Episode 1.6 - I'd Lie For You (And That's the Truth) | Train of Love

The Train of Love chugs us along to the end of the line. By which we mean, series one of Chat out of Hell. But there's a few more questions to answer first. Questions like:

Who knew Meat Loaf was so big into Indiana Jones fan fiction?

What do Meat Loaf and Johnny Cash not have in common?

Which major stage show based on music by Jim Steinman is touring the UK in 2025, and how excited does this make Emma?

CooH is taking a short break after this ep but will be back on the 12th August, giving a whole episode to I'd Do Anything For Love. Perhaps we'll do a little cheeky bonus something in the meantime. While you're waiting, why not tell a friend about us?

Keep your comments, reviews and arguments flying in to chatoutofhell@gmail.com

Chat out of Hell is a is a review podcast: all music extracts are used for review/illustrative purposes. To hear the songs in full please buy them from your local record shop or streaming platform. Don't do a piracy.

Music extracts on this episode:
I'd Lie For You (And That's the Truth) by Meat Loaf from the album Welcome to the Neighbourhood (1995)
Train of Love by Meat Loaf from the album Braver than We Are (2016)
Hurt by Johnny Cash from the album American IV: The Man Comes Around (2003)
Big Iron by Johnny Cash from the album American IV: The Man Comes Around (2003)
Train of Love by Jim Steinman from a demo tape labelled "The Dream Engine 1972"

Transcript

[00:00:00] 
Sam: Baddla baddla baddla baddla Chat out of Hell! Hello, Emma. 
Emma: Hey Sam! 
Sam: Welcome back! 
Emma: It's nice to see you again. 
Sam: Thanks. It's nice to see you too. I was kind of thrown by that. 
Emma: Yeah, sorry. trying to be more upbeat. 
Sam: Okay, cool. Yeah. No, you're right, because you were a miserable fucker last time. 
Emma: I was, wasn't I? I'm trying to be a happy chapette.
I don't know. Happy chapette. 
Sam: Your drag name. 
Emma: Oh god.
Sam: How are you feeling? 
Emma: I have a cold. 
I am enjoying a lovely summer cold at the moment, which is why I sound like this. 
Sam: Is it? 
Emma: Yes. 
Sam: Okay, I did wonder why. It could have been any number of reasons. 
Emma: Yes. 
Sam: Emma, what are we doing here? 
Emma: We are taking Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman songs and we are analysing them in punishing detail. 
Sam: We both bring a Meat Loaf or Jim Steinman song to the table for us to discuss, analyse, , generally have a lovely time talking about some, , often awful songs and then we rate them with our [00:01:00] patented Meat Loaf slash Jim Steinman rating scale, and we go away considering that a job well done.
Emma: Yeah. 
Sam: And at some point in the Distant future question mark. We're gonna write our own Jim Steinman style rock opera just to prove how easy it is 
Emma: And we're going to compare ours to what AI can come up with. 
Sam: AI is getting better all the time. Whereas we're on a much less exponential graph, so we need to hurry up 
Emma: Are you saying we're getting stupider?
Sam: No, I'm just saying we're not learning as fast as AI is, but maybe we are getting stupider er. 
Emma: I am concerned I might be getting more stupider er. 
Sam: . We've had some message, we've had a message. 
Emma: Yay! 
Sam: Yeah, it didn't come into the email, but it was an IM conversation that I thought I'd share. This is from Andy Laister. I'm just going to go through it. line by line. 
So I started listening to Chat out of Hell. 
Wondering why the fuck I want to spend so much time listening about Meat Loaf. 
But I ran out of The Rest is Politics, so I started.
It's like a soothing balm for my [00:02:00] starved, almost modern cultural soul. 
Like, honestly, I'm happily surprised.
I want to listen to the shit out of Meat Loaf on the way to your house now.
I have never, ever felt this need before. 
Emma: So we've broken somebody. 
Sam: Also, kudos on your research, Sam. 
Apart from reading random fucking YouTube comments out, who do you think you are, BBC Online News? 
Emma: Look, the resources are limited.
Sam: They're both dead now, we can't interview them to find out what they were thinking. 
 Thank you for listening, Andy. I hope you did enjoy listening to Meat Loaf on the way to my house. 
Emma: Thanks, Andy. 
Sam: Yeah. If you could listen to this episode as well, that would be lovely. 
Emma: We really need the downloads. 
Sam: We don't need the downloads! Fuck you, listeners!
We're like Meat Loaf, yeah? In the mid eighties. He didn't need people either. He just got on with it. 
Emma: Are we gonna do a tour? Like, he did to stay afloat. , 
Sam: let's not get into how well our tours go, [00:03:00] Emma. 
 Emma, what song have you brought for our listeners to hear about today?
Emma: I have brought I'd Lie For You And That's The Truth from Welcome To The Neighbourhood. 
Sam: Emma has started with the good song this episode. And this is the last episode of our first series, so , as discussed last week, we are gonna close with the very last song of the very last Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman album. The album's called Braver Than We Are from 2016. And the song is called Train of Love. 
Emma: All aboard! 
Sam: Let's find out in a bit. So listeners, go away, track those songs down on YouTube, Spotify, wherever you want to find them. There's no music video for Train of Love, but there is one for I'd Lie For You and That's The Truth.
Emma: Oh, there is. 
Sam: And it's fucking magnificent, so we're gonna watch that right now. You guys don't have to, but you will be missing out if you don't. 
Emma: You really should watch it. 
Sam: We'll see you all in a few minutes time. 
 
