In a better time for the world, we will all hit the karaoke bar tonight to mourn the late Jim Steinman. This man was more than just the composer behind megabombastic hits by Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler, Celine Dion, Air Supply and so many others. He was the patron saint of karaoke singers. His idea of the perfect song was a powder keg that gave off sparks, one that everyone could belt out loud. Think of a karaoke national anthem – ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’, ‘Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad’, ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light’, ‘It’s All Coming Back to Me Now’ – and the chances are high that Steinman wrote it. Even before the art form was invented, he composed as if he saw it all coming. That’s why karaoke fans everywhere are mourning for him tonight, even though we cry ice mirrors instead of tears.
Steinman liked to call himself ‘Little Richard Wagner’, and he always lived up to that legacy, in a rock style he called ‘mythical opera’. There was something so beautiful democratic about his vision – it was songs that could turn anyone into a rock star. He lived to make you harder. He made Meatloaf from all of us. So every karaoke enemy owes him a debt of gratitude. His message was that we were all hiding a Coupe De Ville at the bottom of our Cracker Jack box with a voice.
When I wrote a book about karaoke a few years ago, I named it after its karaoke-friendly hook: Turn Around Bright Eyes. During my book reading on the Upper West Side, a gentleman in the audience asked how I chose the title. I had a long, unnoticed outburst about Jim Steinman’s genius, how he never got his real respect, but how his songs embody the populist spirit of karaoke. The man later came up to say hello – it turns out he’s Steinman’s brother. He told me Jim bought the book online (he saw the title and appreciated the tribute), but I had to sign a copy for the man, a total eclipse for my heart as a fan. The first line of my book: “Once upon a time, I was falling apart. Now I always fall in love. (This comes from the Beta Band, who did the tribute “The Hard One” in 1999.)
His background was theater, but he got stars when he turned on a bar singer named Meat Loaf. Their trailer Bat from hell had the words on the cover, “Songs by Jim Steinman” – an unheard of flex at the time. He enjoys his role, as he puts it: “the Dr. Frankenstein who created the character of Meat Loaf.” It does not have his infamous fighting relationship with Mr. Loaf did not help, who once threw a grand piano at him. “We are definitely influenced by Springsteen,” he said. Rolling clip in 1978. ‘But our songs are not as street-oriented as his. Our music is more like a combination of west side story and A watch orange. ”
One of Steinman’s most famous tunes was the Meat Loaf hit, “I would do anything for love, but I would not do it.” Yet his greatness was that he was always for that – no hook was too shameless, no concept too ridiculous. Want a Bonnet Tyler duet with Todd Rundgren called “Loving You’s a Dirty Job But Somebody’s Gotta Do It”? Want a Cher / Meat Loaf duet called ‘Dead Ringer For Love’? Do you want Billy Squier to do a rock-disco crossover that became the infamous career killer ‘Rock Me Tonight’? He could do it.
No matter who sings, you can always see that it was a Steinman song. He wrote long, melodramatic piano ballads, with a long title, a lyrical twist on a cliche, Phil Spector drumsticks, backup choruses, and did we mention important changes? As he told Melody Maker in 1989, “I get very disappointed when people do not like what I do, but I am always convinced that it is good. But it’s not like I’m sitting down and saying, ‘OK, time for another megalomaniacal email here.’ ‘
Steinman was notoriously a studio Svengali who rarely relinquished control of the singer. As he admits: ‘There were very few cases where I was interested in what the artist was thinking. I mean, I’m not interested in doing what Bonnie Tyler wants to do. I do not think she has an idea what she is doing. She probably just wants to do the homework with the records playing. He worked closely with Def Leppard and called them ‘interesting’. In a way, a scientist finds a strange kind of insect interesting. ‘
His only solo hit was’ Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through ‘, starring Rory Dodd – you do not know what his name is, but you have heard his voice all his life, because he is the chorus voice that chirps’ Turn om, clear eyes! “in” Total Eclipse. ” Steinman released the solo opus in 1979 Bad for good, with the obvious “Love and Death and an American Guitar.” It was supposed to be the second Meat Loaf album, except that Meat blew out his voice – or maybe he just got cold feet when he heard ‘Dance in My Pants’. After years of litigation (there would be many more where it comes from) Steinman and Meat reunited Bat Out of Hell 2: Back in Hell and Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose.
