Chat out of Hell

Episode 3.4 - Life is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back | Loving You's a Dirty Job (But Somebody's Got to Do It)

• Sam Wilkinson

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Big hair, big complaints and big feelings, it's Chat out of Hell!

This episode Emma brings our favourite car karaoke hit Life is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back for our intrepid pair to interpret, while Sam's Bonnie Tyler obsession continues in full swing as he tries to convince Emma that Loving You's a Dirty Job is a much neglected classic. This week's questions lack subtlety, just like these two songs:

- How generous IS John Lewis's legendary returns policy?

- What was it like being a jobbing actor in early 70s Britain?

- What do you do during the instrumentals in a funeral song?

PLUS we have a slight dig at other music review shows with only a 2-point scoring scale, some YouTube commentators look for deep meaning where there really isn't any, and we hear the best Meat Loaf Memories of all time.


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 or the much shorter one #pleasegiveemmaamichaelbaybudget

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:
Life is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back by Meat Loaf from the album Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell (1993)
Loving You's a Dirty Job (But Somebody's Got to Do It) by Bonnie Tyler and Todd Rundgren from the album Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire (1986)
Loving You is a Dirty Job (But Somebody's Got to Do It) by Meat Loaf from the album Braver than We Are (2016)

Send us a text

Sam:

What is this?

Emma:

This is Chat Out Of Hell. The only fortnightly podcast that continues to insist on pulling apart Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman songs like that Weird kid at school who pulled the legs off of Spiders.

Sam:

Who is Meat Loaf?

Emma:

Meat Loaf is a singer who in 1977, ran his operations out of an eighth floor space on eighth Avenue and 35th Street called The Meat Loft. Jim Steinman had a mattress there that he kept in a closet. Who is Jim Steinman?

Sam:

Why has he got mattresses everywhere?

Emma:

You know that they're all crawling.

Sam:

you Awww oil stained

Emma:

Jim.

Sam:

Jim Steinman is a writer and musician who claims that his first band, formed while he was at Amherst College, was called The Clitoris That Thought It Was A Puppy.

Emma:

Who are we?

Sam:

tickets to The Clitoris That Thought It Was A Puppy tonight! Do you want to come?

Emma:

No! Who are we?

Sam:

You are Emma Crossland and I am Sam Wilkinson and we are the brave explorers leading a doomed expedition deep into the hearts of these two men. I hope for all our sake that there's treasure at the end of it because otherwise This is a huge waste of time.

Emma:

Welcome to Chat Out of Hell!

Sam:

Bow now, now, now. Good., You know how we normally make a little bit of small talk that I then cut to ribbons in the edit? Yeah. Let's not even do

Emma:

even do that. Okay.

Sam:

Let's barge straight in because we've got a lot to get through.

Emma:

Okay.

Sam:

Good business. Good business. So yes, this is Chat Out of Hell in which we both bring a Jim Steinman or Meat Loaf song to discuss and analyse in our inimitable way. Emma, what have you brought this time?

Emma:

I've brought Life is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back from Bat out of Hell Two. What have you brought? Sam

Sam:

I have brought one of the songs that Jim Steinman wrote for the wonderful Bonnie Tyler back in the

Emma:

your girlfriend? Bonnie

Sam:

my girlfriend who's one year younger than my mum, Bonnie Tyler. Lovin You's a Dirty Job. Brackets, But Somebody's Got to Do It So listeners, go find yourselves Spotify, wherever you get your music from. Find Life Is A Lemon and I Want My Money Back from the album Bat Out Of Hell 2. We're going to listen to it now. If you don't, that was just awkward, isn't

Music:

it's a never ending, nothing's a lie And that's a fact There's a lemon and I want my cake back It's all or nothing, it's always something There's

Emma:

That was Life is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back from Bat Out of Hell 2. It was released as a radio single. Apparently so there's no video to it. Okay. But I think it was a promo single, probably in the US

Sam:

Was it cut down from the eight minutes that we had just listened to?

Emma:

Not as far as I can tell. That was October the 25th, 1993.

Sam:

Can we just lay our cards on the table here and tell the listeners we both fucking love this song. Oh god, best ever. It is the stupidest song either of them have ever

Emma:

but also it rocks really

Sam:

It does rock really hard, while being full of utter

Emma:

utter bullshit. Yes, which makes it a firm

Sam:

Uh Huh,

Emma:

Do you want to hear what Jim had to say about it?"Actually, one of my favourite parts of the album is during Life is a Lemon, at the middle section where everything is declared defective. Yeah, I think everything is defective, basically. I think that's probably one of the premises of life if you really look into it. Pretty much everything is defective, and everyone on some level is incompetent."Once you accept that, I think life is much more peaceful. That song was very much, to me, a teenager's anthem. To me, you can still be a teenager at any age. It's a certain sense of lack of proportion, which I really admire."

Sam:

Oh, I've just realised who Jim was. He was the weird old man that the teenagers bought weed from.