Music: Say that I'm a fool to act this way. Cause if I'm crazy, I'm just [00:04:00] crazy about you. I'd lie for you and that's the truth. Do anything you ask me to I'd even sell my soul if I'd do it all for you If you just believe in me 
Emma: . That is I'd Lie For You And That's The Truth. It's from the Welcome To The Neighborhood album, which came out in October 1995. I bought the single for that when I was a kid.
Sam: How old were you? 
Emma: Eleven by this point. . So this is still sort of formative stuff. And this was what my idea of romance was. 
 What do you think to the song, Sam? 
Sam: I like the song.
Emma: Yes. 
Sam: The album came out after Bat Out Of Hell 2. Yep. And after I'd Do Anything For Love, but I won't do that. And, let's not beat about the bush, it is a photocopy of I'd Do Anything For Love. 
Emma: But it's, not done on the best quality photocopy, is it? 
Sam: [00:05:00] No, no. 
Emma: So it was written by Diane Warren.
Sam: Our old friend, Diane Warren. 
Emma: she wrote Not A Dry Eye In The House, which we've already covered. And yeah, the piano part and everything, it all feels like I'd Do Anything for Love, But I Won't Do That part two. 
it's got those vibes throughout and the sort of big romantic gesture of the song as well.
It's basically the same. And that's fine, that's okay. That's what artists do. 
Sam: . How long is it? 
Emma: The video's at least seven minutes. 
Sam: Yes, but there are two minutes of fucking about. . 
Emma: I timed it the fucking about lasts for forty seven seconds. 
Sam: That's quite a small amount of fucking about. But that's 
Emma: before any music 
That's the preamble. . The female part is sung by Patti Russo. longtime collaborator and she's featured on most of Meat Loaf's albums over the years She isn't the woman appearing in the video. 
 I think it's a great song. I remember listening to it on my Walkman in the back of my parents' car and thinking, because, you know, that sort of age you're [00:06:00] starting to feel a bit 
Sam: Tingly. 
Emma: Tingly! Yeah, I think, you know, I thought it was an incredibly romantic song, this idea that, you know, I might be crazy, but I'm crazy about you.
I wanted somebody to say that to me. 
, actually now that sounds like too much. I might be crazy, but I'm crazy about you. That's a lot of pressure, isn't it? I might be 
Sam: crazy, but I'm crazy about. Keeping the kitchen quite tidy. 
Emma: Ooh, ooh, ooh. Now that is the way to a woman's heart. 
Sam: You've seen my kitchen, it's not happening. Yeah, it's good. . We've got crashing guitars and piano and a nice catchy chorus and a big old shovel full of nonsense. I like this song. 
Yeah. Do you like this song? My dog, listeners, has just appeared under the table. So. 
Yeah, Mais?. 
Hello. Hello, pupper. 
Emma: Maisie approves of this song. 
Sam: Maisie approves of this song too. It feels like we've run [00:07:00] out of things to say about the song itself. 
Emma: I think we should talk about the video. 
It's an epic video. So, the idea behind it is that it came as sort of a sequel, a follow on to the I'd Do Anything For Love video. 
Sam: Oh! 
Emma: And the girl is the same girl 
Sam: saving I'd Do Anything for love, But I Won't Do That. Yeah. And we'll explain why later on in this episode. But, if you've not seen that video, it's a sort of Beauty and the Beast fable.
Yeah. Meat Loaf is a hideous monster, hiding in a castle And then a pretty girl is hiding from a cop, I think? 
Emma: Something like that. 
Sam: And together they escape from the cop at the end on a motorbike. 
Emma: And so now they are, at the beginning of the video, they're on the motorbike. 
Sam: Oh, this is a full sequel!
Emma: They're travelling away from , the bad cop and then it turns into an Indiana Jones rip off. 
Sam: Indiana Jones fanfiction it starts off with like an archaeological dig Yeah.
And a man , it's not even pretending not to be, it's a man wearing Indiana Jones's hat and Indiana Jones's outfit. 
Emma: So the [00:08:00] hero the Indiana Jones alike is played by Brett Cullen, who has also been in The West Wing and Lost and loads of other things as well, but I'm not gonna read his entire Wikipedia entry.
