Jim Steinman

We didn’t know each other, we were each other

(Meat Loaf)

Every time you think to yourself ‘Do we really want to go this far’, and you say to Jim ‘Are you sure about this?’ and anybody else will go ‘Don’t do it!’, Jim goes ‘More! More! More people singing!’ It works!

(Andrew Eldritch, Sisters Of Mercy)

Melodramatic, grandiose, wildly brilliant, James Richard Steinman was one of rock's great visionaries. Over a fifty-year career studded with high-profile collaborations and all manner of projects, the composer born in Hewlett Harbor (New York) in 1947 and who passed away in 2021 managed to stamp popular music with his bold, classicizing colors, earning himself the title - as emphatic as it is simplistic - of "the Wagner of rock". Composer, lyricist, producer, arranger, pianist and, when needed, singer, Jim Steinman was also a monument to musical versatility, ranging from classical to rock, from AOR to pop, from musicals to film soundtracks (his work for Walter Hill's "Streets Of Fire" is unforgettable). As Rob Sheffield writes in Rolling Stone, "his idea of the perfect song involved sparks and explosions, the kind anyone could belt out at the top of their lungs". But - one might add - always with that touch of sophistication and self-deprecating wit that kept him at a distance from easy populist temptations.

In this playlist, we'll try to trace his triumphant musical saga through thirty tracks, an expression of his unbridled talent that, while finding its natural vehicle in equally "grandiose" performers such as Meat Loaf and Bonnie Tyler, also managed to blend with seemingly far-removed styles, as in the case of the spectral Sisters Of Mercy of "Floodland", soft singers like Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion and Barry Manilow, and even a boy band like Boyzone (!).

Here are the thirty tracks we've chosen to represent his long and disorienting musical trajectory: those with overly delicate palates and hardline devotees of sonic minimalism should steer clear.

Yvonne Elliman – Happy Ending

I’ll never be Maria Magdalena? Oh but no, Yvonne Elliman really was, and among the most convincing performers of that role. To be precise, in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical "Jesus Christ Superstar", showing off her remarkable vocal gifts especially on the aching ballad "I Don’t Know How To Love Him". Before being honored by the Bee Gees with a shimmering "If I Can’t Have You" for the soundtrack of "Saturday Night Fever", the sweet-voiced singer born in Honolulu was given this delicate acoustic ballad by a young Steinman, which, back in 1973, gave no hint whatsoever of the future sonic grandiosity that would define the New York composer.

Meat Loaf – Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad

Meat Loaf – More Than You Deserve

As is only inevitable, a sizeable chunk of the playlist is devoted to his partnership with Meat Loaf, the delinquent ex-biker of the cult movie "Rocky Horror Picture Show". We start with a double shot from "Bat Out Of Hell" (1977), the debut LP by the burly singer from Dallas, Texas, born Marvin Lee Aday, and also the first chapter of a collaboration that, though often far from idyllic, would last a lifetime. Written by Jim Steinman and produced by Todd Rundgren, the song draws on "Neverland", the musical the American composer wrote for a 1977 show at the Kennedy Center, an eccentric reworking of the Peter Pan fairy tale. The thunderous power ballad "Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad" – the album's only hit at the time – opens Side B, recounting the breakup of two relationships with a sound that, according to Rundgren, owes something to the influence of the Eagles. "Paradise By The Dashboard Light", meanwhile, is an epic tale of teenage love and sex built entirely around a duet between Meat Loaf and Ellen Foley (one of Steinman's vocal muses), in which the couple recall their car ride to a secluded spot to consummate their encounter. Fun fact: partway through the track, the voice of Phil Rizzuto, New York Yankees commentator, pops up to describe the situation via a baseball metaphor (!). Things won't end well between the two lovers, though, judging by the closing lines: "If I got to spend another minute with you, I don’t think that I can really survive".

Initially dismissed by critics as "contrived", "operatic" and "ridiculous", "Bat Out Of Hell" would enjoy a gradual critical reassessment and a staggering commercial afterlife, going on to sell around 34 million copies worldwide. But even back then, some were willing to credit the daring Steinman as "a composer without equal, simply because no one had ever done anything so epic". Indeed, try naming anyone else whose chief inspirations were, all at once, Richard Wagner, Phil Spector and Bruce Springsteen! Though when it came to the Boss's role in his music, Steinman felt the need to clarify: "We're influenced by Springsteen, but our songs don't deal with the road the way his do. They're more a combination of West Side Story and A Clockwork Orange" (!).