Emma:

Yeah,

Sam:

Yeah, they'd have to have a joint in his house before he'd sell them the full

Emma:

Yeah they, they didn't want to hang out with him, but he made them. that was Jim's take on it. I've been scouring through the Meat Loaf autobiography to try and find something relevant to any of the songs that we have listened to and It's quite a big book considering there's fuck all in it. The only bit that I can find about this song was"we" referring to him and Jim we had one big fight over the mix of life is a lemon and I want my money back. When I get mad, ten minutes later, I'm the sorriest human being on earth and I regret every minute of it. I just want to say I'm sorry, give you a hug, give you a kiss. But as Leslie," his wife at the time,"reminds me, when you blow up like that, you have no idea of the damage it can cause."People aren't waiting for your hug. It was four o'clock in the morning and I couldn't be held responsible for anything I say at that time. Because I'm not a person who's awake at four o'clock in the morning. Jim is."Jim smokes pot, listens to the mixers in these specially designed rooms. He's a really unique individual. He has a warehouse filled with amplifiers, a type Sony hasn't made for 15 years. Jim loves the sound of these amps. So, he's scooped up as many as he could find, along with a certain type of small speaker. He's got them set up in these listening rooms. Jim gets a chair, his ashtray, sets up speakers on these plant stands, hangs drapes in special places around the room, and it's an adventure in listening.

Sam:

Fucking hell

Emma:

"I listen in my car

Sam:

in ha ha ha ha

Emma:

"Because a car is what I always judge everything by. If it's any good in a car, it's fine. When Jimmy listens to mixes, he dissects them. He enters the music. He picks this little guitar string and that little note. It will make you crazy.

Sam:

That is the difference between the two writ large, isn't it? We've been wasting our time. We could have just read that paragraph out and not bothered with this. that warehouse full of,

Emma:

Uhhuh,

Sam:

Which album was it? One of the albums Jim sent out the review copies

Emma:

oh, I can't remember now, but I

Sam:

his stereo and said the only way to listen to my album is with the enclosed stereo

Emma:

Yeah. I can't remember which

Sam:

Was it Pandora's Box

Emma:

mate, probably. Pandora's Box seemed to be the height of his pretension wow. But I thought you would enjoy

Sam:

I love that Jim's got a whole warehouse full of listening booths, which presumably only he is using Because

Emma:

everybody else just listening to it in their

Sam:

in the car, wonder if warehouse is still there. the warehouse in Indiana Jones. All those

Emma:

wasn't it Stanley Kubrick who had a whole estate full of, many boxes of things? I think John Ronson was involved in, like, the boxes of Stanley Kubrick, where he just started going through and finding all of this stuff that he'd hoarded sort of filmmaking

Sam:

Jim's definitely got a

Emma:

Jim has a warehouse full of shit, doesn't

Sam:

he? He absolutely does, yeah. The Ark of the Covenant is in one box, and next to it is the t shirt that Jim was wearing the day he wrote the first lyrics of Bat Out

Emma:

There's the collection of mattresses.

Sam:

Oh!

Emma:

Jim's

Sam:

Jim's festering mattress pile.

Emma:

I did get a little quote from Q magazine who called it the daftest rocking rebel song of all time, which I think sums it up beautifully. So talking about that, do you want to have a little dig into the lyrics? So this is an angry song,

Sam:

I'm into ha ha ha ha

Emma:

but it's angry in that impotent rage of a teenager

Sam:

is Teenage Angry Song and we need to go back to this. Meat Loaf and Jim are in their mid forties when they released this album.

Emma:

But as we've already said, Jim believes in the perpetual teenager,

Sam:

Yeah, sure, Meat Loaf doesn't. Meat Loaf believes in money.

Emma:

But yeah, looking at these lyrics.

Sam:

It's all or nothing, and nothing's all I ever get.

Emma:

Every time I turn it on, I burn it on, burn it out. Then one of the best lines, it's always something going wrong, always

Sam:

something. in this house., You go to get a screwdriver to fix the thing, but the screwdrivers haven't been put away properly because of somebody. So you go and find them, but then the Hoover's full, so you have to empty the Hoover to get to the screwdrivers to fix the thing.

Emma:

It's a never ending attack.

Sam:

My favorite line in this there's desperation in the air. It leaves a stain on all your clothes and no detergent gets it

Emma:

out, I've tried Bold, I've tried Surf

Sam:

It's pure Jim.

Emma:

gloriously daft. Possibly even better than that

Sam:

Okay.

Emma:

is the list.

Sam:

The list, of course.

Emma:

this is the best list in a Jim Steinman song. I reckon.

Sam:

What about love?

Emma:

It's

Sam:

Yeah. What about sex?

Emma:

Defective.

Sam:

Family? Friends?

Emma:

Defective.

Sam:

Hope.

Emma:

Defective. Defective. Your gods! Defective. Defective.

Sam:

Defective. Your Your school.

Emma:

Defective. Your work. Defective. Your childhood Defective.

Sam:

Your future.

Emma:

Defective and you can shove it up your ass. Of course, we're skipping some of the beautiful bits here. Yes. Cause each question does have a proper answer. Not just about it being defective.

Sam:

you can picture Meat Loaf at the counter. saying I'd like to return this love. It's defective. It's always breaking in half. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I'm very sorry to hear that, sir. Oh, and I see there's some sex on the table as

Emma:

Yeah, this one wasn't built to

Sam:

last. Uh, okay. I see Our returns policy here at John Lewis is

Emma:

Is that where he got all the stuff from, do you think, John Lewis? Yeah. seems really teen angst to me is, What About Your School? It's a pack of useless lies. Yeah, they don't teach us anything

Sam:

Hey, when am I ever gonna have to work out the area of a triangle? The backing vocals have great fun as well. There's a lyric There's desperation. There's

Emma:

There's desperation!

Sam:

Exactly.

Emma:

Sorry.

Sam:

It's all right. The lead sings there's desperation in the air. And then you get what is almost certainly Rory Dodd doing his brilliant falsetto. There's desperation.

Emma:

It's amazing. I think they must all get involved in the list chanting as well, with the,

Sam:

What about your friends?

