Chat out of Hell
How did two massive dorks create some of the most bombastically stupid rock opera of all time? Join equally massive dorks Emma Crossland and Sam Wilkinson as they delve into the works of Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman.
Every episode our intrepid pair both brings one of Loaf or Steinman's works to the table to dissect in meticulously lazy detail, exploring the torrid lives of music's most on-again off-again best pals one week at a time.
Chat out of Hell
Episode 2.3 - Everything Louder than Everything Else | Dance in My Pants
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Physical impossibilities, inexplicable bagpipes and Jim Steinman trying to be sexy? Sorry. Two out of three ain't bad.
But we're not here for that! We're here for the big questions like:
Can we have some free A1 Sauce?
What's the plot of the Adam Sandler Film That's My Boy?
Seriously, can we have some free A1 Sauce?
The answers to some, all or none of those are contained within, teeing us up very nicely to go listen to Rock & Roll Mercenaries and Heaven Can Wait next time. Ooof. That's going to be a climb.
Keep your comments, reviews and arguments flying in to chatoutofhell@gmail.com, find us on Facebook or Instagram by searching Chat out of Hell and don't forget to use the hashtag #dearA1saucepleasesendsomeofyourA1saucetosamfromthereallygoodpodcastchatoutofhell
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:
Everything Louder than Everything Else by Meat Loaf from the album Bat out of Hell 2: Back into Hell (1993)
Dance in My Pants by Jim Steinman from the album Bad for Good (1981)
Hey Sam, what is this?
SamHi Emma, this is Chat Out Of Hell, the UK's most downloaded fortnightly podcast about the works of Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman. But who is Meat Loaf?
EmmaOh, Meat Loaf was a singer and occasional songwriter who somehow managed to sustain 18 concussions throughout his life. Who's Jim Steinman?
SamJim Steinman was a songwriter and perpetual liar whose high school essay, The Three Greatest American Inventions, was printed in the US Congressional Record. Who are we?
Emmawe are Crossland Wilkinson, a comedy Double Act with a show coming up at the Nottingham Comedy Festival on Sunday, the 10th of November at 6:30 PM It's called Mean Business and it's a look into the strange world of our evil mega corporation. It's at the Navigation Inn on Wilford Street in Nottingham, and you can find out more about it on the Nottingham Comedy Festival website.
SamThat's better than advert for mattresses, isn't it?
EmmaLoads better.
SamWelcome to Chat Out of Hell! So here's a message that landed in our inbox this week.
Emmahmm.
Samthis is from Claire Muncaster.
EmmaHi Claire.
SamHi Claire. it says, Sam and Emma, I have a chosen family of Meat Loaf fans and I'm so happy you covered my beloved Where the Rubber Meets the Road on Chat Out of Hell. I, I'm glad you're happy Claire, we, we didn't like the song but I'm glad you can see past that and still email those. Thank you so much
Emmafor that. Thanks, Claire.
SamDad played Meat Loaf stuff in the car as well as Tom Waits and I would always do my physio to it in my purple corrective shoes. I'm seeing Celebrating Meat Loaf next month with his original band plus Caleb Johnson. It won't be the same, but it'll be as close as I'll ever get, sadly.
EmmaOh, I've been meaning to talk to you about Caleb Johnson.
SamYeah, shall we talk now?
EmmaWe can do. have you heard of Caleb Johnson,
SamSam?, yeah, I believe he's doing the vocals on Celebrating Meat Loaf,
Emmahe does a lot with Meat Loaf's band
Samso that's the Neverland express.
EmmaYeah. He's got stuff up on iTunes. I've had a listen. It's quite good.
SamOkay, so should we factor that into the Loafverse
EmmaI think we should factor Caleb into the Loafverse, and we should perhaps look at his oeuvre one
SamOkay, we can do that. Celebrating Meat Loaf, I wasn't aware of
Emmait No, neither was i.
SamNeverland Express and Caleb are touring the UK at the minute thank you Claire for alerting us to that thing, thanks so much for listening, and seeing past our disdain for your favourite Meat Loaf song, I hope you agree with us on some other stuff. Or, you enjoy disagreeing
EmmaAre we that podcast that Claire
Samat? It's all clicks,
EmmaIt is all clicks.
SamSo that's one email. That was in our inbox. And then, I've got something else to read to you that actually was in our
Emmain our outbox.
SamYeah. This was sent from our email, chatoutofhellatgmail. com Dear A1
EmmaGod!