And I, I've written down that he's, he's like the Aldi Indiana Jones. 
Sam: , it's a classic fan fiction because Meat Loaf has made an Indiana Jones film with him in it.
Where he is also smarter and braver than Indiana Jones. 
Emma: Yes, because Meat Loaf understands that he can't be Indiana Jones. . But he wants to be in it and to outsmart him. 
Sam: So Indiana Jones digs up like a mysterious, presumably Mexican or Central American mask.
Emma: Yeah. 
Sam: At the beginning of the film. 
Emma: Mask of dubious ethnicity. 
Sam: That's right. Generic Forania is where that mask is from. And all his men cheer and Meat Loaf is looking on from the side going, yes, well done. And then there's a sort of an El Comandante figure. Ah, ah, ah, 
Emma: El Comandante! 
Sam: it's not set in World War II. That's the only thing that makes it not Indiana Jones y. But they've found the closest thing they could do [00:09:00] while still recording in New Mexico. 
Emma: Yeah.
Sam: So you've got sort of generic Mexican army baddies who want , the mask.
 Yeah. And then you've got a selection of pretty girls for Meat Loaf to sing at and seduce.
Emma: The Indiana Jones alike his heroics steal the girl away from Meat Loaf. , throughout the video, he's singing the song to her, but from afar, like a really creepy stalker. 
Sam: Classic Meat Loaf. 
Emma: he's in the background of all of their little, like, love shots.
And he's outside the tent when they're fucking. It's just like, so creepy and weird.
 So there's lots of romantic scenes between Indiana Jones and the girl but also there's the action scenes as well where he's being all heroic and he's got this generic foreign artifact that he's doing something with and eventually we find out that, oh no, oh no.
It turns out he's a bastard after all, because he's only going to go give the artifact to the baddies. 
Sam: El Commandante? 
Emma: . And she's so horrified that he's chosen [00:10:00] adventure and money over her love that she flees back into Meat Loaf's arms. 
Sam: Ah, I think you've missed out an important bit.
Which is that Meat Loaf died before that point. 
Emma: Did he? 
Sam: Yeah. 
Emma: Is that what happened? 
Sam: Yeah, so there's a bit earlier on where there's like a cargo plane about to take off. And I think the baddies are in the plane. Indiana Jones and the girl are in the plane.
And Meat Loaf's driving alongside in a fuel tanker. And the fuel tanker explodes. Shit. Meat Loaf gives his life to save Indiana Jones and the girl.
Emma: At the end, she's remembering The better times with him. Potentially, or he's a ghost. Or her love has 
Sam: reincarnated. He's got this Indiana Jones in the face and then goes off to get in a big burning fuel tanker that Meat Loaf's still driving through the desert.
It's not entirely clear. 
Emma: There are a lot of explosions in this. I mean, the budget must have been insane. There's so many explosions, it's like it's insane. The explosion bit goes on for, like, [00:11:00] you're looking at your watch to see when the explosions are going to finish. 
Sam: Look. You're not listening to a podcast about Meat Loaf if you're not into bombastic, over the top fucking stupidity. And this video has it in spades. 
Emma: The success of I'd Do Anything for Love is really evident in this video.
All that money that we made from this amazing song that everybody loved. We're going to plough all of that into this insane video for a song that people are going to be a little disappointed by. A 
Sam: little ambivalent. 
Emma: Yeah. 
Sam: How did you feel about it when you bought the the single back in Christmas 1990? 
Emma: I really liked it. . But again, it was at a time when I was like really into Meat Loaf and My dramatic self thought it was a really romantic song, and I could imagine, you know, the boy, what I did fancy at the time, maybe serenading me with it. 
Sam: Aww. 
Emma: Yeah, didn't happen. 
He went out with somebody else instead.
Sam: You bastard. 
Emma: Bastard. 
It's okay, because [00:12:00] everything's fine now. It's fine. I'm over it. I'm totally over it. It's fine. Fuck you, David. 
Sam: That's the official position of Chat out of Hell. 
 