Emma:

They're defective. Yeah, you probably

Sam:

All the parts are out of stock. And what I look for in a friend is somebody whose parts can easily be replaced off the shelf.

Emma:

like a a Ford Fiesta friend. There are lots of parts around various scrapyards in the UK. And of course they've got lots of generic parts because they've been a well established car. Sorry, friend.

Sam:

Yeah, that's true. It's, do you know what? It's a real arse ache, import friends.

Emma:

you don't

Sam:

They sound, like a good idea at first, but then when they have a breakdown, there's nothing you can do to help.

Emma:

sounds wrong.

Sam:

Yeah!

Emma:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam:

I have an import spouse, everybody. And may I say, it was very expensive to import

Emma:

I'm sure she'll really appreciate that.

Sam:

She will!

Emma:

she won't listen to this shit. Important things to do. stuff to I found this review channel. I think they're called Rewind, Relive, and Review, and it's, two guys that are taking requests for songs to review, and then they decide whether they sizzle or fizzle. Spoiler, they're split on this one.

Sam:

so they only have two tiers

Emma:

no,

Sam:

scale. That's no Jim Steinman, Jim Fineman or Jim Come on,

Emma:

guys. Step it up a bit. But what made me chuckle was, it's a visual channel, but it doesn't need to be, because when they're listening to the song, you get two minutes of them just sitting. staring

Sam:

we are kind enough to edit ourselves out doing

Emma:

We edit ourselves out and also you don't have to watch

Sam:

us. Ha! Yeah,

Emma:

but if you did watch us doing it, you would see the party that we're having because we dance around, we sing along, we move pets around when

Sam:

We do. We occasionally do bits of admin

Emma:

check a text message every now and then have a drink, do a burp,

Sam:

a little drink. Do a little burp.

Emma:

get down tonight.

Sam:

tonight.

Emma:

But these guys just sat there and stared. I don't think they, they liked the song very much, but it just made me laugh watching other people listening to music. quote from the bit that I listened to was, one of the guys said,"this song's pretty dark. It's darker than some of that Megadeth we had the other day." Is

Sam:

Is it that dark?

Emma:

Well, want to dig into The Megadeth?

Sam:

not doing a Megadeth podcast, Emma.

Emma:

I just want to find the review.

Sam:

this song is from the point of view of a miserable teenager. But I don't find it dark at all. I just find it very

Emma:

really funny. Obviously it resonated a little bit with teenage Emma when she was having her angsty moments,

Sam:

it time?

Emma:

it's not really a Meat Loaf

Sam:

Meat Loaf memory. Meat Loaf memories. Are not happening

Emma:

No, it's just a general angsty sort of song to listen to, but always as a bit of a giggle you want to hear what the people of the internet have got to say? Rachel Brooks 4328 said,"The final song to my father in law's send off. Crying emoji, heart emoji." Good God! It's a bold

Sam:

Yeah, we've discussed Meat Loaf funeral songs before. I don't want this at my funeral. I don't want to bum you lot out any more than you already will

Emma:

Also, it's a long one to sit through. eight minutes. Quite a lot of instrumental noodling. I'd hope that somebody at the funeral wouldn't be able to resist doing a bit of air guitar to it as well.

Sam:

Well, if you do play this at my funeral, make sure everyone knows it's okay to check your phones during the instrumental.

Emma:

If that is built in specifically for that. So yeah, check your phone, make sure you've not got any important messages and also have a quick look on Facebook. So, this one's really sweet, I think. Joseph O'Neill2957 said,"This reminds me of my mum. I did an Al Yankovic style version for her about my cat stealing my pillow. I want my pillow back. Damn, I miss her."

Sam:

Aww,

Emma:

just thought that was incredibly sweet and lovely.

Sam:

Also, I can see you doing that on your ukulele.

Emma:

Ha ha ha ha I like to make up songs for Widget all the time. Widget is my cat. My favourite one to sing is Widgie, woo, how'd you do? To the Scooby Doo theme. that really resonated with me. It was very sweet. Another brilliant one. This is meme based. He protect, he attack, but most importantly, he wants his money back." And that was from Snowball, the Cat 7 5, 4 2 and finally. By xmeatxloafxfreakex. What about love? It's defective. It's always breaking in half. Ain't that the truth. In fact, this whole song is the truth. Everything's a lie and that's a fact. This song is freaking amazing and sooooo true. I could scream it to the heavens. Meat Loaf is a god of music!" Which is a slightly different tone to the other ones that I chose. There was a lot of this sort of

Sam:

Yeah, I suppose there's a lot of teenagers out there, isn't there?

Emma:

Yeah, especially teenagers that are well and truly in their 40s.

Sam:

There's more Jim Steinmans out there than we care to

Emma:

Yes. But that's all I've got for

Sam:

you've is it time to rate this

Emma:

I think it is time to rate this song. And I think This is going to be an easy one

Sam:

rate. It is, but let me do the spiel. Of As our regular listeners will know, we rate all of our songs by Jim Steinman. on the patented, trademarked, organic, grass fed, grown in my allotment, Jim Steinman song rating scale, which runs from Jim Steinman at the top for his finest works, to Jim Fineman for his decent stuff, all the way down to Jim Declineman for the bad songs. Emma, what's

Emma:

this? Oh, this is Jim Steinman! Steinman! What else could it be?

Sam:

else could it be?

Emma:

be?

Sam:

Yeah, obviously it's Jim Steinman. He's one of our favourites.