SamMy name is Sam Wilkinson, and with my colleague Emma Crossland, I host Chat Out of Hell, Britain's most downloaded fortnightly podcast about the works of songwriter Jim Steinman Steidman, and his musical collaborator and best bud, Meat Loaf. I guess you could say that Jim Steinman was the A1 sauce to Meat Loaf's meat loaf. Why give it a listen? It's remarkably accessible and fun, even if you're not a Meat Loaf fan. Though we know you are, of course. If you've not heard of us, Emma and I are a pretty big deal in the UK stand up comedy scene. Open brackets. Please don't Google us to confirm that. Close brackets. Open brackets, I know you're a sauce that respects a bit of hustle, and even if you did Google us, you'd never reveal what you saw. Close brackets. Open bracket. look, if you do Google us, that first result from Hot Water Comedy Club isn't really representative of my style these days. While competent from a technical standpoint, it's a bit ruder than the sort of thing I go for now. I know you're a family sauce, and you can't be associated with that kind of rum behaviour. Close brackets. You're probably thinking, get to the point, man! I'm a busy sauce! Yeah, fair enough, I do tend to witter on. Well, you're a sauce with a long memory, so you'll recall that in 2009, you teamed up with Meat Loaf for a contest called Sing for Your Beef, in which people were invited to submit music videos they'd made in praise of your product. We discussed the ad you made with Meat Loaf on our recent episode on I'd Do Anything for Love But I Won't Do That. I've worked out from your YouTube channel that the winners were Waxandherbert with"A1 You Make My Beef Sing", and Sean Long with"Batman Loves A1 Steak Sauce". And that the prize was"a whole year of glorious meat". Sadly, singforyourbeef. com is now defunct, so I can't get any more detail. What was the deal, A1? How was this year of glorious meat delivered, and what size freezer did they need? Oh, or did you mean it was just a year of A1? How much A1 is that? You can't get A1 over here, so I've had difficulty explaining to Emma the flavour of A1 sauce. I ate it once in a diner in Worcester, Massachusetts, but I can't quite put my finger on it. I mean, if a famous sauce did just happen to land on my doorstep one day, I'd make sure it was used in some kind of taste test against our local sauces on a podcast that's supposed to be about music, but often isn't. Just saying! Oh gosh, is that my postal address at the bottom of this message? Cripes. Yeah, I agree it's a long shot. If you don't want to send us international sauce, please just describe the flavour of A1, ideally with reference to British brown sauce. That would be great, and we'll give you a cheeky shoutout on our next episode. I'm sure you've got some products in the UK our listeners can buy. Thanks a bunch, Sam Wilkinson. And then there's my address. P. S. My friend Kerry once gently chided me for emailing Robinson Squash customer services with an equally stupid message. She had a point. You guys have a hard enough job to do without this nonsense. I hope this serves as a silly light point in your day and not just another load of rubbish you have to deal with. If it's the former, feel free to just fob me off. It's fine. I hope you have a great day, and I promise to give the top rating on your feedback mechanism and sing the praises of whoever responds to this no matter what happens. Deal? So there you go. That was, a message that somehow got sent from our
EmmaGosh, I wonder how that got sent.
SamDunno, Emma, dunno.
EmmaHave a few thoughts. Yeah? main thought that I've had is, that is an excellent piece of procrastination activity there. Is there something that you should have been cleaning or?
SamActually, it was when I was waiting for the bus there were some scary men discussing their prison sentences, so I took my phone out. I've just got on with some work. I figured, I'd use this to launch our socials, because our social media presences need some work. yes. yes. I'm going to get our Instagram on the move put this on our., facebook. Yes. page as well. So there's a hashtag for this. If people want to use the hashtag, hashtag Dear A one sauce, please send some of your A one sauce to Sam from the really good podcast chat out of hell. sorry.
EmmaSorry! Ow!
SamThat would really help the, uh, that would help the whole process.
EmmaI didn't think I knew anybody that was, worse at social media than amazing, like, gold star, that's so
SamPlease do tweet about the podcast with the hashtag Dear A1Sauce, please send some of your A1Sauce
EmmaAre people still
SamGood. I'm still tweeting? Oh, I don't mean tweets, sorry, that can get fucked. if you tweet about us, with the hashtag Dear A1 sauce, please send some of your A1 sauce to Sam from the really good podcast, Chat out of Hell. I hate you. But if you do Instagram or Blue Sky or Facebook or whatever with the hashtag Dear please send some of your A1 sauce to Sam from the really good podcast Chat out of Hell. That would be lovely. It gets the message across, doesn't it?
EmmaIt probably does
SamShould we do the podcast? So we're not actually a podcast about emailing sauce companies in the hope of free sauce every episode on this show, we each bring a Meat Loaf or Jim Steinman song to the table for us to listen to, discuss, tear apart, make stupid jokes about, Have a good time and then go home again, right? and then at the end we'll rate it on our patented Meat Loaf or Jim Steinman rating scales. Emma, what have you brought to listen to I have brought another one of my favourites from, Bat Out of Hell 2. I've brought the gloriously stupid Everything Louder Than Everything Else. A paradox and a song. And I've brought a song from Jim Steinman's solo album Bad For Good, Dance In My
Emmawhich is an amazing
Samtitle. It is an amazing title for a fucking stupid song. So listen, I think you're genuinely going to have a good time listening to both of these songs because they are utterly ridiculous. Go away, find them on YouTube, on Spotify, find them on a tape, wherever you get your music from. start with everything louder than everything else, we're going to listen to it right now and we'll see you in just a few minutes.
LaptopI like the music like I like the music Everything louder than, everything else, everything louder than, everything else, nothing louder than, everything else, louder
Samwe've just listened to Everything Louder Than Everything Else. And so have you. Emma, tell us about that.
EmmaEverything Louder Than Everything Else, released in 1993, is one of the album tracks on Bat Out of Hell 2, one of the few totally original songs for this album. Okay. so it wasn't recycled from anything else that Jim Steinman had previously done. As far as I know,
Samcan we, just quickly cut to the chase? Did anybody say anything about why those bagpipes are there?
EmmaI haven't found anything. I'm trying to find out who did it.
SamBecause, if you gave up or didn't listen to all of that song A. I hate you but also B. The song finishes and then we get 20 seconds of bagpipe music at the end.
