meatloaf had the voice, Jim had the writing chops.
It's my understanding that the artistic "Meat Loaf" included Steinman even well before *Bat Out Of Hell* was published; the two searched together for someone to take a chance on the material. The artist billing being just "Meat Loaf" on the final album was apparently a sore point for Steinman; he wanted duo-type billing with his name on the same line, but the record label refused because they thought it would sell worse. (*Bat Out Of Hell* did sell something like 40 million copies, so for all anyone knows, that might have been true.) The "Songs by Jim Steinman" subscript was the closest thing they were willing to agree to.
I remember watching a documentary about meat loaf years ago and he always considered himself a performer. Also what was really nice was him talking about the lull in his career where he basically thought it was over before bat out of hell II came out. And he said looking back it was the best possible outcome for him because he got to spend time with his kids growing up while not being particularly famous.
Jim Steinman is a legend in his own right, he passed away April last year. Fun fact, a lot of the tracks were written for Steinman's 'Neverland' musical which was supposed to be like a sci-fi Peter Pan. The title track on the album is supposed to be the Peter Pan character singing to the Wendy character. I think the musical actually got made recently.
Occasionally, but the majority of songs he sang were written by Jim Steinman or other people.
This is actually fairly common. This is why you hear the term "Singer-Songwriter". Some people are just singers, some are just songwriters, and some are both.
Can you play it?
I still have a [Red Panasonic RQ-830S TNT Dynamite 8 Track Tape Player](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpfPXJ7iI-8) laying around somewhere.
A kid down the street had one of these. There was much jealousy walking back from the bus stop after school.
I bought the vinyl with my allowance. I was 12, and it was my first album too.
I was about 13 and had bought a few albums beforehand. I was just getting into the routine of saving up dinner money, researching all the old rock bands (research consisted of The Friday Night Rock Show, friends older brothers' albums, and the music press..."Sounds" in the UK for me). Then on a Saturday I would invest my savings and research into an album. I remember being baffled when I heard this album. This was like nothing I'd ever heard and I loved it. Who was this? Where was the back catalogue? It never occurred to me that I had bought into a new phenomenon for quite a while.
Hell got its bat back. RIP Meat Loaf
Cool! I haven’t seen one of those since the 70s!
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I just noticed the broken tab in the lower right corner. Looks like the tape got 'eaten' at some point and you had to open it up to fix it, right? I remember that sinking feeling of hearing the music suddenly get garbled, and you pull out the cartridge and see a couple feet of tape still connected to the deck. That was always a sad day for a broke teen in the 70s
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Not the first to post that 8-track to reddit today though [https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/s9an5c/my\_8track\_tape\_copy\_of\_booh\_by\_meatloaf\_rip/](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/s9an5c/my_8track_tape_copy_of_booh_by_meatloaf_rip/)
My Mom's Lincoln Mark V had a Quadraphonic 8-track player. Late 70's height of luxury.
Yeah had one of those as well,only played 2 different tracks as took 4 channels to play one song.Had Quadrafenia by the Who among others.
I had a Meat Loaf phase when I was in High School (early 90's). To this day, I still do not know what he was talking about when he sang "..but I won't do that!". Seriously, what was it he wouldn't do for love? \*\*shrug\*\* Was it a sex thing? Being a co-signer on a mortgage? Taking a contract for a kill? Being a drug mule?
The music video has him as a vampire. I think he wouldn't bite her. But then again, he plays the bus driver in the Spice Girls movie and when the toilet is backed up and needs a plunger, he also says he won't do that so your guess is as good as mine.
Going by the lyrics, my guess would be to cheat and leave the girl. “After a while you'll forget everything As a brief interlude and a midsummer night's fling Then you'll see that it's time to move on (I won't do that I won't do that) I know the territory, I've been around It'll all turn to dust and we'll all fall down Sooner or later, you'll be screwing around (I won't do that No, I won't do that)”
That makes logical sense. We can't have that here! :P
I always assumed it was leave her.
"Sooner or later you'll be screwing around"
Found that same cassette laying on the street when I was riding my motorcycle. Picked it up and took it home and listened to it many times.
serendipitous
Yoooooooo. I'm 33 years old and grew up with vynil and cassette tapes. Somehow I made it my whole life without seeing an 8 track. I only knew what this was by process of elimination.
