Episode 6.5 - Love is Not Real | Our Love and Our Souls

Justin Hawkins, Sean McDonnell and a whole load of Our Souls, it's Chat out of Hell! Time to get into the deep Meat Loaf adjactent questions, like:

- How many early 2000s ITV celeb reality shows can you name?

- What did Brian May think of Meat Loaf?

- Honestly, what was that soldier dying on the battlefield actually thinking of?

PLUS we get into it with Rednex's football anthem and all the usual other sundry nonsense.

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 #thechickenonesareareallynice

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:

Love is Not Real by Meat Loaf from Hang Cool Teddy Bear (2010)
Our Love and Our Souls by Meat Loaf from Hell in a Hand Basket (2011)
Our Love and Our Souls by Sean McConnell from the Walk Around EP (2008)
Football is our Religion by Rednex from The Cotton Eye Joe Show (2008)

Transcript

Emma 0:00

What is this?

Sam 0:01

This is Chat Out Of Hell. The only podcast about the musical works of Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman where every episode the hosts forget who is supposed to ask what this is and who is supposed to say who we are. Who is Meat Loaf?

Emma 0:15

Meat Loaf was a singer, actor and reality TV star who, in 2010, was a judge on ITV's Pop Star to Opera Star, along with Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen.

Sam 0:29

I'd forgotten about Pop Star to Opera Star.

Emma 0:31

The show was hosted by that classic TV presenting duo, Mylene Klass, and Alan Titchmarsh.

Sam 0:37

I've I'd forgotten all about Popstar to Opera Star

Emma 0:41

I have been scouring the internet to try and find an episode.'cause I imagine it was a shitshow

Sam 0:45

Well, I was certainly involved in some aspects of bringing that programme to air.

Emma 0:54

Wow.

Sam 0:56

Wow. Do you remember Celeb Air? No.

Emma 0:59

No.

Sam 0:59

Another one I remember from that era. That was hosted by, I dunno if it was hosted by Chico or Chico was just in it.

Emma 1:06

Oh. Oh.

Sam 1:07

But it was celebs running an airline brackets, but not the important

Emma 1:12

Yeah. Sounds amazing. I thought you'd enjoy that.

Sam 1:16

That was good, that.

Emma 1:17

Yeah. I was delighted when I found that. They made two series, but only the first,

Sam 1:21

they made two series!

Emma 1:23

The first series involved Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen, Meat Loaf and Alan Titchmarsh, Mylene Klass and Alan Titchmarsh. What combo?

Sam 1:32

Another one of that era was, I can't remember what it was called, but it was celebrity sheep herding

Emma 1:39

fucking hell

Sam 1:41

celebs got paired with a sheep dog. And there was this brilliant bit of kind of, there was a 3, 2, 1 countdown of like, you get ready to herd the sheep, and on three it zoomed in on the celebs face, on two on the dog, and on one it was on an angry sheep.

Emma 1:56

Amazing.

Sam 1:57

And it was, maaaah, off you go. Ahh, I don't remember what that was. That was...

Emma 2:02

oh, high culture indeed. Who's Jim

Sam 2:06

I could not give less of a shit. Jim Steinman is an anagram of Jasmine Mint.

Emma 2:12

Oh, nice.

Sam 2:13

Which is two lovely kinds of tea. Who are we?

Emma 2:18

We are Emma Crossland and Sam Wilkinson. A pair of comedians who are beginning to regret committing to singing Paradise by the Dashboard Light at our friend's upcoming birthday karaoke party.

Sam 2:29

Are you? Ah, you big chicken.

Emma 2:32

Be fine. I'm sure. But yeah,

Sam 2:34

B

Emma 2:34

I'm a bit of a chicken about this. Welcome to Chat out of Hell!

Sam 2:43

Hello, Emma. Hello,

Emma 2:44

Sam.

Sam 2:45

How long do you reckon that intro was?

Emma 2:47

Oh, very long. A good five minutes or

Sam 2:49

As recorded. It was three minutes 25. So let's see we do that.

Emma 2:55

I mean, got fuck all else to say.

Sam 2:57

Yeah, I know listen. Popstar to Opera Star. Oh

Emma 3:02

We've gotta find it.

Sam 3:03

Mylene Klass now presents the very late night Classic FM programme does, which I often have on when I'm going to bed

Emma 3:10

at like eleven

Sam 3:11

o'clock on a weekend, no less.

Emma 3:14

You are living that rock and roll lifestyle

Sam 3:16

Oh, sorry. How do you spend your weekends, Emma? Clubbing? Yeah.