Emma:

favourites. Yes.

Sam:

End of conversation. And if you disagree with us about that, let us know! chatoutofhellatgmail. com

Emma:

Be prepared, we will fight you. fight you.

Sam:

you. Emma will fight you.

Emma:

I'm quite fighty. She

Sam:

She just, sorry, for the purposes of the tape, she just did the sort of the fists up boxing thing but in the style of a 1930s boarding school boy. Lovely.

Emma:

very much the energy behind that yeah

Sam:

So that was Life is a Lemon And I Want My Money Back and now it's my turn. I have brought to the table today the song Loving You's a Dirty Job(But Somebody's Got to Do It), which Jim wrote for Bonnie Tyler for the album Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire back in 1986. Meat Loaf later covered it on his final album, Braver Than We Are. If you're only going to listen to one version, please don't listen to the Meat Loaf one. And also the video. Did you, have you seen the video? Okay. There is a video to this. It's quite silly. I love it. I love it. I hope you do. We're listening to this song now.

Music:

we took our chances. There were times, There were times to redempt the dancers. There were times when we heard all the answers In the beating of the drummer And the riches of the rock and the roll I can see right through your soul There were times we had it all There were times we had it all

Sam:

so that was Loving You's a Dirty Job(But Somebody's Got to Do It). Emma, you've not listened to this

Emma:

this much. No, I haven't, and I've

Sam:

I haven't. We've not even, we've not discussed your opinion of this before the show, so hit me, how do you feel about

Emma:

not something that I would ever

Sam:

choose to listen

Emma:

to Fair enough. It's alright though. It's a bit of fun. The video helps.

Sam:

The video helps a lot, I think. It's one of these big torrid torch songs about a big love affair where they can't live with each other and nobody else can live with them either. So it's like Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor and the video is that story as well of two actors in a theatre having a fight and then going home again. Well, three men just constantly sit

Emma:

Burton Three window cleaners

Sam:

Yes! Follow them around the theatre doing the backing vocals.

Emma:

of things about video that I do really like. Number one is Bonnie's hair, which I mean, so much hairspray. I hope she doesn't get close to any naked flames.

Sam:

That's why it had to be raining.

Emma:

Yeah, throughout the entire video it is of course raining. Why are they cleaning windows in the rain? So, I love that hair. It's big and it's going nowhere. That's not going to move. It's probably still solid now. Yeah. The other thing that I really like. is Bonnie and, despite the mad hair and, overly made up and things both Bonnie and, who's the bloke? Do we know? Okay, Bonnie and the bloke both look reassuringly like Normal people in a way that you don't get in music videos

Sam:

Well, they look like Early film stars.

Emma:

Yeah, who looked like normal people. They're not, like, outrageously beautiful.

Sam:

Very well dressed and made up. Yeah. Who are in a weird torrid love affair. And

Emma:

he's not like,

Sam:

nice. he's handsome No, he's a quite nice looking man. But he's not, yeah, he's not Cary Grant.

Emma:

No, I just, I think that's,

Sam:

think is nice.

Emma:

lot.

Sam:

Yeah, I agree, you're right, I've not really picked up on that. But, yeah. They are normal, everyday people.

Emma:

Yeah.

Sam:

So this song some facts. like I said, it's from the 1986 album, Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire, which is the second album that Jim produced for Bonnie. And he wrote three or four songs on it as well. So we've talked about this before. Jim turned down being the lyricist on Phantom of the Opera because he was contractually obliged to do this album. I think that's important to understand it through this lens because one of them is about a horny weirdo who lives in a horrible house and makes a woman be really good at singing

Emma:

really good at singing.

Sam:

and the other is Phantom of

Emma:

Opera, Bob. It's

Sam:

But yes, this entire album is horny as balls. ravishing, which I know I sprung on you last series. song just about doing it is, is off this album. Every single song on this album is filth. Bonnie has called it a"punchy, really raunchy album". the song as a whole, I like it because it's a different version of Jim's theater style. This is the other side of theater. This isn't opera. This is actors who think too much of themselves.

Emma:

It's definitely got that vibe to it. And of course it is a one of the gym tropes. It's a duet. It's a With Bonnie taking the lead. The Meat Loaf role, as it would have been.

Sam:

it's a duet. Do you

Emma:

know

Sam:

that duet is with?

Emma:

No.

Sam:

It's with Todd Rundgren!

Emma:

Is it? Yeah! Is he in the video as well?

Sam:

No.

Emma:

Ah, I didn't know. That's a shame. I don't know what he looks

Sam:

Exactly, we still don't, I mean, you could look it up, but we've decided not to. It's Todd Rundgren, the Kif to Jim Steinman's Zap Brannigan as we've painted him this poor put upon figure who just has to come up with whatever nonsense Jim wants this week. Todd's an interesting guy his Wikipedia page is fucking massive and it only mentions Meat Loaf once. you know, yeah, he's done loads of shit. Yeah. But he's, he seems a pretty cool dude. We've not actually mentioned this, outside of our world of Chat out of Hell characters, Todd was one of the big influencers in getting Bat Out of Hell signed, he was one of the people who really pushed Columbia Records. Todd is one of the ones who really pushed for the whole kind of incredible, stupid concept of it. So it's mildly unfair that we create this image of him as a sort of put upon servant, just doing whatever Jim asks of him. his fault. When it's probably all his fault, yes. Bonnie says this about Todd So this is from Bonnie's article in Sounds Magazine, 1986, I mentioned it before the recording, but this is all written directly in Bonnie's voice. So there's a lot of Welshisms in there and you can hear Bonnie. the backing vocals were done with Todd Rundgren. He arranged all the backing vocals and sang them with two other boys". Those other boys were Rory dodd, and, Oh shit, the other one who's always there with Rory Sorry the other one, we'll get to you.