Emma: So , the girl, who is, as we've said, the same girl as in I'd Do Anything for Love. , the same actress.
Yeah. She is Dana Patrick. She plays the love interest in both. She was a model and actress back in the nineties. But despite several appearances in Vogue, her IMDB entry is pretty sparse. Ha, ha, ha. She was in those two music videos then she's been in an episode of Seinfeld Series 8, Episode 3, The Bizarro Jerry.
Sam: Oh, that's one of the best! 
Emma: She was in one episode of Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place. I have not researched that any further. 
Sam: That sounds like porn to me. 
Emma: And one episode of Good vs. Evil, which I've also not bothered to look at. But these days, she doesn't do the acting and the modelling anymore.
She works as a photographer in [00:13:00] LA. So, yay. 
Sam: Good for her. 
Emma: I think she's quite a successful photographer as well. 
Sam: Well done. 
Emma: So, that's all. Well done, you little lady. 
Sam: It's good to see some girls out there making it. You stick it to the man. 
Emma: Oh, thank you once again, Sam, "the patriarchy" Wilkinson. 
Sam: I didn't name myself, okay? 
Emma: But your mum knew. 
Sam: Stupid nominative determinism. 
 
Emma: So, as is traditional when we've watched a video, I have dived into the comments. 
Tiffany Gibbs 8099 said, "This video needed a few more explosions." Love you, Tiffany. 
Sam: I'm on board, Tiff.
Emma: Christopher Harwood, 1316 said, "How is it that Meat Loaf can tell a story in seven minutes, when sometimes it takes Hollywood three plus hours to do? Lol." He's not told a very complicated story. 
Sam: No, [00:14:00] and I guess the way, how it is that Meat Loaf can tell a story in seven minutes, 
Emma: Is by telling a story that's already been told.
Sam: Well, I was gonna say writing it in crayon. Ha Once there was a man who dug up a big gold mask, and Meat Loaf was there with him, and the man was Indiana Jones. And Indiana Jones kissed the lady, and Meat Loaf watched. And then they got in the river and went on a boat, but the El Comandante was watching.
And then they got guns pointed at them, but Meat Loaf was very brave.
Emma: And then we went home. 
Sam: And there was an explosion, and there was another explosion, and there was an explosion. 
Emma: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. Rob ABC said " That's how it works with this woman. Back in the castle, he was good enough for her escape. But now, in the desert, the Indiana Jones [00:15:00] bimbo guy comes along and suddenly, Meat Loaf's in the friendzone again. Huh, women." 
Sam: Bitches, am I right? 
Emma: Oh, us women. you know, if Indiana Jones came along, I'd probably be out the door doing a podcast with him. 
Sam: Welcome to Cultural Demolition with me, Indiana Jones. 
Emma: And me Emma Crossland. 
Sam: So, Emma, this week I've been smashing up Ancient Greece. 
Emma: Oh, Indy 
Sam: What have you been doing? 
Emma: You're so brave and clever., I've just been following you around screaming at things. 
Sam: Mm. There are a lot of bugs on my journeys.
Emma: There are. They're so scary 
Sam: Then I have to go give a thirty second lecture to a university class. 
Emma: . I'll say something sassy at some point to prove that I am slightly less two dimensional than I'm coming across as, but
Sam: Chat Out of Hell does not advocate this kind of deep dissing of the Indiana Jones films.
Emma: No, no, we don't. I'm sorry. 
Sam: I've not seen the fifth one, but I hope it's good. I bet it [00:16:00] isn't. 
Anyway, sorry, do go on. 
Emma: One final one. Michael Carey, 83, 88, ." Jeez, at the end of I'd Do Anything For Love, she tells him he's going to eventually end up screwing around on her, and then a day later, she's banging some random dude in a tent."