Emmais just
SamMadness! It's a classic Jim Steinman fadeout on the main song and then it fades up on some bagpipers. So the effect is, Meat Loaf overran his studio time and the Scottish Highland Band have to come in and record their album
Emmaalbum
SamAnd they forgot to stop the tape.
EmmaI am currently just trying to, find out who did the bagpipes and if it was real Pipes or not. Did you play Bagpipes for Meat Loaf? Get in
Samtouch! Yeah, chatoutofhell at gmail. com. Maybe you work for A1 sauce now.
EmmaAlright, so Ha ha ha ha ha. Alright, so
Samthe mystery of the bagpipes, we'll return to the mystery of the
Emmabagpipes It could be another one of the Sam Wilkinson
SamNo, get your own mysteries, this is a Crossland mystery. Don't put your lack of homework onto me! It
Emmame. It really tells this week. I did find some stuff out though. Yeah, tell us. this particular song was used on the soundtrack to the Adam Sandler movie, That's My Boy. A film so good that it was nominated for seven Razzies and it won two of them. Adam Sandler for Worst Actor and also for Worst Screenplay.
SamThat's amazing. What year did That's My Boy come out? And what's the plot of That's My Boy, Emma? fuck's sake. Oh, fine. We'll move
EmmaNo, No, no, I did look into it and the plot just sounded terrible. if I say Donnie is an alcoholic and broke slacker who owes 43, 000 to the Internal Revenue Service in back taxes. Does that make you want to watch it?
Samscene in which this song features is gonna be Adam Sandler in his apartment ignoring the letter from the IRS and doing something man child ish like turning a vase into a bong, or throwing empty beer cans on the floor.
EmmaAnd just reading another sentence about it. However, Donnie feels guilty for withholding the truth and interrupts the wedding just in time to reveal his biological connection to Todd and demands Jamie to reveal her infidelity and incest.
SamRight!
Emmathe words that I wrote at the bottom of this was, I have decided not to watch this film. Ha ha I know we've not been dead picky for Film Club, but I think this is one we can give it a
SamYeah, fair enough. But if you have seen the Adam Sandler film That's My Boy, please do email us in and let us know your opinions. chat out of hell at gmail. com.
Emmain 1991, so before this album was released, Motorhead released a live video called Everything Louder Than Everything Else. and in 1999, they released an album called Everything Louder Than Everyone Else.
SamThose cheeky scamps! Cheeky
EmmaI reckon I know why.
SamHit me.
EmmaI did do some homework. it refers to a remark that was made by Ian Gillen of Deep Purple. from the group's Made in Japan live album, where at some point, he says Could we have everything louder than everything else?
SamNo, no, Ian, you can't.
EmmaBecause that's not possible.
SamYou've taken too many rock and roll drugs.
EmmaCan we have some rock and roll drugs?
Samyou want some rock and roll drugs?
EmmaI need something to pep me up a bit
Samall right, fair enough. if you have rock and roll drugs and you want to send them to Emma, just drop us an email chatoutofhell. com I'm bothered that two loud institutions off the back of that third loud rocking institution of Deep Purple have all missed the physical impossibility of this request.
EmmaBut it does smack of rock And roll indulgence,
SamIt does, yes. I can get behind that. It's a loud, silly song about being loud and stupid, and that's good.
EmmaAnd speaking of which, I think we should actually delve into the lyrics, Because they
Samare very
Emmastupid.
Samthe opening line, I know that I will never be politically correct, and I don't give a damn about my lack of etiquette. I
Emmasomething that became more and more evident as time went on with Meat Loaf and indeed Jim
Samwho am I? Why am I here? Forget the questions, someone give me another beer! Give me another beer is the sort of thing that kids who aren't old enough to drink beer think that adults say to each other. You cannot help but hear it in the voice of Gog, the guy in Peep Show that Jeremy used to bully in school now owns a software company.
Emmaa
Sambeer?
Emmawhat's the meaning of life? What's the meaning of it all? You've got to learn to dance before you learn to crawl. do you think it is the answer to the meaning of life? Dancing?
Samcrawling. Before crawling. And if you don't succeed in hitting it in that order, you've fucked it. From the very off.
EmmaIn which case, I probably fucked
Samit. Yeah, I imagine most babies have fucked it.
EmmaGood, good. So sign up all you raw recruits. This is very, the whole song is very much a call to arms,
SamYeah, Yeah, join my army of cool young people, stop getting a job and come do a party.
Emmatakes you back to streets of fire.
SamYeah, it does take us back, but I think we have to loop back to, this was a song written for the album, Meat Loaf is 43.
EmmaYes.
SamStop telling young people to not get jobs and come party with you because it's creepy, old man.
EmmaThrow away those designer suits. They're expensive, give them to a charity You got your weapons cocked, your targets in your sights. Does he mean penises? I think I've always thought that. I think
Samshit.
Emmathink we're back to
SamOkay.
Emmaagain. Yeah, back to sex people. Back to
Samto sex people. Back
Emmaa party raging somewhere in the world, and you've got to take your penis to the Because you've got to serve your country and you've got to service your girl.
SamNow is that two separate things, or is servicing your girl part of your national service
Emmain whatever country exists in Steinman and Meat Loaf's head, I think it is part of your duty to service your girl. Yeah.