Emma:

Your time will come

Sam:

So being as Todd was already working on the album doing the backing vocals, we asked him if he'd the duet, which he did... even though this was the first single released off the album, it didn't make it in this country, but I know for a fact that it'll sell. It'll be a hit. It's one of those occasions where 18 months will pass after the release, and suddenly it's a hit. It's got to be a hit. It's too gorgeous not to be. He's got a beautiful voice, and the song is gorgeous. I'll eat my hat if it's not a hit here in two years." And it did! It went to number one in five separate countries, including the Eurodance Top 100. Sorry, no, that's the Wikipedia page for Saturday Night by Whigfield Loving You was not a hit. It was number 73 in the UK and number 82 in the US. The best it was in Portugal, where it was number 3. I think that is an absolute disgrace.

Emma:

way that you've just shoehorned Whigfield in was an absolute disgrace.

Sam:

well I couldn't do it in the quiz for a reason you'll find out later. so yeah, it really just didn't do very well at all. Before we go on to a bit more about the video, let's just dip into world of Todd Rundgren, because I've got two cool Todd Rundgren, I've got one cool Todd Rundgren fact, and one heap of bullshit. So which would you like first?

Emma:

I would like The cool thing. first.

Sam:

The cool thing. Todd Rundgren has been in music since forever. He's been in loads of bands. He's made loads of cool stuff himself. this isn't about his musical involvement though. In 1972, he began a relationship with the model Bebe Buell. they had a break in their relationship and Buell had a relationship with somebody else, which resulted in an unplanned child. Bebe wanted to name Todd on the birth certificate and she claimed he was the biological father. He knew he wasn't, but he still raised this child as his own. Do you know who that child was? Liv Tyler.

Emma:

Oh my god!

Sam:

Yeah, so Liv didn't find out she was Steven Tyler's daughter until she was 11. I think she knew Todd wasn't her biological father younger than that, but he paid to put her through school and yeah, they're still, well, as of 2012, they've, they still had a very close relationship. So. It's lovely, isn't it? Yeah. so that's the lovely thing. And Todd's bullshit. Todd and Jim belong together.

Emma:

Okay.

Sam:

The mid 1990s saw Todd Rundgren recording under the pseudonym T. R. I. Todd Rundgren Interactive. for two albums. The first of these, 1993's No World Order, consisted of hundreds of seconds long snippets of music that could be combined in various ways to suit the listener. Oh, I

Emma:

the sound of That's pure nineties bullshit interactive, isn't

Sam:

Yes, it is bullshit interactive. was made for the Philips CDI platform

Emma:

Oh, that successful long lasting platform.

Sam:

so yeah, the version of Todd that exists in Chat Out of Hell lore is both more and less of a dingus than the Todd that exists in real life.

Emma:

Glorious. I like that. I like that.

Sam:

we'll come back to Todd later on, I think, but I thought it was nice to bring this song cause it's the first big meeting with Todd we can have. onto the video then. Todd wasn't available to play himself during the video. So the actor Hywel Bennett plays that role instead. Bonnie says,"my manager and I were wondering about ideas for the video for this track. We got four different video companies interested in it and they sent different storyboards over to us. I didn't like any of them, really. Tim Pope's was the best, but I still wasn't all that fussy on it."

Emma:

That's the one

Sam:

that she

Emma:

went went with

Sam:

Tim did end up directing it, just because he was a bit nicer. he Was so helpful in every way. He'd go through it, he'd do it, and I could see what he wanted. Then I'd do it, and I felt much more comfortable doing something after seeing somebody else do it first. I'm not an actress, I'm a singer. And then she went on to say,"I do all the promotion. I'm bloody hard working, I am." I'm not doing the accent. But you can hear that in the accent. Yes.

Emma:

accent.

Sam:

I do everything but I don't mind doing it, see? I really think I'm lucky to be doing something that I really enjoy doing anyway. To turn around and say you're not even going to work, which isn't work because you enjoy it, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face. I don't think I've done my bit now, let everyone else do theirs. You're not saving anyone's life, like, you're only singing for a

Emma:

right? Ha ha ha ha. Aw, how lovely and down to earth is that

Sam:

that's lovely. Would you like a quiz? Are

Emma:

you sure?

Sam:

you sure? Okay, you hesitated there. Hywel Bennett was a big name in acting at the time. He'd been in Quite a lot of stuff. He was in a couple of big shows on ITV during the mid 80s. Kenneth Tynan described him as"the natural successor to Olivier." To my mind, Hal Bennett's most important role is as Ricky Tarr in the 1979 BBC version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Have you seen that? Have you seen the more recent film? Okay, right. Luckily I've summarized, if you've not seen it, Ricky Tarr is a professional shagger employed by MI6 who seduces the wife of a Soviet diplomat and kind of kicks off the plot. which of these is not a role that Hywell Bennett played? A. Edwin Antony in the film Percy, 1971, playing the recipient of the world's first penis transplant. Which he acquires after his own penis is mutilated. When a naked man falls on him from the top of a tower block. B. The part of Mick Goonahan in the film Anyone for Sex? 1973, where he plays a man whose wife refuses to sleep with him because they have enough children already and then the au pair mysteriously falls pregnant. Or was it C, the part of Tony Williams in Bums for Blighty? 1972, which is basically the same plot as Some Like It Hot where he dresses as a woman to join the England team in the European Best Bum Championships to avoid a crime lord whose wife he slept with. One of those is not a role he played.

