An exceptional procrastination

My zine, The extraordinary life of Michael Lee Aday, came about through procrastination.

In January, I had unwillingly taken on a travel writing project, even though I had promised I would never accept anything as tedious as updating a travel guide. But I accepted it because it was a good project to keep me active after a couple of years of not doing much writing-wise. I didn't mind visiting the locations, but once that part of the job was finished, I had to enter all of the data onto my employer's database, which was mind-numbingly tedious.

So after doing some intense work every day, my reward was listening to music. Every hour I gave myself a break of five to ten minutes of music to get away from the computer screen.

After hearing of Meat Loaf's death, I decided to listen to his first album, Bat Out of Hell, which I'm ashamed to admit I never knew about. Soon it became an obsession. Meat Loaf fans posted old interviews, videos and documentaries about his career, so I began watching and listening to everything possible. I discovered his impressive lifetime work.

So as I was working on my day job, I had work breaks and weekends listening, understanding and reading everything I could find about this fascinating artist. I took copious notes and compiled the ultimate Meat Loaf listening list, which I played as I typed in my data.

I discovered elements of Meat Loaf's difficult childhood, how he lost his mother when he was 19, and a violent and alcoholic father who tried to kill him. His remarkable talents as an actor and singer. His incredible force of will to follow his creative skills.

Meat Loaf said yes to everything from singing in rock bands in the early 70s to singing musicals and roles in movies and on the stage. He did everything from Shakespeare to the Rocky Horror Show. How he randomly met and befriended talented musician and songwriter Jim Steinman. And how the two went on to write one of the most popular and highest-selling albums of all time.

Then came the stream of endless rejection to get the album recorded, how nobody believed in Jim Steinman or Meat Loaf's music, which was completely different from any music of the time. It took Steinman and ML two years to write the album and another two to find a record company that was able to sign them. Then it took them months of performing to build their audience after their record company refused to publicise the album.

My Meat Loaf procrastination became a welcomed distraction and obsession. Before I knew it, I had written pages of notes, and all of the fans' old photos became the inspiration for some sketches. Then I began thinking, " Hey, maybe I can make a little zine with all this research. So I started writing a tribute to ML's extraordinary life and my reflections as a new fan.

Before I realised it, I had written 10,000 words and had made dozens of sketches inspired by Meat Loaf.

After sending in my travel guide, I began editing and compiling my tribute to Meat Loaf.

The result is this little book about this enigmatic performer, his unlikely career path and possibly the most epic journey any album has had to take to be recorded and published.

If you want to read my little zine its available on Amazon.

Keep an eye out for a give away in a few weeks time and more zines further down the track.

Searching my full name on Amazon (Rochelle Del Borrello) will give you all of my zine publications so far.

After discovering Meat Loaf I have been well and truly stuck back in the 1970s.

What are you currently obsessed with?

Why I Friggin love Jack White

Jack White: Love Interruption from Blunderbuss (2012)

I've been a fan of Jack White ever since he formed the White Stripes with his former wife Meg White in the legendary early 200s alternative garage band duo.

Jack White is one of the most talented songwriters, guitarists, and multi-instrumentalists. His career has been about tireless creativity, innovation and collaboration. Apart from his success with the White Stripes, he founded the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather, who were equally fantastic rock bands. 

Like most excellent musicians, White is also a great collaborator; he has worked with many other artists, including Loretta Lynn, Bob Dylan, and Alicia Keys.

White's love of music, particularly vinyl records, led him to establish his own record company. Third Man Records releases White's music and new artists and re-releases classic artists on vinyl.

Apart from being one of the most incredible people on the planet, his live performances are phenomenal. White has an extensive collection of guitars and other instruments and loves collecting vintage items that usually connect to famous early blues artists. He is an advocate for analogue technology and recording techniques.

Jack White has an encyclopedic knowledge of blues music and the American songbook; he also can identify any Beatles song within the first few seconds of listening.

He's one of my all-time favourite artists and one of the people I most wish to see live in concert as he's such an excellent guitar player and performer who is constantly innovating.