SamOkay, all check your girl's manual. Most girls have a service interval of 10, 000 miles or every year depending on what comes first.
EmmaI made the same joke in my notes.
SamThat's Crossland and Wilkinson, Mean Business, at the Nottingham Comedy Festival.
EmmaMake sure that you check her brakes regularly as well. Okay. Okay. Cool. But stay away from that exhaust pipe!
SamThat's why A1 sauce can't see any videos of your material.
EmmaI was pleased with that.
Samright,
Emmaand of course they are all enlisted in the armies of the night. Sorry, what were you going to say? I gonna say keep your girl oiled but We're better than that?
SamAre we
Emmano no we're not. you're only listed in the armies of the night, which just makes me think of, blokes going and playing at TA stuff.
SamOh, I'm glad you like that. Army Reserves! Yes, do you know what, I've never seen past the obvious vampire allegory, but you're right. It's part time
EmmaYep, part time army. TA, they're Out on manoeuvres, playing with torches. That's the army of the
Samin Spaced.
EmmaSpaced. Like Mike, exactly like Mike in Spaced.
SamBig roly poly men with moustaches
EmmaYep.
Samand corrective lenses.
Emmanext we get a list of things that Meat Loaf isn't in it for. Yeah. So it's power, health, glory of anything at all, wealth.
SamTo be fair, he didn't get any of those up until this No, no enough. but he is in it till it's over,
Emmaand he
Samjust can't stop. that's because he's in it till it's over.
Emmatill it's over. Yes, stating the obvious really, isn't it? Yeah. and if you want to get it done, you've got to do it yourself, which, as
Samthis back to servicing girls?
Emmaand I like my music like I like my life, everything louder than everything else, which gives me a headache just thinking about it.
SamSteinman likes his music like he likes his life, long.
EmmaAww. Long but quite repetitive.
SamLong confusing, Sometimes make people angry.
Emmaand then we say everything louder than everything else quite a lot of times before we start chanting wasted youth again.
SamAnd again, Meat Loaf is 43. His youth was wasted a long time ago. Now he's just shouting at kids going out getting jobs.
Emmaif you want my views of history, there's something you should know. The three men I admire most are Curly, Larry and Moe. So that's the Three stooges,
Samthat is a classic teenage boy I'm so edgy line, isn't Yeah. man. Fucking old men ruining the world. The only person who's done anything good was a clown,
EmmaYeah, man. Don't worry about the future. Sooner or later, it's the past.
SamThis is real sixth form common room stuff, isn't it?
Emmaalso, it's true,
SamYeah? Because
Emmathe linear march of time. If they say the thrill is gone, then it's time to take it back. Take what? What? we're back to raw recruits, and this time it's 2 bit suits instead of designer suits.
Samso what's happened there is, well the future has become the past, and the people going out getting jobs in designer suits followed Meat Loaf's advice.
EmmaGot rid of them.
SamStill realised they needed a suit for work so they got a two bit suit. So Meat Loaf is starting a cult here, is going on. And his commandments are becoming ever more insane.
EmmaBut we're still back to cocking weapons and servicing
SamYeah, because cults end badly and dangerously with a raid by the FBI.
Emmaalso, weirdly Cult leaders seem to attract a lot of women to be
Samto be serviced. serviced. Yeah. That's all true.
EmmaI think I've just had my feminist card taken off me.
SamYou didn't say it was a good thing.
EmmaTrue,
SamShe did imply it though, listeners. In the edit that I just did.
Emmadid. Thank you. And then it's just more repetition to the end I think everything louder than everything else is chanted 24 times at the
SamOkay. until the in. and then the bagpipes come in. So are the bagpipes, the fBI? Is that what this is? This is the tale of Meat Loaf's mountain Top Cult.
EmmaWell isn't that one of the techniques that, agencies have used in the past?
Samblasting, blasting, awful
EmmaBlasting awful music. off the situation. Yeah. Yeah. I've read, The men who stare at goats as well.
SamOh yeah, that's where that came from If you are a bagpipe player, we do apologise. I quite like a bit of bagpipes now and then. I mean, I wouldn't actively go out and choose to listen to it, but but if you're on the Royal Mile, it's lovely, isn't innit?
EmmaOh yeah, that's nice It's about context isn't it? it
SamOr at the front of a Scottish regiment marching into a Napoleonic war. can see that works perfectly. I'm on board.
EmmaQ magazine, has declared Everything Louder Than Everything Else to be one of the songs that made the rest of Rock cower.
SamThe fuck? Q Magazine?
EmmaAre
SamAre Q Magazine still going? idiots. Was that David Quantic again? One of the songs that made rock and roll cower? Was that the
Emmaone of the songs that made the rest of rock cower.
SamMaybe back in
Emmaback in 1993 it did. And then Rock pulled its socks up and cracked on. and then New Metal was born And, we all got sad.
SamOh, oh that is a, believable timeline. Yeah. Yeah. They threw away their designer suits. New Metal instead.
Emmathe 90s. The 90s. I have another, review, which I found on, a website called past prime website by a guy called Steve Collins. and he says Everything Louder Than Everything Else is an ecstatic tribute to giving everything you've got. Meat Loaf has collapsed multiple times on the stage doing just that. He has all of Springsteen's passion without the personal trainer. Everything Louder could be a mission statement for the past prime artist.