Emma:

I'm speechless. Oh, they were very different times, weren't They They Oof. Oh, this is just a shot in the dark. I've no idea. So, I'm going to go for Option B. Option

Sam:

Option B. Mick Goonan in the film Anyone for Sex. That was a real film. He was in it.

Emma:

Oh, God.

Sam:

Anyone for Sex. It was mostly known as The Love Ban, but it was also known as Anyone for Sex, and that is

Emma:

real films, Sam?

Sam:

Well, Emma, which of the other two do you think I made up?

Emma:

Oh,

Sam:

Bums for Britain? Or, the one about the penis transplant.

Emma:

one about the penis transplant. You

Sam:

I made that one up?

Emma:

I hope you made that one up. Nope!. you

Sam:

Wikipedia for the synopsis. Edwin Antony, an innocent and shy young man, is hit by a nude man falling from a high rise building, while carrying a chandelier. Edwin's penis is mutilated in the accident and has to be amputated. The falling man is killed. Edwin becomes the recipient of the world's first penis transplant. he receives the very large penis of the womanizer killed in the same accident. Edwin follows the womanizer's footsteps, meeting all of his women friends before settling happily with the donor's mistreated widow. the 1970s was horrible.

Emma:

It sounds like a really bad plot for proper full on porn,

Sam:

I don't think

Emma:

don't think

Sam:

it, it? No, it will have been carry on level.

Emma:

Confessions of a window cleaner, a

Sam:

yes.

Emma:

Oh God.

Sam:

worry though, people at the time did think this was awful. This is a review of The Love Ban slash Anyone For Sex. If, as on current form, it thoroughly deserves to, the British film industry of the early 70s comes to be remembered primarily for its abysmal comedies, then this quasi sociological dirty joke about religio sexual hang ups is unlikely to be quoted as a shining exception. Yeah, that was the quiz.

Emma:

Thanks for that.

Sam:

I just wanted to make up bums for

Emma:

blighty. Bums for blighty?

Sam:

Anyone for sex? Sounds like something Toast was in.

Emma:

Anyone for sex?

Sam:

Anyone for sex?

Emma:

Oh, I hate it.

Sam:

Do you want to clean your palate by listening to Meat Loaf's cover of

Emma:

of this. Is that going to cleanse it, is

Sam:

Don't bother. Emma, here we go.

Music:

There were times when our bodies glistened There were times that we can't stop missin There were times when we lay in bed and listened to The pounding, pounding chorus of our desperate hearts Nothing could have torn

Sam:

we just listened to most of Meat Loaf's version of Loving You's a Dirty Job But Somebody's Got to Do It. But Emma request we skip to the end halfway through, which is the first time that has happened on this podcast. And we have listened to some bad versions of some bad

Emma:

We've tolerated a lot, but that's just too much. Yeah.

Sam:

it's awful, isn't it? So this is the final album Braver Than We Are, which is the end of Meat Loaf's oeuvre. I don't want to keep saying the same things about this album.

Emma:

His voice is fucked.

Sam:

His voice is too fucked. And

Emma:

The productions, it just, it's like eating plastic

Sam:

cheese. It is. You described it as American cheese, the production on this. There are synths and there are guitars, but they're all just,

Emma:

They're so shiny.

Sam:

yeah,

Emma:

shiny. It is shiny. And it shouldn't be shiny. It should be a bit grimy.

Sam:

So we'll leave that at that. I have one final thing to say before we rate this, and I probably should have said it when we'd listened to the good version. I genuinely think if this song had appeared later on on Bat 2 or maybe even Pandora's box, we would be rightly remembering it as a classic now. if it had met Steinman's kind of big, massive, gothic, operatic, waaaaaah sound, I think that would have worked really

Emma:

think that was It probably deserved better treatment. And I think a lot of what I don't like about some of the Bonnie Tyler stuff is that lack of Yeah. operatic,

Sam:

action guitar. Yeah, it's very 80s, the

Emma:

you hear from Bonnie Tyler. Yeah, yeah. And I just don't really like that

Sam:

That's fair enough. How do you feel about holding out for a hero?

Emma:

I do like holding out

Sam:

Good, so we've got one more that we

Emma:

can record. Of course, I like

Sam:

time with. I'll save that for when we're feeling really down. do you want to hear what the people of the internet think? on the Meat Loaf version, Steven Lawney 1261,"LOL, this album is fucking hilarious."

Emma:

oh,

Sam:

People are not kind.

Emma:

No.

Sam:

And at Delona Supreme,"great song, but this version, and I'm a Meat Loaf fan, along with the whole of the album, was horrendous. Bought the album and threw it away after one listening. Even worse than the Boys for Pelé by Tori Amos". I don't know it, do you?

Emma:

Er, I think I know bits of it

Sam:

Okay. Is it that bad? this is definitely worse than Well yes it's worse than most things I've listened to Over to Bonnie then, for some uplifting comments" at mtchair4me."Wow. Powerful. I gotta listen to this many times before I can even think of constructing a reply. I think reflection, much reflection, has to be undertaken before reason can start to decipher its meaning. Thanks, Bonnie, for this magnificent construct of thought." Listen, I love this song,

Emma:

not a lot of dialogue you

Sam:

but there's not a lot of deep dive you need to do into it.