Emma 3:20

Mostly in the bath.

Sam 3:21

In the bath. Popping a couple of E's

Emma 3:24

if By e do you mean antacids?

Sam 3:29

Yeah.

Emma 3:31

Ah, lovely weekend. Looking forward to a nice long

Sam 3:36

lovely bath. With the radio on

Emma 3:39

or a podcast. Don't look at me like

Sam 3:43

I don't listen to pod. I think they're, a self-indulgent waste of time. I love podcasts.

Emma 3:55

Good.

Sam 3:56

Yeah. Just had to clarify

Emma 3:58

listening to them, making them. Mm-hmm. Everything about'em. Podcasts,

Sam 4:04

Was that the motorcycle shop sketch?

Emma 4:07

it was where I was sort of Yeah.

Sam 4:09

Oh, I love making podcasts. I do. I love recording my thoughts.

Emma 4:14

riding around in my podcast. Yeah.

Sam 4:16

Anyway, this has been the least accessible opening to. Not just an episode of Chat out of Hell, anything well done to the one person who got all of those references, joy, what is this, Emma?

Emma 4:29

Oh, this is our love letter to Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman in podcast form where we slag off their songs.

Sam 4:39

It's a love letter in the same way that you hear those teenage girls arguing on the bus about, no, Barry, you shouldn't have slept with her, but I still love you. It's that isn't

Emma 4:49

it? It's that, but it's also that thing where a boy has a crush on a girl, doesn't know how to express it, so runs up to her and kicks her steps. It's like that. That's exactly what this is. That's what we're doing. We can't express our feelings, so we're just gonna be horrible. It is also a jukebox podcast where we each bring a song to the table by Meat Loaf or Jim Steinman, or a combination of the two, or sometimes neither. Uh,

Sam 5:19

For us to dissect and talk about and discuss whether or not it's any good. And then yeah, on our magical Meat Loaf and or Jim Steinman Song rating scales. So Emma, what song have you brought?

Emma 5:31

I've brought Love Is Not Real from Hang Cool Teddy Bear. What have you got, Sam?

Sam 5:36

I've brought Our Love and Our Souls. We will do that every time. It's from the album Hell in a Hand Basket. We're gonna start with Love is Not Real.

Emma 5:47

Yes. We're gonna have a little listen to that now. There's no video for it this time,, so, just go away and listen to it on whatever you like to listen to music on or I dunno, play it on the the glockenspiel that you found in the back of your cupboard last week.

Sam 6:02

Did you find a glockenspiel in the back of your cupboard?

Emma 6:05

Go away. Have a listen. We'll see you back here very soon. Love is Not Real from 2010's Hang Cool Teddy Bear. Sam, what did you think?

Sam 6:19

Uh,

Emma 6:22

It's quite long, isn't

Sam 6:23

it? is quite long. I'm gonna call this an unsuccessful attempt to replicate the Steinman sound.

Emma 6:29

Yeah, I would agree with you there. There's some interesting bits about it. This is one of the tracks that was written by Eric Nally and Justin Hawkins.

Sam 6:39

Out of Off Of The Darkness

Emma 6:40

Out of Off Of The Darkness. Eric Nally was from Foxy Shazam. Oh and they're the team that wrote California isn't Big Enough, which is fucking brilliant

Sam 6:49

slash fucking awful. I think some of the problem lays at the door of the production rather than the song itself. We don't have to keep dragging it about Meat's vocals aren't the best at this point, but they're also quite badly treated in the mix.

Emma 7:02

Yeah. I mean, his annunciation pretty bad

Sam 7:05

by

Emma 7:05

this stage. And I think because of that, it gets buried a bit in the mix. Yeah. But that doesn't necessarily help the situation

Sam 7:11

Yeah. But the other bit is Justin Hawkins is singing along in the background on some of the bits and he's so far back in the mix

Emma 7:18

Justin Hawkins's rock falsetto is, you know, an amazing thing. Yeah. That should be enjoyed.

Sam 7:23

Exactly.

Emma 7:24

He'd be better taking the lead. Justin and Eric have, as I say, written other silly things. They're part of the writing team along with Rob Cavallo, who also produced Rob is known for producing albums with Green Day. Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, Eric Clapton, the Googo Dolls, the Dave Matthews Band, Kid Rock, Jawbreaker, Alanis Morissette, Black Sabbath, and Phil Collins I think he produced the whole album But also did a bit of writing on this song. Okay. I have got a quote from Meat Loaf regarding the writing.