SamOkay, right, I'll accept the thesis. Mission statement from Meat Loaf, fine, he likes things loud. Springsteen without the personal trainer. He could have had a personal trainer he'd wanted. Don't make out that this is some, personal attribute that Springsteen had love meat Loaf was never able to acheive
EmmaWould you like to hear what the people of the internet think of this song?
Samwould love to hear the people of the internet's thoughts.
EmmaVane Eldritch said, This is the song that made the rest of rock and roll afraid.
SamDoes Fane Eldritch write for q Magazine? I
Emmathat! FalzerBeast90 said, Fucking rock the fuck on, woo!
SamHa ha ha ha ha ha!
EmmaWhich is about the intelligence level I think this song deserves. LionessWhispers said, What can I say? It's the basic catchphrase of rock in every generation. Live fast and hard, die young, leave a beautiful corpse.
SamHe did one of those three things.
Emmafinally, LivingHell, said, I fucking love this song and the old fat man singing it.
Samha ha ha!
Emmaknow what,
Samwhat, I completely agree.
EmmaYep. I fucking
Samlove this song and the old fat man singing What a great way to end. So, shall we rate this song? Yes. Are you ready? Cool, so as always Emma, we rate this on our patented trademarked Jim Steinman song rating scale which runs from Jim Steinman at the top to Jim Fineman in the middle and Jim Declineman for those bad songs that he wrote. But what is this?
Emmadespite the fact that we've just spent however long pulling it to pieces and slagging it off, for
Samoff,
Emmathis is always going to be a Jim
SamI'm always going to enjoy listening to this shouting along in the car,
Emmaso
SamI agree. This is always going to be a Jim Steinman!
EmmaWoo! I thought I'd joined in. Ooh. I thought I'd joined in this time. good. Yeah.
SamRight. I might sample that woo and put it in at some other time. LAUGHS Good!
EmmaSo, Sam, what have you brought?
SamI brought Dance In My Pants, which is a song from Jim steinman's solo album.
EmmaIt sounds like quite an uncomfortable condition as well.
SamYou wait till you see the video, mate. listeners, if you have any chance of watching the music video for this, out of all the music videos we're ever going to discuss, I think this is the one that deserves it the most. It is utterly ludicrous, so do find it on YouTube if you can. If not, put it on on Spotify. We'll see you in a bit. Um, quite a lot of minutes.
LaptopTime I see the glory of a good looking face, well, I just gotta say, Hey now, don't you worry, that thing will be fine! We
EmmaSo. Many.
SamHa
EmmaFucking
SamI'll I'll just give you a moment to absorb that 1981 on the Bad For Good album. Jim Steinman's solo album. it's a duet with Karla DeVito. who You may remember from appearing in the video for Paradise by the Dashboard lights.
EmmaKarla DeVito does quite a lot of work with Steinman and Meat Loaf
SamShe does, yeah, she does some stuff later on. She appears on the final album
Emmaas well.
SamShe does a duet there. Karla also did a couple of solo albums. her biggest hit seems to be a bouncy 80s pop number called Cool World, which is irritatingly catchy despite being rubbish. This song's quite a hefty one, as you'll have just noticed. It checks in at 7 minutes 58. that's 2 minutes 55 seconds longer than scatman's Gibba bop ba dibba bop by Scatman John. Is that this time, or? Yes it, well, wait and see, There might be another one. on the length of Jim's songs, I do have a quote here. Okay."When people say my songs are too long, I tell them I spent my life listening to six hour German operas, for Christ's sakes. I mean, six minutes to me is just an idea, right? It's nothing. no time at all to get across what you're really trying to do. Ha, ha, ha.
EmmaThat sums it up beautifully! Wow!
SamThe theme of the song. Is that the lady wants to dance and the man doesn't want to dance. He just wants to love Hey, listen now it's coming so close. I'll let the rhythm surround me. I'm getting itchy and I'm ready to move I'm mighty glad that you found me
EmmaOh!
SamThere's a drummer going at it way down in the core of my soul There's no escaping the music and I'm psyching up my feet and they're telling me we're ready to roll
EmmaI she's ready to dance but also she does sound quite horny.
SamThis is quite a confused analogy, because yes, dancing is clearly a metaphor for doing it. Yeah.
EmmaBut
Samalso the male character when he comes in. His line is, I'm a lover not a dancer, I'm a lover not a dancer, don't want to be on my feet when I can be on my back, don't want to be on the floor when I can be in the
EmmaSo
SamSo they're both horny,
EmmaBut
Sambut operating on different analogy levels.
EmmaThey don't quite. Yeah.
SamI don't care what you say, ain't nothing gonna get me out on that floor. Oh baby, you know, there may be some moves that you haven't even seen yet. No way Jose. And I think more rock songs should feature the
EmmaNo way,
SamJose! The second act concludes with her saying, I've got a new step for you. I've made it up all by myself. I bet you've never even tried this before. And then we're treated to Jim Steinman saying, oh,
Emmageez!
Samthree or four times. Which
EmmaWhich is, I think, one of the least erotic
Samthings I've ever heard. Oh, jeez. Oh, jeez. so we get bit of that and then the final act is the two of them. dancing She says now that you know how it's done It's only a matter of practice and he says well, I could sure use some of that practice And then the lyric is grow grow grow grow
EmmaGrow
Samgrow grow grow.
Emmagrow.
SamI've got dance in my pants
EmmaOh!
