We May Be Nuts, But At Least We’re Nut-Free!
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Read MoreThe King Is Dead: RIP Meatloaf
Ah, young love. Isn’t Valentine’s Day – the day to celebrate being swept up by sudden, all consuming passion – more about young love than anything else? Romeo and Juliet, Laura Ingalls and Almonzo (his pet name? Manly), you and your first romantic entanglement. The terror of revealing yourself emotionally for the first time, and not by texting. Farmer Bob and I are old enough to be old school, when it was all done in person and real time. The horrible, dramatically satisfying pain of teen heartbreak, with infatuation, desire, the pleasure of belonging to someone who wants to belong to you, possibly even love if you were lucky. And, inevitably, the opportunity for self-love and ascetic self-satisfaction by being right when you’ve been wronged.
Valentine’s Day is also about Valentine’s Day Ice Cream or a Valentine’s Day dessert idea, as in, drown your romantic sorrows or celebrate your romantic success with an easy Valentine’s dessert featuring ice cream (and lots of it). Or just send a Valentine’s gift featuring – you guessed it – ice cream!
So, how does Meatloaf fit into this, beyond a passing resemblance to a certain minor Greek (and later, Roman) God sporting multiple names, a set of wings, barely a stitch of clothing and a super-cute bow and arrow set? By helping produce the record album Bat Out of Hell, singing lead on some of the greatest, semi-serious, songs-of-unrequited-love-and-teenage-angst. EVER.
I had the good fortune to grow up in a town close to where Meatloaf made his home. I know all the local stories about his youth sports coaching, his emphasis on team building, support, and sportsmanship, not winning at all costs (very Sisters of Anarchy-ish in outlook), and the occasional team excursions to the big city to see his shows, courtesy of the man himself. I don’t doubt for a second that he would love Valentine’s Day ice cream and would appreciate any Valentine’s dessert featuring ice cream – the day before, the day after, or any other day of the year.
As all good albums should, Bat Out of Hell sent out tremors, both in the music industry and, most importantly, within my contemporaries. Multiple tracks that are 8- or 9- minutes long and songs that stay interesting for the entire length? Songs about exactly what we were doing, hoping to do, thinking, or saying on St. Valentine’s or any other day? Taking awkward, dramatically cringy personal moments and re-painting them with operatic, bombastic splendor that we wanted to listen to, sing with, over and over and over?
Who else could play ridiculous in Rocky Horror Picture Show, then start an album track with this spoken word poetry:
[Boy:] On a hot summer night
Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
[Girl:] Will he offer me his mouth?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] Will he offer me his teeth?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] Will he offer me his jaws?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] Will he offer me his hunger?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] Again, will he offer me his hunger?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:]And will he starve without me?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] And does he love me?
[Boy:] Yes
[Girl:] Yes
[Boy:] On a hot summer night
Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
[Girl:] Yes
[Boy:] I bet you say that to all the boys
I’m not even sure what it means, but I still love it, and I still love singing along. So raise a glass (or a pint or cone) to Meatloaf! Paradise By the Dashboard Light, indeed.