Sam 8:00

Oh, go on, hit me.

Emma 8:01

This is from an interview with the website the Quietus Uhhuh. And I am about to present another Meat Loaf non-story. Yeah! Also, on this new record, all the songs start talking back to each other. What happened was we had this big group of writers together and at one point we were working on a song called Love Love Is Not Real. Justin Hawkins and Eric Nally started it. Justin then finished it and Rob changed the chorus then I changed stuff. And so it was on that song and Rob's idea on arrangements, which I really liked, start crosstalking." I

Sam 8:38

Is that the end of the

Emma 8:39

I've read that several times and I still don't know what it's about.

Sam 8:42

I think it sounds like he was making some broth and he called in every cook he knew. There is a lot to like in this song. The lyric,"next time you stab me in the back, you better do it to my face." He's gorgeous. That's gorgeous. That's Steinman. Yeah. And there is a multi act structure. We'll, paper over for the minute the weird rap that he does about a third of the way in

Emma 9:04

that's painful to listen to,

Sam 9:05

but they are trying for the Steinman playbook, but it just doesn't work out.

Emma 9:08

I think lyrically this is appalling. There's some things that really scan very badly. The line,"no man I've ever known's come so close". Doesn't go very well when sung.

Sam 9:24

Yes. Agreed. The very opening pair,"there there have many sightings of love in truth. The sceptic in me longs f or to see of love some proof."

Emma 9:32

That is awful.

Sam 9:33

Classic somebody's written into the newspaper with a poem. Yes,

Emma 9:36

Yes,"when you forget what you cannot forgive. The terms are so much easier to come to with,

Sam 9:46

okay,

Emma 9:47

God,

Sam 9:48

some of the problem though, Justin Hawkins can sell those

Emma 9:51

lyrics.

Sam 9:53

Because Justin Hawkins is parading about being very silly anyway.

Emma 9:57

Justin Hawkins, in his jumpsuit, strutting about the stage with his long

Sam 10:02

there have been tro

Emma 10:08

that would be great. But for Meat Loaf it doesn't work. And that's a shame, but it's a shame.

Sam 10:15

It's

Emma 10:16

it's a shame. They threw everything they could possibly get at this. What did you think of the guitar?

Sam 10:22

The biddly biddly guitar. guitar. There is a lot of biddly. I like a bit of biddly guitar Uhhuh. I enjoyed it to an extent, but it felt a bit out of place with the rest. There needed to be something else that wasn't biddly guitar.

Emma 10:34

Do you know who was responsible for the biddly guitar?

Sam 10:36

It wasn't Brian May,

Emma 10:37

it Brian May and Steve Vai. So really throwing stuff at it.

Sam 10:43

Yeah.

Emma 10:43

We've talked about Brian's contributions before. He's been involved in quite a lot, including Meat's version of Bad For Good and also he was involved in a Time for Heroes. Special Olympics theme.

Sam 10:55

Listen, in retrospect, that was a good song.

Emma 10:59

It seems like they were actually pretty good buddies. When Meat Loaf died Brian said he was"always full of madness with the innocent sense of naughtiness of a 5-year-old. Meat was forever young. I called him Mr. Loaf and he called me when he wanted some wacky guitar playing. We had so much fun so many times and just three months younger than me, he felt like a brother" Which is super nice.

Sam 11:27

That is very nice. I've got a lot of time for Brian May.

Emma 11:29

Well, he lends so much to some of the Meat Loaf tracks. His guitar on Meat's version of Bad For Good is super fun. I really like that. I think it adds a lot to song. And then Steve Vai, Playing for Frank Zappa massive success with David Lee Roth with White Snake and as a solo artist. But what I mostly remember about Steve Vai is an ex of mine going on about him a lot. In a way that I found impossible to take on. This has been a thing with my exes. A lot of them have been quite obsessed about certain things and have talked relentlessly about it, and all of that information has sort of slid off of my brain. Other such subjects have included cars, why vinyl is better than CD and anime.

Sam 12:17

I briefly dated a girl who, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, was very into Nick Drake.

Emma 12:23

Oof.

Sam 12:24

I mean, I love Nick Drake now, but I had the same thing of I, need to stop. Please briefly stop talking about Nick Drake.

Emma 12:31

If you like him so much, why don't you date him? It is difficult when a person that you are sort of trying to be into mm-hmm. Has just one track.

Sam 12:39

for you. so difficult. I'm trying to find you attractive. Shut up about engines.