Samof dance that is, Emma. We do.
EmmaDirty Jim. Dirty boy.
SamI don't know how often Jim Steinman got laid, Emma.
EmmaWell, there's very little about his love life, yeah.
SamYeah. certainly seems quite frustrated at times.
EmmaI feel like he probably needed to get laid a little bit more. perhaps if he stopped writing such fucking weird songs. LAUGHTER SIGHS
Samha, in academic terms, it's a classic
Emmawe getting our, Steinman phD?
Samthematically it's a classic steinman. yes. It's a multi act structure. It's about eternal teenagers wanting to do it, and then doing it. I want to talk a bit more about why Jim sang this record. We've previously discussed that, after the Bat Out of Hell tour, Meat Loaf's voice was all fucked up and that. Yeah. And he couldn't sing, so Jim Steinman stepped in to sing it himself. In Jim's own words. Meat Loaf had a mental block on the new songs. I was trying to get them to rest his voice, this great instrument, which they were making do a show a night, like a bar band singer. What happened was he abused his voice on the road. Technically he has a lot more in common with an opera singer. Enormous lung power. And people with voices like that usually don't sing extended tours. That's fair enough. the end his voice was pretty much shot. It was partly a physical problem but it became psychological because it freaked him out that his voice wasn't there."I think the voice is a pretty mysterious thing anyway. We started in Woodstock doing this album, which started out to be his, and he tried singing some of the tracks right there at the piano, and the sounds that were coming out were really inhuman. At at the time, I described it as sounding like in The exorcist.
EmmaGod.
SamJim as, delicate as ever with his friends.
EmmaHe's a sensitive soul.
Sam"Springsteen's manager, suggested this guy in California who'd worked with Jackson Brown and Bonnie Raitt. He's not a doctor of any kind, he's sort of like a witch doctor. This guy's treatment is, he injects you with your own urine and then beats the shit out of you. He had Black Decker power tools, huge saws, axes, he puts rubber pads on your body and pounds for like three hours and you scream. I can't imagine Jackson Brown going through this. He never wants to hear any singing. He just wants you to yell while you're being beaten up."This went on for like three months and the difference is amazing. God knows why it works, but his voice has improved a thousand percent because of it"
Emmaso you know how I'm, underemployed at the moment. Do you think I could set up as a quack like that?
SamWell, Oasis have just reformed, as we record. Yeah, they're going to need some vocal coaching. They are going to need some vocal coaching. And I think you would love to hit Noel and Liam Gallagher around the face for three hours.
EmmaI have got a lovely mallet in the garage.
Samgarage. There we. go. So any singers out there who have bad voices My rates Yeah, do drop Emma a line. chatoutofhell@gmail com
EmmaI I think we have to talk about the video. As I was watching it just now, particularly the beginning part of the video, all I could think was, has Jim been at the David Lynch? the opening scene, before the song starts, Jim himself walks into a weird carnival type
SamIt's, a sort of carnival slash peep show.
Emmait's an arcade, isn't it
SamI think this is supposed to be Times Square in the early 80s when it was a horrible, dingy place. there's a guy on a megaphone saying, come see Little Bo Peep, the sexiest peep show dancer in town,
Emmaetc. That's creepy as anything. And so he wanders through people playing pinball. And finally approaches, a terrifying woman.
SamYeah.
EmmaShe's really scary.
SamThat terrifying woman was acclaimed New York cabaret singer Baby Jane Dexter As cabaret singers go, she's really good. She's got quite a set of lungs on her. She had a fascinating career. In 1981, she quit singing for a short break, which turned into a 10 year
Emma1981
Sam1981 was when she filmed this video. Just saying. Just saying.
EmmaUnrelated! he pays her money to go into the peep show. where he then has to put more money
Sammore YEah
EmmaWhat a swizz. Laughter
Samha ha ha ha!
EmmaThat's all I could think. And then the screen comes down And he watches a woman prance around pretending to be Little Bo Peep with a plastic sheep. For a bit. Yeah. And
SamShe
Emmasings the song. And then there's a transition for some reason.
SamWe go through a series of transitions. Yeah. She goes for about eight costume changes. Gosh. and it becomes a kind of nightclub for a bit.
Emmabit. Yeah, because to start with, there's a whole bunch of different guys peeping through windows, perving on Little Bo Peep and her lost sheep. but then suddenly Jim is in the
SamYeah, Jim's in the action, he's in a disco. The best bit happens. On the, I'm a lover not a dancer, I'm a lover not a dancer line,
Emmawe
Samhave a shot of Jim. At a bar, having drinks shoved down, slid down the bar towards
Emmasort of, yeah,
Samfilm But every time a drink comes down towards him, he picks it up and then looks scared and drops it. So them Yeah! He Yes! Why not just let past? He like, he absentmindedly catches them as well and sees what's in his hand and then drops it.
EmmaIt's so weird.
Samand there's a cartoon sound effect that's like, Bwaaaap!
EmmaEvery time
Samthe It's amazing.
EmmaI don't understand any of that. I don't I studied film and television university and we talked about all kinds of really wanky things like mise en scene and all of that kind of an ultra deep analysis of the set of a film and stuff. in the, few minutes that we've been talking, I've attempted to apply that to that scene, all that knowledge, and I still got nothing. What the fuck does that mean?
