Today we’re celebrating songwriter Jim Steinman’s birthday with one of his biggest hits, “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.” The song was performed by the singer known as Meat Loaf on his Bat Out of Hell album. Released as a single in August of 1978, the track only went to #39 on the Billboard Hot 100 but became an FM radio and classic rock staple.
Jim Steinman’s songs, including “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” were bombastic, operatic, and so over-the-top that the top receded into the distance by the time the out chorus faded away. The man either didn’t care about or couldn’t be bothered with traditional verse-chorus-verse form. His songs transcended form and just kept going and going and going, pushing for one climax after another, truly epic but not what you’d traditionally hear on top 40 radio.
Steinman first came to prominence with Meat Loaf’s 1977 Bat Out of Hell album. The story goes that legendary producer Clive Davis initially rejected Bat Out of Hell, commenting to Steinman about his songs:
“Do you know how to write a song? Do you know anything about writing? If you’re going to write for records, it goes like this: A, B, C, B, C, C. I don’t know what you’re doing. You’re doing A, D, F, G, B, D, C. You don’t know how to write a song…. Have you ever listened to pop music? Have you ever heard any rock-and-roll music…. You should go downstairs when you leave here…and buy some rock-and-roll records.”
Clive Davis was wrong. Steinman’s songs, even as they clearly defy traditional rock and roll logic, are terrific, all arranged in a fashion that makes Phil Spector’s original Wall of Sound feel more like a short hedgerow. The entire Bat Out of Hell album is over-the-top operatic pure rock and pop bliss. Meat Loaf performs like the bastard child of Richard Wagner and Phil Spector and Steinman’s songs are so filled with hooks that they keep multiplying one after another, and one on top of another. Production is by king of power pop Todd Rundgren, so there’s that. The supporting musicians, including Springsteen drummer Max Weinberg and his compatriot in the E Street Band, pianist Roy Bittan, play every note with the maximum force necessary. It’s just layers upon layers upon layers of hookish goodness, so over the top that, while you can’t really take it seriously, you can stomp your feet and sing along at the top of your lungs. It’s just… just… well, it’s just a big bombastic bat-out-of-hell type of album.
“Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is the highlight of the Bat Out of Hell album and a glorious piece of teenage libidinous excess. It’s a theatrical composition in four parts:
- Paradise by the Dashboard Light, where the protagonists reminisce about their days as a teenage couple out on a hot date.
- Baseball Broadcast, where the guy tries to round the bases, as called by real-life New York Yankees broadcaster Phil Rizzuto
- Let Me Sleep On It, where the girl puts the brakes on the guy, insisting that he love her forever before she lets him go all the way and him, instead, wanting to sleep on it
- Praying for the End of Time, where the couple returns to the present, still a couple but really hating each other
The young lady singing the girlfriend part on “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” was the hard rockin’ Ellen Foley—but that wasn’t her on the song’s music video. You may remember Ms. Foley from her turn as public defender Billie Young (and possible love interest for Judge Harry Anderson) in the second season of the original Night Court TV series. She was singing with Mr. Loaf when they recorded the Bat Out of Hell album but had parted ways by the time the album was released and became a hit. She was replaced on tour by equally big throated singer Karla DeVito, and that’s who you see in the music video. (Ms. Foley subsequently had a somewhat successful career as a solo singer; her 1979 Night Out album is one of my favorites from that period.)
Jim Steinman was born on November 1, 1947 and got his start in the theatrical world, directing several plays while he was attending Amhurst College in the late ’60s. He wrote his first musical (The Dream Engine) his senior year and went on to write several other minor musicals and hone his composing skills throughout the 1970s. He met singer Marvin Lee Aday, later known as Meat Loaf, when Mr. Aday was acting in one of Mr. Steinman’s musicals, 1973’s More Than You Deserve. That started a long and fruitful partnership that culminated in the Bat Out of Hell album.
Steinman went on to write more songs for Mr. Loaf and other artists. You probably know most if not all of them: “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That),” “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad,” and “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth” for Meat Loaf; “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and “Holding Out for a Hero” by Bonnie Tyler; “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” for Celine Dion; “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” for Air Supply; and, for the movie Streets of Fire, “Tonight is What It Means to Be Young” and “Nowhere Fast.” They’re all larger than life, just as Steinman himself was.
Jim Steinman’s songs were not overly complex; many used basic I – IV – V chord constructions. What he did, however, was write compelling melodies and then push those melodies to the limit, building on the natural tension and release past the point of no return. Operatic is, perhaps, an apt description of his style; not everybody liked it but it was extremely effective.
Steinman reacted to criticism of his work by saying, “If you don’t go over the top, how are you ever going to see what’s on the other side?” Well, Jim’s on the other side now, having passed away of a stroke in 2021, aged 73. His music is still playing, however—and will undoubtedly continue to do so.
And here’s your daily bonus video of the day—the (in)famous music video of Jim Steinman’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” starring his friend Meat Loaf and featuring Karla DeVito lip-synching to Ellen Foley’s original vocal. It was long ago and it was far away…