He can create hits for anyone, and build one of the weirdest resumes in the biz, from the Australian hunting-rock smoothies Air Supply (“Making Love Out of Nothing at All”), to British goth rockers Sisters of Mercy (“This Corrosion”). “). He was obsessed with the details. For Bat from hell, he even got Roy Bittan on piano and Max Weinberg on drums for the E Street touch. When the piano intersects with the six-note drum solo in ‘Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad’, it is the essence of Steinmanism.
His ultimate moment as a gifted man was the 1984 teen movie Strate of Fire, with Diane Lane as a rock & roll outlaw. He wrote songs for her fictional band Ellen Aim and the Attacker, but it sounds good on MTV – especially her national anthem ‘Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young’. Bruce Springsteen would not allow himself to use his ‘Streets of Fire’ in the film, but only Steinman could consider it a personal challenge to reach his climax of Bossness. The Attackers were one of the top fake movie groups of the Eighties, but despite Diane Lane’s best efforts, the ‘lead singer in an intoxicated red robe with a deep V back’ could not succeed.
‘Rolling clip we have always hated, ”he said. For once in his life he was guilty of underemphasizing: everyone critics hated his hits and prayed they should leave. Steinman was inspired by some of the toughest reviews of the era, which he liked to quote. Paradoxically, the most notable tribute written during his lifetime was a total removal – Mitchell Cohen’s review of the second Meat Loaf album, Dead Ringer, in Cream in 1981. Cohen het not like the album, but he accidentally summed up the composer’s unique vision. “Steinman undoubtedly regards his scenarios as part of a tradition that goes from ‘Summertime Blues’ to’ Gee, officer Krupke ‘to’ Jungleland ” – which actually makes it nails. (Also like these soft words on the album’s lyrics page: “The Typesetters Union awarded Steinman the 1981 Inner Sleeve Verbosity Plaque.”)
Steinman had surprisingly sympathetic chemistry with the Sisters of Mercy and produced their Eighties goth classics “This Corrosion”, “Dominion” and “More”. As singer Andrew Eldritch put it: “This Corrosion” is ridiculous. It’s supposed to be ridiculous. This is a song about ridiculousness. So I called Steinman and explained that we need something that sounds like a disco party run by the Borgias. And that’s what we got. ”
But there is a reason that ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ will always be his most famous song. It sounded too lavish for radio in 1983, but it has been ubiquitous on the air ever since. There are so many of his most memorable screaming hooks: “Turn bright eyes around,” “I really need you tonight,” “I fall apart every now and then.” He wrote it for Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler, whose only previous American hit was the 1978 Rod Stewart sound: “It’s a Heartache.” But Steinman turned her into a rock diva. He thought her voice sounded like John Fogerty’s, which is why he encouraged her to cover Creedence’s “Have You Ever Seen The Rain” on her album, which had the Steinman title. Faster than the speed of night.
But it’s a song anyone can sing, and that’s why it’s still the ultimate karaoke banger. Every karaoke room has it – it’s # 117498 in the book at Sing Sing in Avenue A. (Even after a year of microphone deprivation, I know the number from my head.) Like all his songs, it sounds like he always meant it best at 2am through a room full of drunk strangers
Steinman returns to the theater to write lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Whistle in the wind. He also did Bat Out of Hell: The Musical, as well as the production of 1997 Dance of the Vampires, which revived “Total Darkening of the Heart”. “I actually wrote it to be a vampire love song,” he said. Playing card at that point. “The original title was ‘Vampires in Love’, because I was working on a musical from ‘Nosferatu’, the other great vampire story. If anyone listens to the lyrics, they really like vampire lines. It’s all about the darkness, the power of the darkness and the place of love in the dark. ”
Jim Steinman brought the darkness to life in his songs. Too bad we can not honor him properly tonight by belting his hits in the karaoke rooms. Instead, like Bonnie Tyler, we will have to take care of love in the dark. RIP to a true master of excess.