Sam: These men have problems. 
Emma: They do, don't they? 
Sam: That's why they listen to Meat Loaf. We share our love with some of the worst men on the planet. It's a very narrow line that we tread.
 
Emma: sam. 
Sam: Yeah. . You're looking at me cause I always say this bit. 
Emma: You do. 
Sam: Emma, it's time for us to rate this song.
It is. Our regular listeners will remember that we have a special, patented, rating scale for all of our songs. Any song involving Meat Loaf, but not Jim Steinman, we rate on the scale, Marvin Lee Aday, to Marvin Lee Okay, to Marvin Lee No Way. 
Where are we going to place this song? [00:17:00] 
Emma: Oh, this is definitely a Marvin Lee Aday. 
Sam: Oh, this is a full Marvin Lee Aday. 
Marvin Lee Aday! Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, . 
Emma: Lovely.
Sam: We're gonna talk about my song now. , before we play the song, I'm just gonna read something out to you. So the song is Train of Love and it's from Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman's final album, Braver Than We Are. Yep. Jim Steinman didn't write a lot about this album, but I did find a sort of 
pressy piece that he put out ahead of the album's release, and I'd like to read this out before we listen to the song, just put everybody in the right frame of mind, okay? So this was on Jim's website, I assume he kind of sent it to somebody, to music press or something. 
The punctuation and grammar in this statement is appalling and I will point it out every time. 
Emma: Excellent. I look forward to that. 
Sam: So if you don't like grammar twats, maybe skip the next 30 seconds because it's, it's, I appreciate it's not a particularly appealing habit.
But fuck me, for a professional writer, he needs to sort himself [00:18:00] out.
'To be honest, writing and then working on every step of our new album, BRAVER THAN WE ARE, that's all caps, was at first just a GAMBLE, in inverted commas, for me. No idea what to expect, but NOW! Hearing it in its entirety, I can honestly say it's one of the GREATEST works of ART I've ever been involved in!"
Emma: Oh 
Sam: " astonishingly avant garde in the best possible way. Experimental beyond belief. Visionary, operatic, theatrical, so subversive to any rock or pop of the last 20 years. Meat is heroic in his ravaged voice. Tragically, inspiringly heroic. I adore Paul's production. Love Justin's amazing keyboards and background vocals.
"It's a super surreal parade of almost towering expressionism. And overall, a musical. Not just a rock, but a musical work of genius! Two exclamation points. Brackets. I didn't [00:19:00] arrange or produce. My first song ever is in Who Needs the Young? And my latest, the extended bridge of Speaking in Tongues Which, went from a fun dick joke to a profound reflection on life itself.
"And if I wasn't to be cremated, those are the words I'd want on my tombstone! Three exclamation points. Open brackets again. Obviously someone would demand an edit, so I need a mausoleum! Exclamation point. Close brackets once. Never close the other brackets. I, full stop. Am, full stop. So, full stop. Fucking, full stop. Proud, full stop.
"You can't hear it till mid September. Unless you heard iTunes, who mistakenly leaked, in inverted commas, the entire album just on Wednesday. Minus Skull of Your Country, the second song I ever wrote in 1968! Two exclamation points. Dunno why that wasn't included, but suffice to say, it's as subversive NOW as it was back then!
"Two exclamation [00:20:00] points. Nothing amazes me more than to end up with a record that, for me, stands with the top ten recordings of all time! Three exclamation points." Are you ready to listen to this song, Emma? It's promising a lot. Okay, listeners, go find Train of Love. We'll see you all very soon. "
Emma: Very excited.
 