Emma 12:46

So yeah, Brian May and Steve Vai

Sam 12:49

It's good biddly guitar, but it's too hard. It needs something else. It needs keyboard

Emma 12:54

Yeah. It's missing a bit of Jim piano.

Sam 12:57

Do we have anything on the

Emma 12:59

Nobody's really said anything

Sam 13:00

I think they're wise

Emma 13:02

I've got a little bit from a website called Subjective Sounds. Mm-hmm. And they said Love is Not Real, has an enjoyable backbeat and overall rhythm. But it is Brian May and Steve Vai's intermingling guitar solo that makes this song truly memorable.

Sam 13:18

All right.

Emma 13:18

I'm probably gonna forget it quite quickly if I'm honest with you.

Sam 13:23

Oh, I have a question. Yeah. So the whole shtick with this album was as Meat told us, it's about a soldier dying on the battlefield. Yes. Who has flash forwards to different possible futures. So what's this flash forward about, Emma? What's the narrative?

Emma 13:38

I have dug around trying to find something Maybe Meat Loaf would've said something about it since it's his album and he's obsessed with this concept. There is bugger all out there. So here is my interpretation. It's about disillusionment with love and betrayal. Yeah. it's, yeah. That's kind of it really. I can't really see a story

Sam 14:00

Yeah. We thought that about California isn't big enough though, didn't we? And it turned out to be about a drug deal or a,

Emma 14:08

oh,

Sam 14:09

there were cops in it?

Emma 14:10

I'd love to, think that somewhere out there, there is copy written about each of these, you know, maybe Meat Loaf, put together prose about them. It was based on a script written by somebody, wasn't that they met at a poker night and this guy had come with this idea about the soldier dying and instead of having flashbacks of flash forwards to possibilities. But I haven't found anything else about it.

Sam 14:37

Do you remember on Welcome to the Neighbourhood? Yeah. Each song in the liner notes had a beautiful poster that was adapted from an existing movie poster. Yeah. And we don't talk about them very much, but they are all really lovely

Emma 14:50

it's great artwork

Sam 14:51

homages to sort of pulp movies of the fifties and sixties.

Emma 14:55

This could do

Sam 14:56

This could do with that, couldn't it? If you've got this lovely theme that you're thinking about Meat Loaf. Come on

Emma 15:02

I mean, the artwork on the front isn't something I'm particularly keen

Sam 15:06

Shall we talk about the front artwork? I don't think we've covered that at all. We've visited this album a few times, so it's probably right right that we discuss the

Emma 15:13

Yeah. It's sort of attempting to hark back to some of Meat Loaf's more classic... it's like a hybrid of Welcome to the Neighbourhood

Sam 15:24

it's got hints of Bat out of Hell to it.

Emma 15:25

Yeah. It's not the best, there seems to be a woman just floating in midair.

Sam 15:30

She's an angel,

Emma 15:32

yeah, And there's some dead bodies. Another girl in a nightie it's all a bit pulpy.

Sam 15:41

There's a crashed motorbike. There's a kind of a dead man, a skellington, in jeans and there's a lady in a red dress looking up at a different lady in a black dress looking all cool with her sunglasses. In a ruined city. Oh, a ruined LA'cause it's got the Hollywood sign in the

Emma 15:59

back. Yeah. Which would make sense with the California's

Sam 16:03

Yeah, the skeleton's dick does not appear to be sticking out of its pants. Cover Art is Julie Bell. We know Julie Bell. Do we, Julie Bell also did the cover Braver than We Are. She did Bat Three, braver Than we Are. And this.

Emma 16:21

So sort of later end

Sam 16:24

I like the cover that she did for Braver than We Are Yeah. Of Meat and Jim back to the camera facing off against the Four Horsemen. That was quite a nice image for their final album. Yeah. This art here definitely kicks the shit out of the art on Hell in a Hand Basket.

Emma 16:40

Yes.

Sam 16:42

Which is just a picture of the Earth made of skulls. Ooh. Yeah.

Emma 16:47

I've got very little else to say about the song. Okay. The people of the internet have nothing to say. Nothing really talking

Sam 16:56

shall we just rate it

Emma 16:57

I think we probably should.

Sam 16:58

All right. Well, let's enthusiastically rate this. Okay. Let's, our enthusiastic Meat Loaf song rating scale, which starts with Michael Lee Day for his really good songs. Michael Lee Okay, for his alright songs all the way down to Michael Lee No Way for his very bad songs.

Emma 17:18

It's an Okay.