Emma:

museum a No it's it's not a thinker

Sam:

It's not! And finally, at McKinney Dermott."I went to New Zealand a few years ago, packed my Walkman. I told you it was a few years ago! But forgot all my tapes! There was only one which was in the device at the time. Bonnie Tyler. I thought, no, one tape for a 24 hour journey? It was so amazing. I had to listen to all the songs over and over again and reflect on them. I learnt so much about life on that plane. So thank you, Bonnie Tyler. I am no longer holding out for a hero. Pun intended."

Emma:

Oh!

Sam:

I don't, what are people seeing in this that I am missing? Because it's a wonderful album about a lady who wants to do a lot of sex. That's

Emma:

Well listeners, if you've found a deeper meaning than Sam has, why not write in to us at

Sam:

chatoutofhellatgmail. com shall we rate this okay so this is once again a Jim Steinman song so Jim Steinman at the top Jim Fineman in the middle all the way down to Jim Declineman at the bottom

Emma:

Right, well, I'm going to say it's a Jim Fineman.

Sam:

know you are I love it no i'm not gonna disagree because like i said if it had been mixed in the Bat out of Hell 2 style it would be a Jim S teinman it's a song that I love but it's not what we're going to the Jim Steinman shop for. Yeah. So yeah, let's call this Jim Fineman.

Emma:

Jim Fineman, isn't it's alright,

Sam:

that was Chat Out of Hell. Listeners, did you enjoy slash hate either of those songs? You probably hated one cover of one of those songs. Because we certainly did. Let us know, chatoutofhellatgmail. com. Did you agree with our ratings? Do you have things to say? Do you have Meat Loaf memories?

Emma:

Like these

Sam:

Like these good people who I'm about to read emails out from. Thanks. Yeah, we've got a really good mailbag. Let's start, Claire Moncaster. She's been back in touch. Hi Claire. She says to me, now I've done Jim Steinman's voice, can I do Meat Loaf mid tantrum? I don't know about mid tantrum, but we didn't talk about it during our Life is a Lemon section. Meat Loaf going Back!

Emma:

That is a staggering part of the song, isn't it? Utterly unhinged.

Sam:

It's incredible. Claire's also sent us in some song and film suggestions, which I will stick on the spreadsheet. Thank you so much, Claire, for those. going back to last time we talked about More, this is from Eddy Thomas. specifically, I think he's talking about Meat Loaf's version."More sounds like it's the music for a knockoff version of Streets of Rage, with the bridge sounding like what teenagers would play over badly made flash movies on Newgrounds. com in the 90s.

Emma:

Ha ha ha

Sam:

thought he'd enjoy that."There's a bit near the end where Meat Loaf shouts,'I want more', through some synthesizer that honestly sounds like Sam doing a bad Meat Loaf impression hate I hate to say it, but I might have to go back and listen to Meat Loaf doing More.

Emma:

we should,

Sam:

Thank you, Eddy. This is from, the listener that we know as RL Grey. Hello, RL. I know your real name is now on the email. Because RL is gradually stepping away from Facebook, so

Emma:

Fair

Sam:

he's switching to emails. I'm gonna keep calling you RL Grey and give you some mystery. RL says, enormously happy to have you back after the break." Thank you. It's lovely, isn't it? It's generally so nice when people, Feed our egos. Yes,

Emma:

Yes, and our egos are very hungry.

Sam:

And justify this. We could be watching The Traitors right

Emma:

now. Oh, I know.

Sam:

Since you asked for song suggestions, I notice you haven't yet reviewed any from Stoney and Meat Loaf Meat's pre Steinman album debut. I think one of the Rocky Horror cast albums may also have come first. I think it's a really solid album." Let's cut out here. we have two different classes of listener. We have the listeners who are learning from us and the ones who are watching us learn. We've got two separate camps which is lovely. And I think we need names for the two different classes of listener. So I know we came up with loafers for the listeners as a whole, but, if you're learning from us about the stupid things in the world of Meat Loaf and Steinman, or if you're watching us on the journey, enjoying us as people like RL and Claire are, let us know what group name you want. Yeah. Like, team names even. The Megabastards, Or the fighting mongooses. Yeah. Let us know what your team name is. Anyway. Yeah. So, for the learners Meat Loaf did have a bit of a career before he teamed up with Jim, including this album that he did with Stoney, I've not listened to it, but I understand it's bit bluesy, a bit gospel

Emma:

I've only listened to a tiny little bit of it late one night when I was doing a bit of a deep dive.

Sam:

So yeah, I think that's a really good shout. RL. We'll definitely add that in rotation. RL says you can't hear the whole thing on YouTube, but you might as well start with Heavy as Jesus. If I remember the anecdote correctly, this was the first thing he sang for Steinman, who commented,"I think you're as heavy as three Jesuses". Ha ha ha

Emma:

ha

Sam:

Jim.

Emma:

ago. Oh,

Sam:

"For the record, no one calling himself Andrew Eldritch has any business insisting he's not at least a little goth. Be well, R. L." Thanks, R. L.

Emma:

Oh, Thanks, rl.