Another round, another musical. Written by Jim Steinman with Michael Weller, produced by Joseph Papp and directed by Kim Friedman, "More Than You Deserve" premiered at the Newman Theatre on November 21, 1973, running for 63 performances. Once he'd overcome his vocal troubles, Meat Loaf, who had been one of that musical's stars, dusted off its powerhouse title track for his second album, "Dead Ringer" (1981), in a version slightly different from the one performed onstage at the time. Despite five further new songs written for him by Steinman, however, the inimitable Meat Loaf wouldn't repeat the success of his debut LP.

Jim Steinman – Rock And Roll Dreams Come True

A prophetic title for Steinman gone solo. After securing the credit "Songs by Jim Steinman" on "Bat Out Of Hell", "the Dr. Frankenstein who created the Meat Loaf character" – as he ironically called himself – temporarily lost his creature, who was grappling with vocal issues (among other problems). So he decided to release, under his own name – the first and only time in his career – an album, "Bad For Good", initially conceived as the follow-up to "Bat Out Of Hell" (to be titled "Renegade Angel"). Eight tracks, among which this passionate ode to rock, sung by the little-known Canadian Rory Dodd, stands out, destined to become a Steinman-esque icon (yes, he's the one singing the line "turn around, bright eyes" in "Total Eclipse Of The Heart"!). Here, though, he's grappling with rather tragicomic lines like "You’re never alone, ‘cause you can put on the ‘phones and let the drummer tell your heart what to do". Still, the track is a solid missile that would climb all the way to No. 32 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse Of The Heart

And here she is, Mr. Steinman's other great muse: Gaynor Hopkins, aka Bonnie Tyler, the tigress of Wales, ready to tear into the most overblown arrangements her American friend composed for her. Almost a female alter ego of Meat Loaf, not least for the vocal power and majestic timbre of her performances. Blessed with a fierce, raspy, scratchy voice (partly the result of vocal cord surgery), Bonnie makes her way through a few modest hits and plenty of hard slog, until she delivers "It's A Heartache", a rousing soft-rock number that earns her flattering comparisons to Rod Stewart and, above all, third place on the US charts. But after that worldwide hit, her star seems once again to fade (oops!) until the fateful meeting with the man who will guarantee her everlasting fame and golden royalties for all eternity: our man. Jim Steinman produces her entire LP "Faster Than The Speed Of Night" (1983), writing her two songs. The first is the one of a lifetime: "Total Eclipse Of The Heart". Steinman had originally conceived it for Meat Loaf (and one of its passages already appears, in instrumental form, in the soundtrack of the 1980 film "A Small Circle Of Friends"), but a trivial dispute over rights and payment would make Bonnie's fortune: she would be the one to land it and turn it into a worldwide hit, as well as an eternal karaoke anthem in every corner of the globe. Excessive, melodramatic, perfect for belting out at the top of your lungs with its shifting key changes, "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" is the power ballad par excellence with which the Steinman-Tyler duo broke the sound barrier – and the charts: number 1 on both sides of the Atlantic, 5 million copies sold. And to think that at first radio stations refused to play it because it was too long and too complex...

More upbeat and rock-leaning, the title track "Faster Than The Speed Of Night" is, from the title alone, another 100% Steinmanesque song, with its tempo changes, its accelerations and its unmistakable pomposity, expertly handled by the steel-clad vocal cords of blonde Bonnie.

Air Supply – Making Love Out Of Nothing At All

Among the great beneficiaries of Steinman's pen were also them, the Australian champions of yacht rock. Always soft, but with an unusual rock edge for the duo's habits – Steinman wanted it played by two members of Springsteen's E-Street Band (Roy Bittan on keyboards and Max Weinberg on drums) as well as guitarist Rick Derringer (McCoys, Johnny Winter) – "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All" would send Air Supply to number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, ironically right below "Total Eclipse Of The Heart", thus sealing a historic Steinmanesque one-two at the top of the US chart.