SamIt's the first part of the hero's journey, it's what's it called? Denying? Turning down the call. call. Yeah. Turn it
Emmadown before you can accept it. Exactly, yeah. For the hero's
Samyeah,
Emmaso Throwing the drinks away is turning down. hero's journey. Well, if he drinks the drinks, he might lose his inhibitions and then start to dance, and he's determined not to dance.
SamOf course!
EmmaOh,
SamThank you, Emma.
Emmashe entices him with the ideas of her new move
Samand her new move is spinning round and round round really fast. The sexiest move. anybody listening is single and is out at a disco or
Emmaor
Sama nightclub, wants to seduce somebody,
Emmaspinning around
Samand round and round in front of them.
EmmaReally fast
Samthat's the Jim Steinman guarantee.
Emmaabsolutely won't throw up everywhere.
SamI found Jim's, four page treatment for this video, you Remember the,, scary lady at the beginning The description of the lady. She leers and then laughs uproariously, the laugh building and building like a huge pressurised outpouring of steam. She's like an hysterical This huge laugh reaches an absurd peak and then suddenly, instantly stops. She stares at Jim, tough, defiant, demanding. Well, what's so funny? She barks, and then retreats into the primoidal ooze from which she came.
Emmathat's Jim's notes. I can imagine the actual shooting script. It just says, laugh.
SamYeah. Karla DeVito's costume changes."In this song, Karla is really the ultimate diva, a star of such magnitude that every minute or so she's in a new costume, a totally new look. Dietrich, Monroe, Clara Bow, Lana Turner, Joan Crawford, Janis Joplin, Diana Ross, Carmen Miranda, Pat Benatar, Anne Margaret, Mae West, Harlow, even Kali, the Indian goddess with about eight arms constantly moving."Maybe even the Statue of Liberty, which really should resemble Anne Miller." I counted 20 different costumes there. video itself cuts that down to about eight.
Emmawhich is still a lot.
Samme, yes. The dance hall scene, the whole scene should probably end up resembling a mixture of Saturday Night Fever, The milk bar where the Droogs in A Clockwork Orange hang out, the dance in the gym from West Side Story, and something out of a musical version of Star Wars with more than a dash of Mardi Gras." board. Yeah, but also, that scene absolutely ticks all those boxes. So, well done to whoever that director was. And I tried to find out, but nobody wants to take credit.
Emmaname to it.
Samthe whirlwind. She becomes like a human tornado, a whirling dervish possessed and out of control. She whips around the room in a swirling cloud. We don't even see her, just the commotion this tornado is causing, as in a cartoon."When she whirls by, by tables and chairs, bottles and people go flying from the force of the wind she is creating. Jim stands huddled with a group over to one side, everybody clutching each other for protection against the wind. When Karla finally reaches them, the tornado finally comes to an abrupt halt, and she aims a precise and perfectly executed pelvic bump right at them."They go flying and or faint dead away".
EmmaAnd again, on the shooting script, it just says, spins.
Samround.
EmmaOh Jim! He's such a little weirdo!
SamWe get the final third of them dancing forever, dancing forever, dancing on the edge of a grave, and that takes the form of a kind of gospel church feel.
EmmaYeah.
SamAnd then, and I do love this, The song ends because Jim's quarter has finally run out of the peep show, and he puts in another quarter and it's the scary lady again!
EmmaWhich again is very David Lynch
Samit's very david lynch. It's very bad business sense
EmmaOh, Terrible. can we talk about Jim's dancing? When, It's obvious that it's not him. They make it very, very, obvious. the way that he uses his gloves his hat hair face face. Of course, in a number of incredibly unsubtle ways. You know, when you get, Those charity calendars. I'm thinking calendar girls kind of thing. it's placed taste
Samcake hiding the boobs or
Emmawhatever. Yes. That kind of thing. It felt like bordering on
Samthat level You are quite right. Did you watch Eurovision this year? there was one act, I've forgotten his name, I think it was called Windows 95 man. He wore a Windows 95 t shirt, and nothing underneath. And the entire staging was, his bits being kind of blocked by a cameraman, or, a bottle on a table or something.
EmmaHow have I not heard about this yet? Oh my god!
SamYeah, but it was very That, that, tradition continues to this day.
Emmaand I'm all for it.
Samthe song was fucking stupid as well. Okay. um,
EmmaEurovision happened while I was in Florida. having spent a fortune on the holiday, we thought we probably shouldn't spend too much time sitting around the hotel watching tV. Yeah, We did watch quite a lot of Traitors, though. The American Traitors. The American Traitors.
Samyeah. It
Emmawas still pretty
Samwatchable. Yeah. Was that the one with um Alan cumming. No, but, Yes, with alan
EmmaYeah.
Samwith
EmmaI know who you're gonna say and I can't remember his name either.
Samhis name If you can remember the name of the man. We could look it up, but we want you
Emmato email us, so do
Samhis name to chatoutofhell@gmail.com
EmmaGood.
SamI think it's quiz
EmmaI was anticipating quiz time.
SamI've gone back to basics for this one.
EmmaGood.