Music: Inside Don't you know that I'm riding the train now Can't feel no pain Don't even know where I am No turning back now, we're on the right track, yeah Chuggin just as fast as I can Stoking the fire, we're gettin much higher That's why I move when we begin riding on the train of love Train of love 
Sam: yeah, you've just listened to Train of Love. 
Emma: I have. 
Sam: Top 10 recordings of all time? 
Emma: I don't think it's in the top ten of things that I've heard, in the last couple of [00:21:00] hours., we joke a lot about the Meat Loaf stuff and the ridiculousness of it and the pomposity of it.
But it comes from a place of love. 
Sam: Yes. 
Emma: Because Bat Out of Hell 2 is an absolute fucking banger of an album with a track on it. 
Sam: Yep. 
Emma: Daft as they are, it is glorious. This just makes me a bit sad. 
Sam: Yeah. 
Emma: Because it's a man with a great voice. Who's lost it. 
 He can't quite hold the tune. 
There's a lot of support. 
Sam: There is a lot of support. I wouldn't recommend anybody listen to the whole album. There's some fun bits and there are bits that are very over the top and theatrical, and there's a couple of covers of earlier Jim Steinman songs that Meat Loaf tries to do, but 
Emma: , this is an album that shouldn't have been made.
Yeah, it's sad. It's very sad. 
It's just sad. It makes me, because this, this song is stupid. 
Sam: Yes, it is. 
Emma: It's really stupid. It could have been a lot of fun if it was done really well. If Meat Loaf's voice was up to it, it could have been silly Meat Loaf fun. 
Sam: Put a [00:22:00] pin in that thought. 
Emma: Okay. 
Sam: We'll talk about that later.
Emma: Okay. 
Sam: , this is the last song , , off the album, and it turned out to be their last album. 
Emma: Yeah. 
Sam: They were both either early seventies or late sixties when they recorded this album. . It has the feeling of a goodbye anyway, I, I don't think they had aspirations or ideas that they'd record anything else.
Yeah., they both died in their early seventies, which is. Not mega old these days, but also, you know, we couldn't say they died young. But they died at the end of their careers, I think it's reasonable to say. It does feel 
Emma: like that, yeah. 
Yeah. 
Sam: Jim's paean to the record that I read out before we went into this was I think Jim's final burst of complete bullshittery that the two of them love to indulge in throughout their lives.. 
Emma: Have you found any reviews for it?
Sam: David Quantic! David Quantic gave this record four stars. Really? Yes, he did. Maybe it was three stars. [00:23:00] Hang on, let me just take it again. David Quantic gave this record three stars. 
Emma: Are you just going to go back and edit the correct one? 
Sam: It's either three or four stars. But either way, he was too generous with it.
 You know how we've taken on that commitment to write a Jim Steinman esque song? 
Emma: Yeah. 
Sam: Feeling a lot better about that now. 
Song doesn't have any of their trademark flair. 
Emma: Oh, , can I say the intro to the song it made me think of, like, one of the more industrial zones on an early Sonic the Hedgehog game.
Like Chemical Plant or something like that. 
Sam: Fantastic lead into my next bit. Let's talk about the album art.. , the art on this album is another of the classic Meat Loaf fantasy comic style images. , it portrays Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman with their backs to the viewer.
On a desert road, instruments in hand, facing down the four horsemen of the apocalypse. And as a sort of goodbye from their last album, I think it's quite a cool image, I like it. It's a fun one, that. They're going off to the end, fighting the horsemen of feminism and [00:24:00] Fucking getting vaccinated. 
Emma: Oh god. 
Sam: So that art was by Julie Bell.
She also did the Bat Out of Hell 3 art, and Hang Cool Teddy Bear. So she's done a bit of stuff for Meat Loaf before, but I don't want to talk about this. I want to talk about earlier in her art career, because she did some of the best video game art of the early 90s. Did she? She did. So I'm going to run some of these by you.
You like Sonic the Hedgehog. I adore Sonic the Hedgehog. Were you big into sort of Mega Drive, Sega games in general in the early 90s? It was mostly Sonic stuff, 
Emma: but there were a few that, I mean, I'm certainly aware. Of plenty. Okay. So what have you got? 
Sam: I'm going to show you this one first.. 
Emma: Ooh, what's that from? 
Sam: Do you recognize it at all? No, I don't. That is the cover of one of the Golden Axe games. 
Emma: Oh, I'm I mean, Golden Axe rings a bell. 
Sam: Yeah, yeah.
Wow. Most of the men in their early 40s listening to this will be like, fuck yeah! She did the cover of Axe Battler, the Legend of Golden Axe. Let's move on to the next [00:25:00] one. You probably don't recognise this.
Emma: I really don't recognise that. 
Sam: But again, this is another one for the 40 something men. She did the cover of Wolfenstein 3D, guys!
Pause for the cheering and the wows. Look this up! 
Emma: , I'll admit, my gaming is more on the twee cutesy end of things. 
Sam: Yeah, it's fair enough. Do you want to describe what you're looking at?, 
Emma: There's an incredibly muscular man with no shirt on wearing jeans and firing some sort of ridiculous gun into the air while kicking a man in the face. The man is also firing off a gun. It's all on some sort of wasteland. It's magnificent. your gaming life is all about shooting people in the face, then this is the kind of cover you're looking for. 
Sam: So, Wolfenstein 3D, just to fill you in.
I know you don't care. This was one of the very first. First person shooter games, precursor to Doom. Oh, yeah. So this was, this image introduced the world to the idea that you could shoot people on a computer through the guy's eyes. 
Emma: This is back in the time where I feel like the cover art of a video game promised a [00:26:00] lot.
Sam: Yes, absolutely. And the guys you shot in the face. Oh, I'll find you a picture of actual Wolfenstein 3D. Please do. .
. 
There's your cover art. Uh Huh. Yep. Yep. Yep. Wow, that's amazing. Must be smart. this game's gonna be really cool. A cool guy with a colossal gun shooting the ceiling. Kicking a Nazi in the face. Incredible. I wonder what it looks like on my PC. Let's see. 
Emma: It's so grey! So grey!
I love it. 
Sam: Yep. 
Emma: Brilliant. Exactly what I expected. 
Sam: Good. Wonderful. And then one more, which you might recognise this one because it was another Sega one. 
you know this? 
Emma: Ah, I don't. 
Sam: This is Eternal Champions. Eternal
Emma: Again, the name rings a bell.
Sam: Yeah, Eternal Champions was In the height of, , fighting games like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, Sega did one of their own that was shit. 
Emma: And this is that. 
Sam: And this is that, yeah. So and once again, exactly the same thing that you've just described for Wolfenstein 3D. Yep. This painting , really wrote checks. The game could [00:27:00] not cash. So that is what Julie Bell's whole thing was. Oh. And she's kept that going right through to the end of Meat Loaf's career. I 
Emma: feel, I feel like , I need to look into more of her artwork. 
Sam: , she did loads of other video games that I don't recognize.
. And she's generally done like cool fantasy art. 
Emma: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 
Sam: Since then, 
Emma: Amazing. 
 