Sam 17:19

Is it okay? Is it an okay? I think it might even be a No Way. I think Well, is it as good as Modern Girl?

Emma 17:25

No.

Sam 17:26

Is it as good as Midnight at the Lost and Found? It's not. Running for the Red Light. No. Heavy as Jesus. These are okays.

Emma 17:33

It's a No Way.

Sam 17:34

I think it is a No Way. We've not done a lot of No Ways. 45 Seconds of Ecstasy's a No Way. Rock and Roll Mercenaries is a No Way

Emma 17:41

Abso fucking,

Sam 17:42

This is a Michael Lee. No

Emma 17:45

No way, No way. mate.

Sam 17:46

way, mate. You can do better than this.

Emma 17:51

So Sam,

Sam 17:52

Hello. Emma, I've brought, let's say it again. Our Love and Our Souls.

Emma 18:01

Every time. Every

Sam 18:02

Every time. Every time we are children. this is a song off the album Hell in a Hand Basket. So the follow up album to Hang Cool Teddy Bear released in 2011. Once again, no video, so just, you know, go find it. Go find it. Yeah, I'm not even gonna tell you where to find it. You know where you can find it.

Soundtrack 18:19

ain't forever and.

Sam 18:27

Grow up. It's a lovely song and you've ruined it by laughing at arseholes.

Emma 18:37

It's the incredibly soulful last bit singing Our Souls.

Sam 18:46

What do you think of it, Emma? It's It's alright. If you can look past I

Emma 18:51

never look past our souls, I've always drawn in by, Sorry. So tell me about

Sam 19:00

Okay, so this is track 10 of 12 tracks on Hell in a Hand Basket. If you can imagine, Emma, this comes just before Stand in the Storm

Emma 19:09

Oh God.

Sam 19:10

And that is emotional whiplash for you,

Emma 19:14

isn't it?

Sam 19:14

Hell in a Hand Basket, not one of our favourite albums or one of anyone's favourite albums. Uncut said"this painful exercise in manufactured soul bearing is a genuinely grim proposition" and gave it five out of 10. Which, I think it's fair on the end product. Uhhuh. But I'm gonna again try and defend this a little bit as we go on. Yeah. So that was Meat singing with Patti Russo Uhhuh, who absolutely carries him throughout this album. As she has done throughout the latter half of his career perhaps. But I think it's most noticeable on the later stuff. That said he picks a suitable range in this song for the state that his voice is in.

Emma 19:51

Well, I was gonna say this is what he should be singing.

Sam 19:56

Yes. We'll come back to that. This song's written by Sean McConnell, who is a country slash folk singer originally from Athol, Massachusetts. And I went to a reservoir near Athol. A few years and a very nice reservoir you have at Athol. Anyway, he moved down to Georgia when he was a kid and he was kind of raised in the folk tradition. Quite a successful singer in his own right. He's also written songs for loads of people. Meat Loaf, Tim McGraw, Martina Buddy Miller, David Nail, Rascal Flatts, Jason Castro, Scotty McCreary, Jimmy Wayne, Phil Sta I've not made any of these names up. It's just that we know nothing about country music. Indeed he's written for lots of people also Plain White Ts

Emma 20:44

Gosh,

Sam 20:44

do you remember Plain White Ts? I remember with, with their song. Hey there, Delilah? Yeah. Yeah. They still exist, do they?

Emma 20:51

Yeah. Wow.

Sam 20:53

Wow. Mm-hmm. Sean is sort of in that Nashville country set. He's one of those interchangeable number of musicians who make quite lovely lo-fi country slash folk music. That's really nice to listen to. But if you try to listen to all of them, you'd go mad. There's thousands of them, Emma, and they're really lovely people to sit and listen to on a sunny day at a festival maybe. But crikey who keeps track of them all?'cause I can't.

Emma 21:20

Somebody does. I'll bet

Sam 21:21

somebody does.

Emma 21:22

got a spreadsheet and

Sam 21:25

Well, this is a song that Sean wrote for himself originally. He previously performed it in 2009. Okay, we're gonna listen to that now. Even in his lovely singing voice it's still funny.

Emma 21:40

Nice,

Sam 21:41

It is nice isn't it?

Emma 21:42

sort of proper, mid-afternoon festival vibes as you say is Yeah. I'm sitting on a grassy

Sam 21:47

Yeah, you got a pint of cider, Somebody's gonna bring you a 15 pound paella in a minute.

Emma 21:55

those are the yeah, I quite like that.