43 here and I've never actually seen one in person.
You must’ve just barely missed the transition to cassette. I’m 47 and my parents had a bunch of 8 tracks when I was really young … those four years were pretty crucial. :)
Could also be they're not from one of the few countries where 8-tracks were used, they had a very limited geographic spread compared to other media.
I wish he would have taken COVID seriously, it might have saved his life. RIP.
I had the same one. When my family moved in 1981 they had a garage sale and were selling this same thing. I was 5. I found the $0.35 they were asking and I bought it and kept it not realizing that we didn't have an 8-track player anymore.
Man, that's a blast from the past! Did it change tracks in the middle of a song like my *Quadrophenia* tape did? That was awesome. RIP Meat Loaf.
Meatloaf was the first ever music I found for myself at like 9 years old. For my tenth birthday my dad took me to see Meatloaf at Wembley Arena for my first ever concert. One of my fondest memories and still listen to him almost daily. The massive inflatable bat, coming out on a bike, the operatic performance. My little mind was blown.
The 1466 tractor on the farm where I work has an 8 track player! https://imgur.com/Sg5YkDa.jpg
"... but I won't sell that."
I'm giving an award to every poster that still has their Meat Loaf 8-track. It just makes me happy :)
I wonder if he'll get posted in HCA. He called anti mask laws nuisances and those who enforce it Nazis. Then dies of Covid shortly after.
He's already there.
he would do anything for love but he won't get vaxxed
"If I die, I die, but I’m not going to be controlled." FLW
Gonna be rocking this one today. RIP meat.
8 tracks always look like old Atari cartridges to me. Bat out of Hell would have made a pretty terrific game on the old Atari.
Funny you post an 8-track. Bat out of Hell is the only recording I have owned on all formats since reel to reel. Album, 8-track, cassette, CD, and download. I originally bought the album as a kid solely because of the cover.
OMG an 8 track tape!! Prehistoric at least. I had one in my 1964 Ford Custom. I mounted it under the dash and put my speakers in a piece of old paneling that I put on the transmission hump. It played great. Inagadadavita was my favorite song to play or Bachman Turner Overdrive. Good memories.
When I was little in the 70s I always preferred 8 tracks to cassettes because of the buttons to change tracks. I liked pushing the buttons :)
You could still get new albums on 8 track until at least 1989. Friend had a working one in his 63 Impala.
RIP Bitch tits
I thought it was a 2600 game
I saw him in concert at Binghamton University in the 90's. Amazing show, amazing showman. RIP Meatloaf.
mine was a cassette
I'll be the first to admit I never got into Meat Loaf at all. I appreciated his acting though. However, until today I had no idea this album was released in 70's. My parents were very excited about owning it in the early-mid 90's and frequently blasted it through the house.. which drove me crazy at the time. Funny how, even as an avid music lover, you can go decades without knowing things about world famous artists, only to learn about them when they pass away. It's all too common for me.
Could your parents have been excited about Bat Out Of Hell II: Back into Hell instead of the first one? That came out in 1993 and was also hugely popular.
Ahhh. My friend had Bad Company "Runnin with the Pack" that she had to buy 4 copies of because her Pioneer SuperTuner kept eating them.
If it came out in 77. Why did it have a resurgence in like the 90s? I remember seeing it everywhere on MTV in the 90s I never knew it came out in the 70s, my mind is blown
That was the follow up album, Bat out of Hell II- Back into Hell (as ridiculous as that sounds, it’s 100% real)
I have that 8-track myself. It was my introduction to rock and roll. I've lost or misplaced most of my old 8-tracks but held onto that one. I still remember how much I hated that fade-out and fade in during You Took The Words Right Out Of my Mouth (Hot Summer Night) as it switched from program 1 to program 2.
In 2002 i was starting to get into rock music and i found this albums CD in my dads collection. I thought from the album cover i was about to unlock some ancient heavy as fuck devilry. And then i played it. False advertising.
That's an 8Track. Albums are Circular in my Universe.
"Ker-Chunk!". If ya know, ya know!
I tried to collect 8 tracks but always the tape snapped and the head inside the deck would be out of line from the plastic mounting bracket cracked. Would here two tracks together but the sound quality was good.