Sam: The album in general. 
Emma: I've not given the full album a listen, I've listened to bits and pieces of it.
Sam: It's worth listening . . From an academic standpoint. 
Emma: That's what we are now. 
Sam: Yes. But, it reminds me of another singer who recorded different music in their old age. 
Emma: Yeah. 
Sam: And that is Johnny Cash. , listening to the album, I was drawing this parallel in my head. . In Johnny Cash's later years, he started working with Rick Rubin, the famous rock producer.
. And produced a lot of very raw Very heartfelt songs. 
Emma: I think the most famous one is his version of Hurt, isn't it? 
Sam: That's right, yes. That was on , the last album that came out while he was alive, American 4. . The man comes around. 
Music: Everyone I know [00:28:00] goes away. And you could have it all. My empire of dirt. I will let you down. I will make you hurt.
Sam: , That was Hurt. It's a very moving song and it's the work of a man who knows that the end is near and looking back over his life and it Just interesting to compare it with the work of a man desperately clinging on to the rock and roll that he began with 
Emma: you think, if he'd have taken the same sort of approach, he could have produced something really beautiful?
Sam: I think he could have done, yeah. 
 These two final albums, they were both roughly around the same age. Both albums do [00:29:00] have this sense of finality about them. Yeah.
Sam: It's the last hurrah, but the difference is that Cash knows it. 
Emma: And Meat Loaf wants to go out with explosions. 
Sam: Meat Loaf is pretending not. 
Emma: Yeah. 
Sam: Hurt was , the last single that came out off Johnny Cash's last album. , it's not really a fair comparison because , I'm comparing the last track of Meat Loaf's last album.
So I'm going to play you a little bit of the very last track of Johnny Cash's last album. Which was also written in the 1970s. Okay. So I thought it was a nice parallel. This is a song called Big Iron. 
Emma: Big Iron. 
Sam: You almost certainly don't know it. 
Music: The town of Agua Fria, rode a stranger one fine day.
Hardly spoke to folks around him, didn't have too much to say. No one dared to ask his business, no one dared to make a slip. For the stranger there among them, [00:30:00] had a big iron on his hip. Big iron on his hip
Sam: . 
Just a song about a cowboy having a duel with another cowboy. And it's just a lovely jolly way for him to end his last sad album. 
Sound Board: Yeah. 
Sam: While Meat Loaf is still singing about boning.
Emma: Not all of Actually, no, nearly all of the Meat Loaf songs are about boning, boning. 
Sam: Or about how women are sluts.. 
 Emma, would you like a quiz? 
Emma: I would love a quiz. 
Sam: Okay. We're gonna reverse the standard quiz rules this time.
Emma: Oh, okay. 
Sam: Three statements, only one of them is true. 
Statement one. Jim Steinman said, "In Train of Love, the burning question that came down to its rawest place was, Please tell me who I am. And that's basically what this song is all about." 
Statement two. Rolling Stone magazine called this song a small masterpiece and praised its wry humour.
Or was it statement three? The song was written around the year 1972 and was covered many years later by an act who was big in Germany. [00:31:00] 
Emma: I'm hoping that the true is number three.
Sam: You've absolutely seen through my nonsense. Do you know what I was doing with the first two? 
Emma: Go on. 
Sam: , the burning question that came down to its rawest place was please tell me who I am and that's basically what this song is about.
That is of course a quote from Roger Hodgson of the band Supertramp talking about the logical song.
Emma: , I knew it was on its way. 
Sam: Rolling Stone magazine called the logical song a small masterpiece and praised its wry humour. The Logical Song was written around the year 1978, and was covered many years later by an act who was very big in Germany, brackets Scooter, I have to mention them by name.
 But of course this song was written in 1972. Would you like to hear an early version of it? 
Emma: Yes! 
Sam: Okay, here we go.
Music: And don't you know that I've been riding that train now, I can't feel the pain now, I don't even know where I am. No turning back, boy, we're on the right track and I'm chugging just as fast as I [00:32:00] can. We're stoking that fire, we're getting much higher, Much higher than when we began. Riding on the train of loveTrain of love. Train of love. Train of love
Sam: , that was Jim Steinman performing Train of Love. The tape is labelled 1972. We're not quite sure if it's slightly earlier than that. But yeah, that's a demo of Train of Love, written by Jim Steinman and performed by him. 
Emma: It's fantastic! 
Sam: It's good, isn't it? 
Emma: It's such a groove! 
 Musically, I'd say it's kind of similar to Paradise by the Dashboard Lights.
Yeah, it's got that honky tonk. Yeah, 
Sam: I love it. Yeah, yeah. This came from a version of The Dream Engine. 
Which is the musical that Jim Steinman wrote in college. I've started reading this script. Fucking weird
 You're gonna have to do a special on it at some point. The final one third of the play is performed completely naked. 
Emma: Of course it is. 
Sam: It's about a cult of young people who end up going around [00:33:00] doing murders and that.
And it's very similar to the Charles Manson murders, which were not yet known about. 
Emma: Right. Okay. 
Sam: Jim Steinman calmed down a bit after he got out of college, but yeah, this song came off one of the versions of that anyway, so it's very early on in Jim's writing career. 
Emma: It's not a sophisticated song.
Sam: , the central premise of this song is I'm gonna do it with you 
Emma: Like a train 
Sam: like a train might do it there is a bit of wit to it and there's you know Some silly innuendo and stuff which you completely miss when it's an old man. 
