Broadway to ‘Bat Out of Hell’
By right , Jim Steinman should have been born in some Transylvanian castling shrouded in murkiness and call by circling chiropteran . But he was actually from Long Island , New York , where he grew up in a well - to - do family with a Father of the Church who own a Brooklyn sword distribution storage warehouse .
In in high spirits school , Steinman was a National Merit Scholarship finalist — though in Steinman ’s version of upshot , he did n’t spend a draw of time examine . While attending Amherst College , he made up for his lusterless academic performance by writingThe Dream railway locomotive , a careen melodic about “ a conspiracy by the governance , business and the military to assure the nation ’s youth by medicine them and suppressing their emotions,”according toThe Washington Post , during his fourth-year year in 1971 .
The Dream Enginecaught the attention of theatre bigwig Joseph Papp , who engage Steinman to produce the show as part of the New York Shakespeare Festival . The musical comedy never in reality reached the stage , despite talkofDavid Bowieplaying the lead , and somewhere along the fashion , Steinman altogether reworked the show , incorporating plot elements fromPeter Pan . Steinman called the young musicalNeverland , and heworkshopped the productionin 1977 at the Kennedy Center .
By this time , Steinman had met and formed a creative partnership with Michael Lee Aday , a.k.a . Meat Loaf , a beefy Texas native who had grown up playing football before discovering his talent for melodic field of operations . Meat Loaf find his way to New York City in the other ’ 70s and bet the lead role inMore Than You merit , a 1973 musical Steinman composed the music and co - write the words for . Steinman and Meat Loaf later toured together in The National Lampoon Road Show , for which Steinman served as musical director .
Neverlandfizzled out because Steinman and company had trouble get the right to thePeter Panmaterial in the show . Ina 1978 interviewwithGallery Magazine , Meat Loaf claim that he “ freaked out ” one day and told Steinman he involve to adjudicate whetherNeverlandwas croak to be a show or an album . With someheavy limiting , it wreathe up being the latter : Meat Loaf ’s 1977 debutBat Out of Hell , a surprise megahit thatspent 82 weekson the Billboard 200 chart and include the Top 40 singles “ Paradise By the Dashboard Light , ” “ You use up the Word Right Out of My Mouth ( Hot Summer Night ) , ” and “ Two Out of Three Ai n’t tough . ”
“An Erotic Motorcycle”
The partnership between Steinman and Meat Loaf waver in the early ’ eighty , as Meat Loaf skin with the demand of stardom and digest a “ psychosomatic ” loss of his famous operatic voice . The couple ’s plan follow - up , Renegade Angel , became the Steinman solo projectBad for Good . That album was n’t a colossal collision — it stall at no . 63 on the Billboard 200 — but Steinman rack up monster chart achiever with Bonnie Tyler ’s “ Total Eclipse of the Heart ” and Air Supply ’s “ Making Love Out of Nothing at All . ”
“ This call is an titillating motorcycle,”Steinman said . “ It ’s like Heathcliff digging up Cathy ’s corpse and dance with it in the cold moonlight . You ca n’t get more uttermost , operatic or passionate than that . ” Heathcliff and Cathyarecharacters inWuthering Heights , but there’sno such scenein the book . Which of course of action does n’t matter — Steinman was after something gothier than goth , more vivid and moody than even Emily Brontë could have imagined .
“ I was seek to write a song about drained things coming to living , ” Steinman said . “ I was endeavor to save a birdsong about being enslave and obsessed by love , not just enchanted and happy with it . It was about the dark side of love and about the extraordinary power to be resurrected by it once deadened . ”
Pandora’s Box
A song this swelled postulate over - the - top visuals , and Steinmanenlisted Ken Russell , the filmmaker behind the prominent - screen door version of The Who’sTommy , to direct the music picture . Shot in London , the clip centers on the erotic fantasy of a woman who ’s just been in a motorcycle clangor , and it ’s wild stuff : There ’s fire , interpretative dance , pagan ritual , and an orgy featuring dude in leather crevice .
Celine On the Scene
The “Definitive Version”?
“ I ’m not getting any younger . So , I could n’t await , ” substance say . “ I had to make a conclusion : Did I have five years to expect until Jim Steinman got sound enough to do this record book — especially sinceBat Out of Hellalbums are very physically demanding ? ”
Steinman died in April 2021 aftersuffering a strokeseveral days originally . Meat Loaf — who was n’t involved with the show — died in January 2022at the years of 74 . Later that same yr , Bat Out of Hell : The Musicalopened at the Paris Theater in Las Vegas . Itclosedon January 1 , 2023 , after just 12 weeks . Tours of the UK , Europe , Australia , and New Zealand were planned for 2023 .
“ It ’s about obsession , and that can be scary because you ’re not in control and you do n’t know where it ’s going to stop , ” Steinman said . “ It says that , at any point in somebody ’s biography , when they loved somebody strongly enough and that individual returns , a sure touch , a sure physical motion can sprain them from being defiant and disgusted with this person to being subservient again . And it ’s not just a enjoyable feeling that comes back , it ’s the complete terror and release of controller that come back . And I believe that ’s finally a great weapon system . ”
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