Sam 21:58

It's nice. I've listened around to a little bit of his stuff. It's really lovely. But that's the problem. There's so many lovely country Nashville singers singing lovely country songs that I don't know if I'll buy your album, Sean, Sean is credited on three songs on this album, and I thought that was interesting. And I looked around to see if he'd said anything about working with Meat Loaf and he had provided a revelation. There's one clip on YouTube that is called Sean McConnell talks about Meat Loaf.

Emma 22:28

Oh wow.

Sam 22:29

Everyone's interested to hear about Meat Loaf. I had the opportunity two years ago. He was working on a record that was recently released called Hang Loose Teddy Bear. And in the early stages of that record, he came to town. I met with him, we hit it off. He really liked what he heard, where I was coming from."So he cut a bunch of my songs that I'd already written and he told me stories that he wanted turned into songs for that record. Long story short, the vision changed. None of those songs made it. According to him. A lot of the ideas that I had come up with influenced the record that did come out. And so a couple of weeks ago, I started meeting with him again for his new record, and he handed me a copy of Hang Loose Teddy Bear and opened a thank you page. And inside the very last thank you said something to the effect of thank you to Sean McConnell for the spark of inspiration that made this album possible.' And I was just like, doesn't get any cooler than that... that was cool because he didn't have to do that." Now that's interesting. In two ways. Yeah. Firstly,

Emma 23:22

it's Hang Cool Teddy Bear.

Sam 23:24

Oh, that's what I've been saying, isn't it

Emma 23:27

hang loose,

Sam 23:29

In that case, that's what he said on the interview. I'm fairly certain that's what he said.

Emma 23:33

That's probably what he said. that's just, that made me laugh.

Sam 23:36

But what I enjoy a lot about this is that. He's given Sean a little thank you, nod. Which is lovely. Yeah. But he's not recorded any of his songs and given him any his money, has he?

Emma 23:45

No,

Sam 23:46

No, no, no, No. no. Sean seems like a very lovely man say that Meat Loaf just let him do a load of work for the record and then nah, none of it. I'm gonna go hang out with Brian May." Back to what you were saying earlier about this is what Meat Loaf should have been doing at the time. We've already talked about the cover of California Dreamin' off this record, which I think is also what he should have been doing, but was a bit more of a swing and a miss. Yeah. the other two songs that Sean's written on this One More Day and Blue Sky, similarly have this kind of contentment in later years kind of vibe Yeah. Albeit Meat's vocals are fucking awful on one of them. but it's the stuff that he should have been doing We've criticised him a lot for not doing his Johnny Cash Rick Rubin moment. And I think that's what this is. Right.

Emma 24:33

right?

Sam 24:34

But. Then on the very final album, he decides, you know what, no, let's go back to, let's go back to Jim. Yeah. See he's got in the drawer. So he comes so close to getting it right,

Emma 24:47

but then we said before that perhaps in some weird way, the right thing was to go back to trying to do the former

Sam 24:57

Yeah. But that was in the past No. I, is that what we said? I understand why he

Emma 25:02

we wanted

Sam 25:03

to get the band back together for one last

Emma 25:06

both ways on our feelings about this. Uhhuh and I think we'll continue to do so there.

Sam 25:13

In your face. That's fine. I do have to revise the opinion that, oh, Meat should have gone out and found his Rick Rubin to do so. I think he maybe did and he didn't know what he had. Yeah. When he worked with Sean on Hang Cool. that was his opportunity to take the off ramp into cool, slow down country And then went, no, I'm gonna hang out with Justin Hawkins and Nikki Sixx and the other rock men.

Emma 25:42

This is actually quite nice.

Sam 25:44

Quite nice, isn't it? It's listen to. Yeah.

Emma 25:47

Meat Loaf's voice works okay

Sam 25:50

It suits the material

Emma 25:52

You don't feel like he's straining?

Sam 25:53

It is explicitly a song about being content and having gone through difficult times, but I know what's valuable and that's my family and

Emma 26:02

yeah,

Sam 26:03

yada. Yeah. Yeah. That is of course something that Meat struggles with throughout his career.'cause he always feels like he needs to be at the front of the stage. Hamming it up the

Emma 26:15

the king of everything all the time.

Sam 26:17

From what I thought was a funny song name, it's actually, some of what we've been looking for in late Meat Loaf.

Emma 26:23

Yeah, calmer, easier, contemplative, but it is still very

Sam 26:33

that they say arseholes.

Emma 26:37

I don't want to reach a point in my life where that stops being funny.