Barry Manilow – Read ‘Em And Weep

Who knows if Steinman took a kind of sadistic pleasure in watching the softest singers put to the test by his acrobatic, thunderous scores. The fact remains that even good old Barry, the permed crooner who used to croon glossy (but undeniably pleasant) ballads like "Copacabana" and "Mandy", the idol of the smoothest, most reassuring FM radio stations (remember Rome's Tele Radio Stereo?), decided to try his hand at the fearsome operatic climbs and Spectorian walls of sound favored by Jim. His "Read 'Em And Weep" starts slow and builds into a typical Steinman crescendo, complete with choirs (bordering on kitsch) and an orchestral triumph. Another guaranteed hit (No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100), with Meat Loaf left kicking himself: he had, in fact, been the first to record it, albeit in a slightly different version, on his unlucky second album "Dead Ringer" (1981), but back then nobody paid it any attention.

Barbra Streisand – Left In The Dark

Even the Iron Lady of New York let herself be seduced by Steinman's magical world. Even if only once. In 1984, in fact, Barbra Streisand chose to reinterpret this exercise in "Wagnerian rock" taken from Steinman's only solo album "Bad For Good", as the lead single for her album "Emotion". With a percussive synth intro lifted from another song produced by the New York genius ("All Night Long" by Billy Squier) and a smooth power ballad delivery, in which Barbra's impassioned voice narrates the trials of a woman who discovers her partner has betrayed her. Understated, but the trademark is there, and you can hear it: if nothing else, in the melodic line and the unmistakable backing choirs.

Bonnie Tyler – Holding Out For A Hero

Film soundtrack work also plays an important role in Steinman's career. Once again the beneficiary is his favorite, Bonnie Tyler, who would place this blazing pop-rock anthem – propped up by hammering synth pulses, swirling piano flourishes, epic choirs and relentless drum rolls – among the cult sequences of Herbert Ross's musical comedy "Footloose" (1984). And Bonnie, naturally, doesn't disappoint, delivering another one of her full-throated performances, which she would revisit in the version included on her 1986 LP "Secret Dreams And Forbidden Fire".

Fire Inc. – Nowhere Fast

The absolute peak of Steinman's work for cinema, however, is the double whammy he cooked up for Walter Hill's “Streets Of Fire”, the director behind “The Warriors”, “Southern Comfort” and plenty of other films from that era. A pulpy urban rock'n'roll comic strip caught between the 1950s (neon signs, motorcycles, leather jackets) and the 1980s (a love story suspended between violence and romance, glossy visuals, music-video editing). The star is the gorgeous Diane Lane, Francis Ford Coppola's protégée, playing rock singer Ellen Aim. And in the film it's Ellen Aim and the Attackers who perform these two torrential, thoroughly Steinmanesque tracks, both credited to Fire Inc., the phantom group assembled by producer Jimmy Iovine, with Laurie Sargent and Holly Sherwood's voices forging that of the film's heroine.

“Nowhere Fast” is the song Ellen Aim sings just before being dramatically snatched off the stage by a gang of bikers: a syncopated rock-opera pièce, driven by piano and a mocking chorus, in its author's typical style: “You and me we’re going nowhere slowly/ And we’ve got to get away from the past/ There’s nothing wrong with going nowhere, baby/ But we should be going nowhere fast”. In short, if you really have nowhere to go, better get there fast… Old Meat Loaf couldn't resist this adrenaline-fuelled rock'n'roll number either, covering it on his own “Bad Attitude” (1984).

But the true masterpiece of “Streets Of Fire” is the closing theme “Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young”, one of the songs Steinman was proudest of, even though he wrote it in just two days (but that's how you spot genius). A simply magnificent piece, built like a kind of rock suite: a solemn piano-and-voice intro, an epic melody, a violent drum entrance and a breathtaking crescendo worthy of “Total Eclipse Of The Heart”, in a thunderous blaze of guitars, choirs and interwoven vocals, with Laurie Sargent and Holly Sherwood doing the dirty work backstage and Diane Lane making everyone fall in love with her onstage. With special thanks to Bruce Springsteen, who refused to grant the film his own “Streets Of Fire”, prompting Steinman to try to match him (and outdo him) with this very “Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young”.

