The sirens are screaming and the fires are howling way down in the valley tonight

Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts.

01/04/79 : Bat Out Of Hell - Meat Loaf

I was quite surprised we didn't get to meet this on Rolling Stone's list - I can only assume they're sniffy about it for some reason (they can be pretty fucking sniffy when they put their mind to it). It also seems surprising we haven't met in on of the other years because it's spent 530 weeks in the chart since it was released in '78 - but it's only spent five of those weeks in the top ten, peaking at #3 in the week after his death in '22. So it's actually quite lucky that we get to meet it at all, but I'm very glad we did - it's also the second album of the year that I own (and I properly bought this one!).

And yes, I know it's all super cheesy and massively overblown, but I really like this, so we're going to go into quite some detail here. The album opens with the title track, which manages to have surprisingly little content considering it's 9:48 long - but it also somehow manages to get away with it (and I've no idea how). And if that's not understated enough, next up we have the marvellous spoken intro to "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)" which I always forget about until Meat Loaf starts "On a hot summer night..." ending with the unexpected "I bet you say that to all the boys" - and the song's not bad at all either. I'm also a particular fan of "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad" - apparently the phrase did exist beforehand, but it's used a helluva lot more since the album came out.

But, these (and the other) fine songs all pale into insignificance for me compared to the magnificence of "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" which is a mini-album all by itself! It breaks down into four separate parts and they're all completely different but link together really well. Part 1 ("Paradise") gives us the backstory - Meat Loaf is remembering his time parked up with his lady when he was definitely under the impression he was going to get lucky ("ain't no doubt it we were doubly blessed - we were barely seventeen and we were barely dressed"). Which segues into Part 2 ("Baseball Broadcast") where the New York Yankees announcer commentates on our hero's attempts to get "round the bases", giving the impression he's going to be successful ("Holy cow, I think he's gonna make it!"). But, just as he's about to get to fourth base...

"STOP RIGHT THERE! I gotta know right now, before we go any further - do you love me?"

Women, eh?!? Part 3 ("Let Me Sleep On It") has the lady looking for some commitment before she gives away the goods - he's not so keen, but she's not having any of that nonsense and we have quite the verbal tennis match ("Let me sleep on it" "Will you love me forever?") with neither side looking like backing down. Until he snaps - "I couldn't take it any longer - Lord I was crazed...I started swearing to my god and on my mother's grave that I would love you to the end of time". And then Part 4 ("Praying For The End Of Time") opens with the kicker that things haven't necessarily worked out so well - "So now I'm praying for the end of time to hurry up and arrive - 'cause if I gotta spend another minute with you, I don't think that I can really survive". He's not going to "break my promise or forget my vow", but it's fair to say he has regrets - "it was long ago and it was far away, but it was so much better than it is today".

Across the 8:28 (you'd never guess this was shorter than the title track) there's a whole story with several twists and a bucketload of musical variety - it's just a really well composed track. It's also really well sung by both Meat Loaf and Ellen Foley - there's a whole load of emotions thrown in there. Wikipedia tells us that Ellen's part was recorded in one take, which is extremely impressive. They also made a video and it featured heavily in MTV's early years - the length of the song gave the presenters a bit more of a break! And with that, I'm finished with this track - writing about three times as much as I normally do for an album!

We're at #14 in the charts this week on his 14th week of a 204 week run (nearly FOUR YEARS!) - this was its fifth run out of FIFTY-THREE over the years, with it last being seen in '22 after his death. The top five this week were the Barbra Streisand best-of, Chic, best-ofs from Leo Sayer and Barry Manilow and Bee Gees, with the highest new entry being Graham Parker & The Rumour (#18) - apparently he's still going these days.

Wikipedia has less than expected on the album (234 milliPeppers) - it was his debut and it did OK (I guess) but they had real struggles selling the concept to record labels. I'm not sure I ever knew that Todd Rundgren was so involved - there are also a couple of E Street band members on there as well. Critically, the iniitial reviews were mixed (Robert Christgau was not a fan) but everyone agrees it's great now, obviously. Commercially, it's sold over 43 million copies including 14 million in the US, but interestingly it's never got any higher than #13 in the charts over there.

discogs.com tells us there must be a few copies out there because you can pick up a copy for £1.50 but you can shell out £399 for a version which the seller claims is really rare, but I've got absolutely no idea what makes it rare. However rare your version is (you've got one, right?) I think this is a fine album - yes, it's massively over the top but it's perfectly happy with that.

25/03/79 - Well done, but not for me
08/04/79 - Impressive, if not loveable