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Home » RIP Marvin Lee Aday (aka Meat Loaf)

RIP Marvin Lee Aday (aka Meat Loaf)

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s another death of a celebrity in the arts, the actor and singer who adopted the memorable moniker Meat Loaf. He was 74 and no cause of death was given, and although COVID is rumored, I don’t know whether or not that was the case.

Meat Loaf was the interpreter par excellence of the songs of Jim Steinman, who died last spring. Meat Loaf was known for his role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and one of his most famous and dramatic songs was Steinman’s small opera of teenage desire and adult disillusionment, known as “Paradise By the Dashboard Light.” The latter is one of those songs that reactors on YouTube love to feature, and it still amuses and rather shocks them to this day. Meat Loaf went all out; I don’t think he was ever afraid of looking ridiculous.

I never paid much attention to his music at the time, although I remember liking “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.” But he was enormously popular and had a huge following, mainly with the cohort that grew up in the 70s and 80s, the period of his greatest popularity. He didn’t look like the quintessential rock star; most of his life he was overweight, although from photos it appears to me that he slimmed down somewhat when he was middle-aged and beyond. His nickname is reported as having been bestowed on him by his father (the “Meat” part) and a football coach (the “Loaf” part).

Here’s “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.” The guy could certainly sing:

Here’s the mini rock opera known as “Paradise By the Dashboard Light.” It’s an experience:

Comments

RIP Marvin Lee Aday (aka Meat Loaf) — 21 Comments

  2. }}} “Paradise By the Dashboard Light.”

    Paradise!?!?!

    I always thought it was “Pair o’ Dice by the dashboard light…”
    You know, those fuzzy dice some people hang from the mirror…

    .

    .

    .

    (RBG)

    Just kidding. I always knew what it referred to. But that was such an obvious mondegreen — it even makes plenty of sense on some levels — it’s pretty funny.

  5. I didn’t know anything about him (other than his name seemed a punchline) until “I’ll do Anything for Love (but I won’t do that)” came out. I enjoyed it, but it seemed more like a gimmick until I learned more about him. Then one day I caught VH1 Story Tellers with Meat Loaf explaining his music. I found the whole thing fascinating. I got a hold of “Bat of Out of Hell”, and immediately enjoyed blasting the title song intro on drives. But primarily, I felt like his music was more of a fun story. And I like that he made it his way rather than packaging it all for radio.

  6. “Whatever happened to Saturday night?”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMRl55U0eDw

    I always liked Eddie a lot more than Meat Loaf, plus the rich weirdos dancing to the lovely party.

    Love – Hate on a motorcycle.

    I’m pretty sure I’ve paid more money to theaters to see “Rocky Horror”, on many many midnight showings, than any other film (including The Empire Strikes Back).
    So much fun to scream out the unwritten audience lines.

    In the ’74 play, he was also Dr. Scott (Eddie’s uncle), but not in the movie.
    Good but not great voice, usually. I read he would give 100% in his performances, ending covered in sweat.

    Genuine emotion and passion can make up a lot for less talent – tho not no talent.

  7. was a nice guy… (stay away from Blondie, they is bitter)….
    Last I spoke with him was way back when his album was being released.
    sad…

    Louie Anderson died as well….

    Funny, i never mentioned rocky horror to him or to Sarandon..
    This despite doing floor show on 8th st in NYC and the audience participation album, etc…

    Ive lost too many people the past few years.. not a month goes by now..
    from famous acquaintances, to long friends to family, to wife’s family…

    Steinman died last year i think
    and i believe todd Rundgren who worked on his first album is still around
    [i met neither]

  9. Hate to speak ill of the deceased, but I really dislike his music. He is one of two artists I immediately turn off on the radio. The other is anything by Rush.

  11. physicsguy,

    Agree about Rush Geddy Lee is fingernails on the chalkboard as a vocalist to me.

    But, boy, the music snobs love them.

  12. I’m right in that ’70s – ’80s wheelhouse neo mentions, but add me to the list of listeners who turns the dial when he’s on, even back in the ’70s and ’80s. Seemed like a nice guy, however. Peace to him and his family!

  13. My thoughts on Meat Loaf’s music is that it was of a genre all it’s own and while I wouldn’t say it was my cup of tea and I definitely wouldn’t want a steady diet of it I don’t mind hearing him every now and then.