Bonnie Tyler – Ravishing

But while Fire Inc. were fictitious, Bonnie Tyler is as real as it gets: she grabs her microphone and doesn't miss the chance to perform three more songs written for her by her American mentor, on her sixth LP “Secret Dreams And Forbidden Fire” (1986). Bonnie's bluesy roar reinvigorates the baroque pomp of opener “Ravishing”, with the usual rhythmic piano, triumphant melodies, sharp guitars and dutiful choirs. For “Loving You's A Dirty Job But Somebody's Gotta Do It”, an old crony of Jim's, Todd Rundgren, returns for a duet with Tyler built around another of his magnificent melodic progressions, forever dancing dangerously on the line between cheesiness and creativity (but once again, it's the excess itself that redeems it).

Finally, closing the trilogy in style, come the more than eight minutes of the aching “Rebel Without A Clue”, where the ghost of Ellen Aim stirs in the measured piano intro before Bonnie takes over the whole scene, sending her voice soaring along treacherous melodic paths, at the centre of yet another epic scenario of drum rolls, choirs and wild guitar and piano solos. You know the “Less is more” philosophy? Well, this is the exact opposite. As David Hiltbrand wrote in People, “Tyler sings only in capital letters, and Steinman produces only at a full gallop”. Take it or leave it. And we take it without hesitation (though maybe not the rest of the album, which is rather hard to swallow).

Sisters Of Mercy – This Corrosion

And here's one of his most disorienting collaborations, capable of shaking even the harshest critics of Steinman-esque pomposity. What could be further from that universe than a post-punk band? Perhaps quite a few other things, actually, considering that within that melting pot there were also artists who knew how to flirt skilfully with epic grandeur and melodrama. Like Andrew Eldritch and his Sisters Of Mercy, dark icons who, for their second LP, invited “the Wagner of rock” to produce two tracks. “I called Steinman and explained that we wanted a record that sounded like a party thrown by the Borgias. And he conjured it up,” Eldritch would recall. Hence the guaranteed pomposity of the nearly 11 sprawling minutes of “This Corrosion” – “it's genuinely ridiculous, but it's meant to be,” Eldritch would explain – with a 40-strong choir sealing the climax of this unsettling electronic sound, driven by icy synths and carried to glory by the corrosive vocals of the singer and goth girl Patricia Morrison, in a grandiose repudiation of the bare-bones punk austerity from which the English band had originally sprung. Then there's the other gothic apotheosis of “Dominion/Mother Russia”, again featuring the New York Choral Society on vocals, where the electronics turn even darker and more synthetic, yet still pervaded by an underlying feral violence, with an insistent pulse marked out by the drumming and bass underpinning the magnetic guitars and the contrast between Eldritch's deep voice and Morrison's softer one; the two halves of the medley alternate perfectly: the first more explosive, the second slower and more syncopated.

Sisters Of Mercy would bring Steinman back on board for their following album “Vision Thing” (1990), tasking him with writing and producing another tour de force like “More,” which fuses Eldritch's sinister baritone with muscular metallic guitars and menacing choirs into an energetic camp anthem to the pleasures of excess that fades out amid piano chimes and scattered violins. “He really knows how to make a wonderfully ridiculous and utterly outrageous record,” Eldritch would say of Steinman – “Every time you ask yourself 'do we really want to go that far?', and you say to Jim, 'are you sure about this?' – and everyone else tells you not to – Jim instead tells you, 'More! More! More people singing!' And it works.”

Pandora’s Box – Original Sin (The Natives Are Restless Tonight)

Some consider it – with good reason – his true masterpiece. Reckless, titanic, Broadway-sized. A “cursed” concept album on the theme of sin, doomed by its very nature to commercial failure. “Original Sin” (1989), credited to the shadowy Pandora’s Box, is the album that pushes Steinman's baroque, symphonic sensibility to its furthest extreme, surrounded for the occasion by an orchestra made up of a squadron of female singers (Elaine Caswell, Ellen Foley, Gina Taylor plus the mythical – and probably nonexistent – Deliria Wilde, with special performances from Holly Sherwood and Laura Theodore) and the usual wall of electronic keyboards (arranged by Jeff Bova), plus Roy Bittan on grand piano, Jim Bralower on drums, Eddie Martinez on electric guitar and Steve Buslowe on bass. A spectacular ensemble that immediately reaches its apotheosis on the stirring opening title track: six and a half minutes of triumphant orchestral ecstasy, all built on the counterpoint between dazzling female voices – solo and choral – belting out the sumptuous main melody, and the frenzied rhythmic drive of keyboards, piano and percussion, in a breathtaking gallop that swings between rock opera, gospel and Broadway musical. Steinman paints an imaginary soundtrack for a humanity desperately suspended between damnation and redemption, set against the tragically topical scourges of drugs and AIDS in the background.