While I always enjoy Jack White's music, the album that made me fall hopelessly in love with him as a solo artist was his first solo effort, Blunderbuss (2012).

For me, the song Love Interruption is the perfect blues love song. It shows off Jack White's old blues-soaked soul, his clever and witty lyrical talents, and showcases the best of his abilities.

Love Interruption has been a solid part of my playlist for the last decade, and it never gets old. The concept that love is about a deep pseudo masochistic painful addiction and suffering is a concept expressed by many great poets over the centuries.

To hear Jack White exorcize, even relishing his heartbreak and suffering through song, is nothing but pure blues. It's good for the soul.

Here's a poem inspired by Jack White's song Three Women from his 2014 album Lazaretto.

I took the concept of White's song talking about women and turned it upside down to write about three men.

Three Men

(inspired by Jack White)

I have three men tall, dark and handsome

they come to me when I please and always come back for more

I'm the kind of gal who has an appetite

It's not satisfying, so it's either three of the whorehouse for me.

I've got to have a man blow away these blues and quench this dry throat.

My tall man's flexible and lean

he bends himself to please me

he knows how to pluck and play and lick

and well, there's no need to mention

about the length of his prick

My dark Italian stallion

well, he's all poetry and passion

he knows when to talk and when to howl

speaks many tongues, knows endless tricks

my playboy is a ball

and cunnilinguses with the best

My handsome one's got ripping muscles

he blushes when he's at his best

a little shyer than the rest

he keeps his clothes on until I'm ready

I rip them off

but he always leaves his socks

You might say, what right do I have?

No reason to have three lovers

but whatever I do is doing no harm

must be doing something right cos

they come to visit every night.

My three men are keeping me satisfied

more satisfied than my tiny, pale, lard arse

ex-husband ever did.

So excuse me if I offend

I'll be over here making up for the lost time

I got an itch to scratch

When I call on my dream men to

Get me over this hump

I got my mojo back after a slump

Girl power and all that

Lordy, Lordy, Lordy lord ah yeah.

I’ve put together a playlist over on Spotify of some of my favourite Jack White songs, together with some of those mentioned in this post. Click on it to have a little listen.

Why I frigging love Meat Loaf

Meat Loaf/ Jim Steinmen I'm gonna love her for Both of Us from the album Dead Ringer for love.

Since I heard the news of the death of Meat Loaf on the 20th of January 2022, I felt compelled to go back and listen to his music after realising his performing career spanned an astounding six decades. Now it's months later, I'm still in a Meat Loaf rabbit hole, and I refuse to come out of it. 

I've been obsessively listening to all possible interviews, t.v appearances, and performances from the '70s to the '90s. I'm still working my way through ML's collaborative and solo albums, including one of the most popular albums of all time. 

I've had his music constantly playing either in the background or on my headphones to the point I hear his songs ringing in my ears during the night as I sleep. I had to stop listening to Meat Loaf before going to bed as he simply wouldn't let me sleep. I'd have his voice echoing through my head all night, revving me up and keeping me rocking all through the night.

I listened to his very first theatre work with Jim Steinman and was blown away by the power of his early voice, which was truly epic. I have found fantastic stripped back versions of his songs that show every syllable of Meat Loaf's emotion and expression. 

I have watched all of the interviews I can find on Youtube, from crazy interviews on quirky German t.v in the '80s to interviews on stuffy British t.v talk shows. I even watched his exquisitely cringy but strangely good early movies, Dead Ringer and Roadie. And I have loved it all. 

I even found and listened to the very first album he recorded for Motown in 1971, duetting with female vocalist Shaun Murphy. It was such a fun album that showed off the talents of two beautifully talented singers who had been working together singing in the musical Hair. I'm happy to hear the Stoney and Meat Loaf collaboration is set to be re-released later on in 2022 in commemoration of ML.

I have listened to all of the songs he recorded with 1970s American psychedelic guitar rock legend Ted Nugent which were all so blissfully rock it hurts to listen to and makes you wish for the '70s rock to make a comeback. I have to admit I even love his 1980s records. All of his work has his personality written all over it, and if you are a fan, you will always hear it and love it.