Sam 26:41

Apologies to Sean McConnell for giggling at your very sweet song but the problem is that those two words sound like bums to us

Emma 26:49

and there's nothing funnier than that.

Sam 26:51

There's funnier than bums. Emma

Emma 26:53

They're so funny.

Sam 26:56

So yeah, I am glad to have found something that was Meat Loaf doing kind of slowed down more interesting stuff in his later years.

Emma 27:06

Going through some of these later albums is a real slog, so it is good to find

Sam 27:10

Yeah. Hell in a Hand Basket. We've listened to Stand in the Storm. which is drek. And such a mood shift after this

Emma 27:22

a bit of a handbrake turn,

Sam 27:23

Yeah I think it's a real 50 50 of slow contemplative stuff like this, but also, no, I can still rock out with the boys, actually.

Emma 27:30

So I know some of our listeners are quite into some of these later albums. and we've had a few suggestions of songs we should cover, but I would be interested in hearing more suggestions of the things that you think are genuinely good from these albums.'cause we, we are tired and struggling with them.

Sam 27:49

Yeah, please do point us at. I know we've had at least one suggestion the best stuff from Hang Cool and from Hell in a Hand Basket. And from Braver, let us know. Chat out of Hell gmail.com. Do you wanna do a quiz?

Emma 28:02

Yeah. Go on. Let's do a quiz.

Sam 28:04

So Emma we've been talking about a genuine Nashville country songwriter today. What?

Emma 28:13

Come on.

Sam 28:14

Well. I thought it'd be fun to see if you can tell the difference between a genuine American country musician and a bunch of Swedish people with disco lights. So we're gonna play Rednex, or Rednecks is an Unhelpful Stereotype, Actually. We're Normal People.

Emma 28:32

You are so right on.

Sam 28:36

I'm give you some song titles and you're gonna tell me whether they were written by Sean McConnell or by Rednex. Okay. Here's the first one. The West is Never Won.

Emma 28:47

Sean McConnell?

Sam 28:48

That is a Sean McConnell Hitting the Hay

Emma 28:51

Rednex

Sam 28:52

Rednex. Looking for a Good Time.

Emma 28:56

Rednex? Shit,

Sam 29:00

Fresh Pigs and More,

Emma 29:02

please tell me that's the Rednex

Sam 29:07

Another Song about Broken Heart Sean, the Spirit of the Hawk. that's Rednex. And the last one, you're currently four, right, two wrong. So you've definitely won this. But the last one, Football is our Religion.

Emma 29:27

Neither, but I'm gonna say Rednex.

Sam 29:29

It was Rednex. Released for Euro 2008. And despite the amount of overplay that Three Lions gets from England, fans who need to calm down and grow up, at least it isn't this

Soundtrack 29:42

hands

Emma 29:46

can we sack off this podcast? podcast Start like a euro pop podcast.

Sam 29:52

Oh, I'd love a euro.

Emma 29:53

We'd have so much fun

Sam 29:55

you talk about shit lyrics on your song playing football in the streets, making magic with my feet. Wave your flags for the game. Let's score a hat trick for the fame"." All the players are so cool. Get on the field and play wonderful"

Emma 30:15

Wonderful.

Sam 30:17

Now, to be fair, that did work in their accents. Wave your hands. Wave your hands. Football is our religion. Here We stand. Here, we stand. Football is alive."

Emma 30:27

It's deep, isn't it?

Sam 30:28

What I love hate the most about it is Three Lions is so eminently

Emma 30:35

Yeah.

Sam 30:35

Yeah. Like there's no wonder they still love singing it.

Emma 30:38

Yeah. it's a

Sam 30:39

very singing. But can you hear 50,000 fans in a stadium going, the rhythm is way off.

Emma 30:51

It doesn't work.

Sam 30:52

It Anyway, that was that was that. You won that one. Woo. So, three, two to you going into the final furlong. Well, excited. It's your game to throw away, Emma, which I think is a football thing that I said wrong. know. Yeah. Hospital Pass. That's a phrase I've heard. Still not sure what it Would you like to hear what the people of the internet think?

Emma 31:14

go on that.

Sam 31:15

There's only one.

Emma 31:16

Okay.

Sam 31:17

At Ricky Ross. 9 0 7. everybody listen up. Sean McConnell wrote this song and for some reason let these idiots cover it." Oh, I know."Listen to his version, the original, and here it played the correct way. His music is all amazing."