Gina Taylor's overflowing soprano, on the other hand, soars unrivalled over the other melodrama of “Safe Sex”, belting out at the top of her lungs the slogan-like refrain “And there's no such thing as safe sex when it comes to loving you” over a jubilant swirl of keyboards, guitars and towering choirs that dies away into an enchanted music-box finale. Closer to Bonnie Tyler's raspy, bluesy register, meanwhile, is the performance of the other tigress, Holly Sherwood (could she be Deliria?), whose wild timbre carries to glory the track that comes closest to a classic rock'n'roll song format, “Good Girls Go To Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere)”: a hammering invective that hides – right from the title – a delicious streak of sarcasm. A trio of songs representing a monumental, wildly ambitious LP, poised between Beethoven and Broadway, that deserves careful, in-depth listening. It may have been a commercial near-flop – as mentioned – but many of its songs would go on to become platinum records in the hands of other artists, confirming its impeccable quality.

Céline Dion – It’s All Coming Back To Me Now

Speaking of Pandora’s Box tracks that became worldwide hits. The most striking case is precisely “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now”, which, in Elaine Caswell's fierce rendition on “Original Sin”, went unnoticed, but in Céline Dion's inevitably glossier version would climb the charts, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks. As the story goes, poor Elaine (known as Joe Jackson's duet partner on “Happy Ending”) was left stunned, barely holding back tears. Good for Steinman, in any case, who saw the failures of his project compensated – and not only morally – by this song, inspired by Emily Brontë's “Wuthering Heights”, in which he tried to write “the most passionate and romantic song” he could ever create. This track, too, would become the site of a clash with the usual Meat Loaf, who had been eager to record it for years. Steinman, however, was immovable: he saw it as a “woman's song” and even went so far as to pursue legal action to stop his longtime collaborator from recording it (though Meat Loaf wouldn't give up, and would finally manage to release it as a duet with Marion Raven on “Bat III” and as a single in 2006).

It may not be the New York composer's masterpiece, but for Andrew Lloyd Webber it is “the greatest love song ever written”.

Boyzone – No Matter What

Among Steinman's excesses, as we mentioned, was also the extreme diversity of his collaborations, which could see him move from the Sisters of Mercy to a boy band within the space of a few years. The notorious Boyzone also took advantage of this, Irish emulators of Take That, who dug up "No Matter What", written by Steinman with Andrew Lloyd Webber for the 1996 musical "Whistle Down The Wind". The Dublin boy band's 1998 cover topped the UK charts, making them the first act ever to have twelve consecutive singles in the UK top 5, and launching them to success in the United States for the first time. A saccharine pop number that we've included here mostly for the record, and one that hardly seems to carry any Steinmanesque stigmata. Nonetheless, even this one wouldn't escape the ever-voracious Meat Loaf, who would reinterpret it in his own way on the compilation "The Very Best Of Meat Loaf".

Meat Loaf – I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)

Right, but what was the old friend-rival of rock's Wagner up to in the meantime? Not much, really. Meat Loaf's career, launched with the operatic rock American Graffiti of "Bat Out Of Hell" (1977), nearly ended prematurely amid excess, drugs and vocal collapse. On top of that, poor management of his finances, combined with a staggering 45 lawsuits — including those brought by Steinman — that burned through a total of $80 million, led him to file for personal bankruptcy in 1983. His slow comeback would happen mainly in the UK, always assisted — more or less willingly — by the helping hand of Steinman, in an extremely strange relationship built on mutual love and resentment (legend has it that the singer once even threw a grand piano at his mentor!). Between Grammys, bestsellers, tours and thunderous falls, good old Meatball would nonetheless remain an icon of operatic rock. To close this chapter dedicated to him, we've chosen three classically Steinmanesque songs performed during the second part of his career.