SamMeat Loaf quotes, one of which is not a Meat Loaf quote. A, in the early 90s Meat Loaf said,"a psychic told me that Jim has written his best stuff already and he'll never write like that again." Is it B, on Jim's explanation about why Meat Loaf couldn't record the album that we just talked about? Yeah, I had a mental block, but not the kind of block you're talking about. My block was because Bad For Good was trying to be a copy of Bat Out Of Hell, Dance In My Pants was trying to be a copy of Paradise By The Dashboard Light, and Lost Boys And Golden Girls was trying to be a copy of Heaven Can Wait". Didn't like it, thought it was rubbish. Or was it C? He was quite Dismissive of Jim Steinman's singing voice, describing it as sounding like"I have to go to the bathroom". So which one of those was not a genuine Meat Loaf quote?
EmmaUh, I think number three.
SamYou are correct, that was not a Meat Loaf quote. That was a description of Jim Steinman's voice though, that was from the drummer Max Weinberg, who drummed on Bad For Good. Max Weinberg most widely known as the bandleader for Conan O'Brien on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. You know, when he has little bants with Max. that's Max Weinberg, the drummer. Jim Steinman described his own singing voice as, always liked singing more than writing, he confesses. the songs to Meat Loaf. He became my voice. I used to sing Doors and Stones Rockers in 1972. My voice is edgier and there's a different texture to it. Max Weinberg describes it as sounding like I have to go to the bathroom." So, he's very fair in describing the criticism. edgier and there's a different texture to it. I think Max is closer
EmmaI think so.
SamWhat do the people think, Emma?
EmmaI like to know what the people think.
SamThink. BruceLuber5178 Only Jim Steinman can take a three minute homage to Chuck Berry songs and make you spend seven minutes listening to it.
EmmaThat's exactly right, isn't it? is perfect.
SamAt, un, un, un, jim is felt whenever our pants, or whatever tingles and stirs down in that crevice, lets the sun shine in. Amen. Yeah, grim. 2.
Emmathe Second
SamAgamemnon. Disappointing sequel, I think. In a career marked by bombastic excesses and unforgettable hits, Dance In My Pants has the rare distinction of being Jim Steinman's worst song by a considerable margin. Agamemnon II, you blessed naive child.
EmmaIf only,
Samseen nothing yet, pal. he knew we rate this song? Yes. So we are once again using our patented, trademarked Jim Steinman song rating song scale. Song scale, scale, song, song scale. So is this Jim Steinman, Jim Fineman, or Jim Declineman?
EmmaFor me it's a Jim Fineman. it's got a lot of classic Jim Steinman tropes to it. But Meat Loaf's right, it is just Paradise by the Dashboard
SamYou're right, and on the grounds that Paradise by the Dashboard Lights is a better version of Paradise by the Dashboard Lights, let's file this under Jim Fineman?
EmmaYeah,
SamJim Fineman! Thank you all for listening to Chat Out Of Hell. If you have enjoyed our commentary, if you'd like to add something, if you want to disagree vehemently with our ratings, do drop us an email, chatoutofhellatgmail. com. If you want to suggest some songs for us to discuss, please do do that. This one was always going to happen, but this happened because we got an email a couple of weeks ago for somebody requesting it. If you've got a Meat Loaf or a Steinman song that you want to inflict on us, drop us a line. did you play bagpipes on Everything Louder Than everything Else? Do let us know, chatoutofhellatgmail. com. Do you want to send Emma some rock'n'roll drugs? chatoutofhellatgmail. com. Have you seen the Adam Sandler film That's My Boy? And how shit was it? chatoutofhellatgmail. com. And what was the name of that bloke that we can't remember from the US Traitors? ChatOutOfHell at gmail. com. Don't forget to follow us on social media, search for ChatOutOfHell on Facebook and at ChatOutOfHell on Instagram. Use the hashtag, DearA1Sauce, please send some of your A1 sauce to Sam from the really good podcast ChatOutOfHell. Emma, what songs are we
Emmagonna bring next time?
SamI
Emmajust wanted to say I'm really glad that you're keeping a note of all of these calls. I thought I'd do a bit of an experiment next time, because despite being, reasonable Meat Loaf fan, I haven't heard everything, there are entire albums that I haven't heard. and one of the albums that I've never listened to is 1986's Blind Before I Stop.
SamThat's a wanking reference, right?
EmmaI assume so. So I thought I'd pick one of the singles from Blind Before I Stop. I'm going to go with the first single that was released which is Rock and Roll Mercenaries.
SamThat sounds like it's either going to be incredible or shit.
EmmaI can't wait to find out.
SamI've actually also decided to go back to form. I've mucked about in the Jim Steinman doing other stuff pool for a few episodes. So I'm going to go back to my original quest which was working through the first album. We're going to do Heaven Can Wait. let us know what you think about those songs, chatoutofhell. gmail. com as always, keep your general Meat Loaf thoughts and anecdotes flying in. Did you see Meat Loaf at the Scarborough Rotunda Museum? And find him thinking that it's a very nice little regional museum, actually. There's a good fossil. and a man that they found in some bog up on the top floor, if I remember correctly. I spent a lot of time there as a child, so um, what we talking about? Did you see Meat loaf there If so, let us know. Chat out of hell at gmail. com And if
Emmaif you happen to bump into Sam who got lost on memory
Samlane there
EmmaIt's a
Sama lovely lovely
Emmamuseum. Sounds like it
SamYeah. Thank you all so much. We'll see you all again in two more weeks time for another fantastic chat out of hell. Bye, everybody.
EmmaBye.
SamBye.
Emmawe're waving.
SamWe're physically waving. Bow now now now.