    He also would have been a non entity without the songs of Jim Steinman but he had a great voice and his look also made him stand out.

  14. Shout-out to Griffin and physicsguy on Rush. Friends dragged me to see them perform at Red Rocks amphitheater West of Denver. A place too stunning to fail. Rush hosted a party of tribal celebrants that was more fun than their recordings. I can visit with sycophants without converting to whatever the cause is.

    Riddle we this. What do Meatloaf, Terry Teachout, and James Lindsey on Educrats youthful neo-Marxist grooming have in common? Their part in the rise and fall of successful civilization.

    It was in a memorable book review of a three volume study of the history of the song that Teachout rang out the warning bells for me (in the past decade).

    No civilization has survived without love rituals for their young to mate and form families within which to raise the young, the next generation in the Greatest Chain of Being human. Yet we have raised a generation without ritual of the love song to achieve this sustaining goal.

    At the same time, neo-Marxist Educrats have taken over the schools, and cut the young off from their parents values, not as a lived protest — as the so-called counterculture rebels did in a fit of neo-Romantic revivalism.

    No, this neoMarxist top-down takeover have mal-educated and indoctrinated our young into Believing that their parents values and institutions are inherently bad, and therefore doubt even their sexuality.

    Thus, they have less sex, enjoy and celebrate is less, and marry and procreate least of all, ever.

    As Georg Lukacs argued, cut the young off from their (heterosexual) family and national institutional roots and watch radical rebellious seeds grow!

    This was the political philosophy of the Weathermen Underground as expounded in “Prairie Fire!” in 1972. There was a very long and incisive review of it posted on Amazon Books when Obama was elected, stating that this was where our new Marxist President was taking us. and we’ll, here we are. (I noted that this review was still online at Amazon, last summer.) The WU deliberately paid tribute to a pamphlet by Mao Ze Dong in that title – aiming to steer the US through the long march to push us to precisely where we have arrived today.

    James Lindsey outlines these points in a two minute clip from this interview in early December with Joe Rogan, the last clip from Rumble posted here
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-joe-rogan-details-how-anyone-who-doesnt-identify-far-left-now-labelled-alt-right

    Yuri Bemzenov had nothing what we are doing to ourselves, making family values and rejection of heteronormative success the glide path for rejecting patriotism that undergirds the 400 years of progress made possible by the nation state. (Read this 24 year’s on civics teacher’s lament in American Mind, “Post-Patriotic America Will Be Worse Than You Think.”
    https://americanmind.org/salvo/post-patriotic-america-will-be-worse-than-you-think/)

    So, who thought in the 1970s that the values celebrated by Meat Loaf would be overturned in only half a century in the US?

    And now that restoring them today would ever become the Herculean task for us now, if decline into the dust bin of history is to be avoided?

  15. In early 1978, my senior year of high school, I was invited by friends to see Meat Loaf in concert. This was very soon after the album took off. We had second row seats, just a bit to the side of center. What a memorable show. It was quite the sight to see him more-or-less enact Paradise by the Dashboard Light with the very young and attractive female singer (who I believe he later married), and later perform a running, diving forward roll mid song across the stage. Steinman played piano, as well. Great show.

  17. I was amused and entertained by the Dashboard Lights video. Beyond that, I was not a fan. One hundred million albums sold though.

    Welcome back Artfldgr.

  21. I’ve been a fan of Meat Loaf’s since I first heard it in ’78 or so while a student at NYU. It hit me like a ton of bricks, especially “Bat Out of Hell.” I know it’s almost 10 mins. long, but damn, that is–in my opinion–one of the best opening cuts on an album ever…grabs you by the throat and won’t let go. My dorm friend had it on constant rotation (when he wasn’t playing Bowie’s Station to Station, another classic)…even when I was trying to get some sleep!

    Only 7 songs on the album, and to me, “Paradise…” while good, is actually the weakest song of them all. It appealed to many, I agree, due to the “operatic” nature of the song–teen angst/lust, and Phil Rizzuto. Probably Steinman’s most over the top song, and only Meat Loaf could give the song the interpretation they needed.

    Sad that we don’t know how to do real, driving rock anymore. In today’s USA you’d think somewhere out there are angry folks that need to channel that anger through music…where are you?!? Your nation turns its lonely eyes to you!

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