Emma: Yeah, it's just a very different vibe 
Sam: , when I committed to bringing this song to the podcast a few weeks ago, I'd not listened to it. And then I was, well, as we both were just now, quite sad to hear what ended their careers. And I'm, happy that we discovered this, little bit at the end. 
Emma: I'm so glad you found that because it is excellent.
Sam: There's a lot of bootlegs and demos and stuff on Jim Steinman's website. So yeah, you can probably download it from there to put [00:34:00] on a car playlist. Yay. . 
So let's rate this song then.
 This song is by Jim Steinman and our Jim Steinman scale runs from Jim Steinman at the top to Jim Fineman to Jim Declineman. It's tricky, isn't it? Because, listening to that version off Braver Than We Are, we both had Jim Declineman written in our minds. Oh, Big Time Jim 
Emma: Declineman, yeah. But 
Sam: then 
Emma: I think we have to go with what's on Braver Than 
Sam: Do we?
Emma: Well, demo version is a Jim Steinman. ! I will happily play that in the car. But , The official released version is a Jim Declineman because it just makes me feel sad. 
Sam: Yeah, you see, I thought we'd get to the end of the series with our very first unequivocal Jim Declineman. But it's not!
It's not, no, it's a real, I mean, it's either Jim Declineman or Jim Steinman. There's no middle ground to it. 
Emma: No. 
Sam: Either Jim Declineman or Jim Steinman with no middle ground to it!
Emma: Are you are [00:35:00] you keeping track of all these jingles? 
Sam: No! 
Emma: I was gonna record a Meat Loaf Memories one for us, for next time. Please do. I will. 
Sam: So that is the end of that episode, and it's the end of our first series! It is! Six in! Six episodes in, we've talked about twelve songs. Yeah. I have a question for you.
Okay. Do you feel differently about Meat Loaf or Jim Steinman? No. 
Emma: Yeah. The deeper we've dug, the more disturbing it's been. . It's going to be nice to think about something else for a couple of weeks. Ha ha ha! And to hopefully have some different earworms for a bit because I'll be going a little bit crazy.
Sam: Yeah. 
Emma: But there is still a lot of love there. I'm really looking forward to talking about Bat Out of Hell 2. 
Sam: Which we will talk about next time. 
Emma: Indeed. 
Sam: Yeah, I feel very much the same way. I came into this knowing the big stuff and loving it and now I've heard some of the lesser stuff, and I've been ambivalent about it, and I've learned more about both of them as [00:36:00] people, and Ah, ah.
We contain multitudes, right? 
Emma: Yeah, yeah, we, we do. 
Sam: We've learnt some nice things and some horrible things about each of them. 
Emma: There's an element of separating the art from the artist. But it's hard to 
Sam: It is, but 
I want to know more. Yeah. And if you want to know more, listeners, do come back in six weeks time when we come back with the start of series two. So, to open Chat Out of Hell 2 Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Chat into Hell. Ha ha ha ha 
. There's only one way to begin Chat Out of Hell 2, and it's exactly the way they began Bat Out of Hell 2. We're going to do a big double episode dedicated completely to I Would Do Anything For Love, but I Won't Do That. A song that long deserves a double full episode, so come back to us in six weeks time.
Emma: , we've talked about , the potential for Meat Loaf Film Club, because there were films that he was in, [00:37:00] As an actor but also we have since discovered films that are sort of adjacent. things that Jim Steinman was involved in, so Streets of Fire, which we talked about last week is a film I'm keen to watch because I think it might be ridiculous.
Sam: Listeners Please don't feel obliged to watch any films Good grief. We ask enough of you as it is But we'll watch some stuff and we'll put out some kind of special at some point in the next few weeks but really Chat Out of Hell will return on Monday the 12th of August 
Emma: Gosh 
Sam: Where we'll dive into Bat Out of Hell 2 with abandon Emma, there's one last thing before we go I'm gonna send you a link 
Emma: Okay.
Sam: Announced today, as we record, 
the UK tour of the Bat Out of Hell musical. 
Emma: Where are we going? 
Sam: playing in Leeds in April next year. Tickets are not yet on sale, but I'll let you know as soon as they are. 
Emma: Oh, Sam we have to go? 
Is the best news I've [00:38:00] had in ages!
Sam: We've touched on Bat Out of Hell the musical. Emma's read the synopsis. I've read scripts of stuff that eventually will become it. And fuck me, it sounds ridiculous. So Let's do all we can to get press tickets to that, because we're obviously rats.. 
Emma: This is so exciting! 
Sam: If you're a ridiculous idiot who wants to go see the Bat Out of Hell musical, know there's a new UK tour starting very soon, it's in 2025, so hop on batoutofhellthemusical. com. That is the end of Chat Out of Hell series one. What a way to go out! Oh my god! Always leave them wanting significantly less.
Ha ha! So that's our song for next series. If you want to listen to I Would Do Anything For Love, But I Won't Do That. If you start now, you'll have finished by the time we start . As always, please do keep your general Meat Loaf memories.
And anecdotes flying in, give us any responses to reviews [00:39:00] that were put out across any of this series. Was Meat Loaf the only person in your audience at Edinburgh Fringe? Do write in and let us know. chatoutofhellatgmail. com Any final thoughts, Emma? 
Emma: I'm just so blown away. Honestly, this is the best news I've had in a while.
Sam: Listeners, I've known Emma, like, five years? 
Emma: Something like that, yeah. 
Sam: And I've never seen her look so happy. 
Emma: Oh, life has meaning again! 
Sam: Listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. Have a lovely summer. Enjoy your summer.
We'll see you all Bye, everybody. Bye. Why do we wave? No one can see us.