The first is one of the Texan singer's biggest hits, "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)", tailor-made for him by Steinman and released as the lead single from the album "Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell" in 1993. An ironic title for a triumphant, nearly 12-minute rock opera, in which a passionate ode to love is fused with a sharp streak of sarcasm. At the time, Meat Loaf wasn't doing too well, and his friendship with Steinman itself was fraying: but that Christmas Day in 1989, spent playing music together, helped the two smooth over their differences and lay the groundwork for a comeback, achieved above all through this sprawling, evocative track, in which the singer lists all the reasons he'd be the perfect partner. It wouldn't win over the unyielding critics at New Musical Express, however, who would slap him with the "NME Award for Worst Single".

Five years later, Meat Loaf tries again with "A Kiss Is A Terrible Thing To Waste", a song with a troubled gestation and a (noble) double credit: Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman. It in fact dates back to another musical, "Whistle Down The Wind", staged in Washington, D.C. in 1996 by the author of "Jesus Christ Superstar", with lyrics written by the New York composer. Good old Marvin dusted it off in 1998 as a single, delivering yet another one of his lush, forceful performances.

Closing out the trio is "The Future Ain't What It Used To Be", another Steinmanesque "whopper" dating back to the Pandora's Box days. Meat Loaf re-recorded it as a duet with Norwegian singer Jennifer Hudson on the third chapter of the bat saga, "Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose" (2006), which would however cost the two friends yet another painful legal dispute, with Steinman — considering himself the owner of the "Bat Out Of Hell" trademark — attempting (in vain) to prevent its use on the album.

But not even this falling-out would manage to crack a lifelong friendship: when Steinman died on April 19, 2021, a grief-stricken Meat Loaf remembered him this way: "I owe him everything. We weren't just friends, we were there for each other." Just a year later, on January 20, 2022, good old Marvin would also leave us. And now we like to picture the two of them together, on a little heavenly cloud, belting out operatic devilry and deafening power ballads to annoy the (few) critics granted entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Original German Cast of Tanz der Vampire – Wenn Liebe in dir Ist

The gothic streak that emerged in the collaboration with the Sisters of Mercy wasn't actually all that surprising for Steinman, who found ways to revisit it several times throughout his career. Starting with this gloomy musical written by Michael Kunze and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the 1967 film "Dance of the Vampires", also directed by Polanski himself and written by Gérard Brach. Steinman composed the music, largely reworking it from his own earlier compositions and having it arranged by Steve Margoshes. So, for instance, the adaptation of "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" serves as a recurring theme under the title "Totale Finsternis" (with new lyrics by Michael Kunze): "I'd actually conceived it as a vampire love song," Steinman would explain, "in fact its original title was Vampires of Love, it was meant to end up in a musical about Nosferatu — you can tell from the lyrics: it's about the power of darkness and the place love finds within it." The triumphant finale of "Der Tanz der Vampire", meanwhile, revisits the glorious surge of "Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young". We, however, have chosen two semi-obscure gems: the melodious "Wenn Liebe in dir Ist" actually draws on an early Bowie song, "Little Bombardier" (1967); the more menacing "Ewigkeit" — with its choir, marching pace and unsettling cabaret atmosphere — instead has its roots in another Steinman musical, "Neverland", and it too would be swallowed up by the insatiable Meat Loaf in "Great Boleros Of Fire (Live Intro)" on the album "Bat Out Of Hell – 25th Anniversary Edition".

VARIOUS ARTISTS – Bat Out Of Hell (The Musical)

We end where it all began, with "Bat Out Of Hell", this time in musical form: a fitting way to close the circle on this triumphant, 30-song Steinmanesque march. The miniature rock opera (so to speak — it runs nearly ten minutes) of the title track has been echoing through theaters since 2016, with a varied cast belting out the album's emphatic anthem, the record that carried the troubled partnership of Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf to glory. Also back on stage in 2023, at London's Peacock Theatre, the musical "Bat Out Of Hell" tells the story of two young lovers from rival gangs in a post-apocalyptic world. And what could be more intimately Steinmanesque than a story like that, seasoned with his rock 'n' roll symphonies?

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