Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music EntertainmentMeat Loaf‘s classic album Bat Out of Hell was released 40 years ago this Saturday, October 21. The album, the singer’s debut solo effort, was his first of many projects with songwriter Jim Steinman.
Produced by Todd Rundgren, Bat Out of Hell only peaked at #14 on the Billboard 200, but it’s sold over 14 million copies in the U.S. and about 43 million worldwide. It features memorable hits like “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad,” “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth” and “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.”
As beloved as Bat Out of Hell is, Meat Loaf tells ABC Radio that he doesn’t enjoy listening to the record because of the way it was mastered.
“Bat Out of Hell was too long for vinyl, so we had to speed the record up to get any volume onto the vinyl,” he explains. “So anytime ‘Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad’ came on the radio…I had to turn it off, ’cause I thought I sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks.”
Steinman is credited with writing all the songs, but Meat Loaf says he actually came up with part of “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.” He tells ABC Radio that when it was recorded, Steinman hadn’t written the first two lines, so Meat spontaneously sang, “Baby, we can talk all night, but that ain’t gettin’ us nowhere.”
“I don’t know where it came from,” Meat Loaf admits. “It came from the character, ’cause I couldn’t have written anything that good.”
Meanwhile, the 70-year-old singer says he doesn’t dwell on the album’s enduring success.
“The only thing Bat Out of Hell‘s good for is getting tickets to see Hamilton or getting into a [popular] restaurant,” Meat Loaf declares. “I live in the moment.”
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