We remember Meat Loaf: Bat Out Of Hell

In 1977, the best dose of theatrical overkill available to the music-buying punter was either Bat Out of Hell or a Queen album—and even Freddie Mercury felt subtle in comparison with Marvin Aday. Everything was exaggerated in Meat Loaf’s universe: his operatic singing style, the awe-inspiring album cover, the wall-of-sound production, and the lyrics of this title track, the LP’s most memorable cut.

In the grand tradition of two decades of death discs, “Bat Out of Hell” tells the tale of a doomed, lovelorn teenager who rides his motorbike too fast and winds up dead. Aday supplied suitably histrionic vocals over Jim Steinman’s marvelous suite of instrumentation, split into discrete movements for maximum drama. Guitar solos wail; a nimble-fingered piano riff gives the song’s opening a genuine boost; and the energetic layers of music add up to so much high-octane froth that many writers were moved to describe the song as heavy metal. They were wrong; although the heavy metal of the day did specialize in big, fat, pompous riffage, “Bat Out of Hell” was more akin to a symphony.

The album went on to become one of the bestselling of all time, thanks to its fuller-than-full-fat arrangements. But if listening to the whole album daunts, give the title track a spin and marvel at how much subtlety emerges.