Emma 31:33

There's room for all

Sam 31:34

There is room for all of us. I do think there was a bit of a barny on the comment section of the Meat Loaf version that has since been deleted. Right. There's a lot of comments of people telling someone to shut up, but I can't find the person who was being told to shut up.

Emma 31:50

Oh, I like it when that happens.

Sam 31:51

"How is this a pop country album? It's a hard rock album with country influence. The album is Meat Loaf's most personal album of all time. I don't understand why you hate the change." Not in reply to anyone. Just there. Yeah.

Emma 32:04

So there's somebody that they're all

Sam 32:06

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Shall we rate it Emma?

Emma 32:08

we should

Sam 32:09

We should probably rate it, we should probably rate it on our Meat Loaf song rating scale. So is it. Michael Lee Aday. Is it Michael Lee Okay. Is it Michael Lee No Way?

Emma 32:19

What do you think on this

Sam 32:20

It's veering into the Adays

Emma 32:22

Yeah. What have we got in the Adays so

Sam 32:25

far? in the a days in the Aade. Martha. Well, I said Martha was, but you said it was merely Okay. Yeah, I'd Lie for You and That's the Truth. Couldn't Have Said it Better. So Adays tend California isn't Big Enough

Emma 32:37

standing by that.

Sam 32:38

Adays tend to be good replications of the Steinman sound, but there is also room, I think, for him singing a song that somebody of his vocal range and experience should be singing. I think this is absolutely that.

Emma 32:54

I think, we can put it in

Sam 32:55

we're gonna call this a Michael Lee Aday

Emma 32:57

Woo-hoo

Sam 32:58

Ding ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Emma 33:01

Oh, it's nice to end on a good one. one. It's good for our souls.

Sam 33:06

and if you have opinions about our souls or anything else, you can let us know. Chat out of hell@gmail.com. You could let us know what you thought about these songs or what you think about our songs next time. And next time is the final episode of the series. Oh. Normally we do the sad noise for that rather than the slightly excited noise.

Emma 33:26

Sorry. Lemme try that again.

Sam 33:27

Next time is the final episode of the series, Emma. Oh. Oh. But we will close off as we always do with songs that have been requested by listeners. So Emma, what are you gonna uh,

Emma 33:36

I'm gonna bring Like a Rose from Hang Cool Teddy Bear, as requested by Stephanie.

Sam 33:41

And I'm gonna be bringing Meat Loaf's collab with Pavarotti. They called it a collab Torna a Sorento, and that was suggested by Jay. So I'm looking forward to that. I vaguely remember it happening, but can't remember any details. I.

Emma 33:54

do not recall this at all.

Sam 33:56

And meanwhile, Stephanie's recommendation of Like a Rose comes caveated that it's Stephanie's least favourite Meat Loaf song'cause of all the misogyny. So

Emma 34:04

I feel like I'm in comfortable territory

Sam 34:06

fun with that one pal. But if you've got opinions on those, let us know. Chat out of hell@gmail.com. Or if you wanna recommend other Meat Loaf slash Steinman songs for us to cover, you can email us on that too. I did the voice all weird there. Obviously give us five stars on your podcast listening app of choice. Recommend us to your friends and family on a lovely spring walk. It's spring, isn't it? There's daffodils out. Yay. Oh, everybody feels slightly happier.

Emma 34:32

Ah, daylight.

Sam 34:33

Daylight. Yes. It's a better time to recommend Chat out of Hell to people.'cause if you do in darkness, that's scary.

Emma 34:39

But now Yes.

Sam 34:41

Keep your Meat Loaf thoughts and anecdotes flying in. Did you see Meat Loaf on ITV's Flock Stars 2015, the celebrity sheep herding show alongside Tony Blackburn and Faser from N-Dubz. It was hosted by Gabby Roslyn

Emma 34:54

Amazing.

Sam 34:55

Who later identified it as the biggest disappointment she'd ever been involved in, but not for the reason you think. She says"in the edit it just didn't feel like the show we'd made. It was only half an hour long and we didn't really get the rich content that we felt we had filmed." Wow, Yeah. Rich content. the rich content.

Emma 35:13

Amazing

Sam 35:13

Celebrity Sheep Herding. Let us know. Chat out of hell@gmail.com. Obviously keep eating Heck's sausages. They've not sponsored us yet, but one day they will hashtag.

Emma 35:25

the chicken ones are really nice.

Sam 35:26

Any other business Emma, nor from me. So we'll see you again in two more weeks time for the final in this series of Chat out of Hell.

Emma 35:35

Bye

Sam 35:36

Bye Bow

Emma 35:40

Ding.