Sam:

And then I've got one more for you, Emma. This is from Max. It's quite lengthy, so I'm going to do a little bit of editing as I go. But Max did say this is a list of semi coherent thoughts. So, I'm sure Max won't mind. long time listener, first time writer. First, I want to sarcastically thank you for confirming my long held fear that I'm moderately brain damaged for thinking Hang Cool Teddy Bear is a no skip album". ha

Emma:

ha ha ha

Sam:

Thank you, Max, for taking it in such a nice,

Emma:

it

Sam:

such kind way. That's really sweet

Emma:

some

Sam:

not here to judge anybody's tastes in God knows we both like some shit. if you enjoy the we think are bad, more power to you. We're definitely not here to make you feel bad for enjoying stuff. so, just because we've rated it a Jim DeKleinman, that's fine."Second, I want to sincerely thank you for being what I think is the last platform doing any in depth discussion of Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman anymore. Seriously, I once wrote a long form essay on Meat and Jim's dynamic for a creative writing class and this pod would have been a treasure trove at the time."

Emma:

Oh,

Sam:

That's very nice! That's two nice things we've heard

Emma:

that's, it makes it seem almost like we're doing something worthwhile. Yeah, I mean, almost, yeah, not actually, but

Sam:

Favorite Meat Slash Jim song? probably Lost Boys and Golden Girls, honestly."That's a banger.

Emma:

is a good one.

Sam:

like that one.

Emma:

Yeah. We'll be coming to that at some

Sam:

Um, I know you've touched on Braver Than We Are before", and again just now, this is really interesting. So Max found a forum post from somebody in contact with the Steinman camp claiming that Jim had no illusions about how cooked Meat Loaf's voice is. And saw Braver as a cynical exercise in funding the Bat Out of Hell musical by selling just a load of old shit that he had in his basement. Yeah. it's quite believable. And it sort of reframes the, the Johnny Cash thing for us a little bit. Because maybe Meat sees Braver as the last album and the kind of the final swan song. Jim is seeing, the Bat Out of Hell stage show as his final gift to the world. So of course he doesn't give a shit about Braver.

Emma:

And we'll be able to to tell you all about our thoughts on that in April.

Sam:

will. I'm also curious if you've listened to Paradise Found. The Neverland Express did a complete re recording of Bat Out of Hell a couple of years ago with another overweight southern singer named Caleb Johnson."

Emma:

talked about Caleb before.

Sam:

I, yeah, I'm not sure if it made the cut, but yeah, we have very briefly touched on Caleb. so he was on, was he on American Idol? I think so, yeah. Yeah. So Max says he does a solid job with the material."They did a show near me a couple of years ago and it was worth it if nothing else to see the Neverland Express in action. especially since I'm not convinced the Bat Musical is ever touring the U. S. again."Maybe it will if we buy enough tickets in the U. K."I know before he died, Meat was actually in talks with Johnson to do a VH1 Storytellers type thing where Meat would MC slash narrate and Johnson would do all the singing." That is quite interesting.

Emma:

would've been quite sweet.

Sam:

Yeah. Max also suggests, we review something off Stoney and Meat Loaf. And then,"I'm much less confident that you've heard, but still want you to review, Meat's duet with Chef from South Park. Tonight is right for love. If only because I don't think anything sums up Meat Loaf as a person more than breaking into an inappropriate histrionic tantrum mid song and needing to eat a taco to calm down"

Emma:

I Oh God

Sam:

Max suggests to catch a Yeti for the next film club and then Max has. A Meat Loaf memory! Strap in Emma, you're gonna love this. Max, this is amazing. Ahem. I saw Meat Loaf at a grocery store in Nashville a few years ago. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn't want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything. He said,'Oh, like you're doing now?

Emma:

rent. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha

Sam:

ha ha It gets better."I was taken aback and all I could say was, Huh? But he kept cutting me off and going,'Huh? Huh? Huh?' And closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like 15 Milky Ways in his hands without paying. The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional and was like,'Sir, you need to pay for those first.' At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter. When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually To prevent any electrical inferterence.' And then turned around and winked at me. I don't think that's a word."

Emma:

a word. Laughing.

Sam:

After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly." What a power douche!

Emma:

Wow. What a dick. This is an incredible story. I love it.

Sam:

that we've got this.

Emma:

max. Yeah. but a dick.

Sam:

Really does fuel our narrative version of Meat Loaf that he turned into the ultimate bellend at the end of his life. So

Emma:

Wow.

Sam:

if you have a Meat Loaf memory to match that, or not to match that because What will drop it to us, chatoutofhellatgmail. com. keep your general Meat Loaf thoughts and anecdotes flying in do send them to chatoutofhellatgmail. com or if you want to suggest any Meat Loaf or Steinman songs or films for Film Club, send those in as well. chatoutofhellatgmail. com Did you see Meat Loaf at Wendy's? Perhaps he was looking at the creepy girl in the logo, wondering if she comes alive of night and does a murder. Chat out of hell at gmail. com I find the Wendy's logo a bit weird.

Emma:

It is a bit

Sam:

It is a bit creepy, isn't it? You tell that to the Americans, by which I mean, my wife. And she's like, it's just a girl, isn't it? And that's international relations for you. Emma, what songs are we doing next time?

Emma:

for Next time I'm going to bring 45 Seconds of Ecstasy. both the song and the substance to our podcast recording

Sam:

That is what we need I am going to go back to the Pandora's Box album to bring a song that nobody sings on called Requiem Metal,

Emma:

Lovely.

Sam:

is 52 seconds long.

Emma:

So it's the Short songs

Sam:

Short Songs long podcasts. That's what we're offering next time. So yeah, if you have any opinions on those, let us know. ChatOutOfHellAtGmail. com. Can I say the email address one more time? ChatOutOfHellAtGmail. com. That's it. Thank you as ever for listening.

Emma:

Yes, thank you, and we will see you in a fortnight!

Sam:

Oh, lovely. Bye.

Emma:

Bye! Bing! It's finished.