I have officially become a Meathead. It's a shame I was so late to the party. It took his death to realise how many things of value he created. I'm afraid this is the same old story for me; this has happened to me before. I became a fan of Roy Orbison as a teenager in the late 80s when he released his last album and passed away from a massive heart attack. I then made my way back through his music, and now I have the big O always firmly in my music-loving heart.

I've been doing the same thing with Meat Loaf; I continue to read endless articles about his life, significant biographies, and autobiography. I have gradually unearthed an artist of exceptional versatility, scope, determination and work ethic. 

Perhaps the most valuable lesson Meat Loaf leaves behind for most other creatives is the ability he had to push through his limitations and fears. He was a typical creative filled with self-doubt and anxiety that comes with the gift of creativity. Even though he was terrified, he still would show up, do the work, try to improve himself and make the most of the present. The result is a lifetime of performances that have made Meat Loaf one of the most loved actors, singers, and celebrities.

I was born in 1977 when Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman's collaborative album A bat out of hell came out and became one of the highest-selling albums of all time. So I was blissfully unaware of his early music.

Bat Out of Hell is the most incredible album of seven songs with seven different stories, some five minutes long and others up to ten minutes, which seemed impossibly long for the 1970's popular audience. In a period when any commercial rock or pop song was two and a half to three minutes long and followed the standard hook, verse, chorus, verse, hook formula, it seemed inconceivable that this kind of music would find its audience.

I cannot help but imagine what if Jim and Meat met up today to write and publish their music together. I can see them writing and recording, and if they didn't get picked up by a record company, they would have taken the same route as Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes or Billie Eilish and now countless others. 

The songs would have been loved and discovered just the same by uploading and performing online, together with live performances around the US.

Perhaps we would have more recordings from this early period of the Jim Steinman, Michael Aday (Meat Loaf) collaboration, with less pressure to make a record deal; they would have had more time to write and record. Perhaps Bat One could have been a double record after breaking all streaming records. 

Those seven songs today feel like so little. Listening to them on a daily repeat has left me thirsty to hear more from the world created by Steinman and Aday. Their world was based very much on male fantasy, lots of beautiful women, damsels in distress, men with faded levis bursting apart with desire, revving motorbikes and young adolescent boys who are all revved up with nowhere to go. 

Steinman's imagination was a weird place, yet it all fitted perfectly into his fascination with the mythology of Peter Pan, a story he had been in love with since childhood.

Meat Loaf's talent as an actor, raccounter, singer and storyteller gave him an ability to connect to his audience. His fans fell in love with him and would happily listen to him sing a shopping list, as long as he put in the same amount of feeling and emotion as he did with his other songs. His performance of Jimmy Steinman’s songs were what made them all so successful.

The two collaborators went through a long and almost hellish road to get their first album published, no one understood their music and the two definitely didn’t fit the image of rockstars.

Any Meat Loaf/ Steinman song is pretty magical; the magic still happens whenever they collaborate. My current favourite (and they change every day according to my mood) has to be from what became Meat's eventual follow up to Bat Out of Hell, Dead Ringer, a diverse and fun album that included a catchy duet with Cher.

The melodrama is still very much at the centre of Dead Ringer, as Steinman's songs are at its heart. From an album version of that first song from their first collaboration, more than you deserve to the top, I'll kill you if you don't come bag and the big-hearted heartbreak of read 'em and weep. Almost nihilistic end of the world desperation of everything is permitted.

But the big melodramatic Bat Out of Hell type of rock opera song has to be I'm gonna love her for Both of Us which is undeniably from the same universe that Steinman created on the first album. The song is a beautiful mix of passion, outrage, shocking details and bizarre combinations of extremes that only could come from the contorted Steinman imagination. 

The plot of this song is a kind of warped love triangle. Meat Loaf addresses his best friend, a man he considered to be like his brother. He is shocked at how his friend is treating his girlfriend, stabbing her in the back and treating her terribly. Outraged by how his friend treats the girl, he steps in to defend her. Then the suggestion is that she has asked Meat to help her. 

So in comes Meat Loaf, like a knight in shining armour, to rescue the girl from an abusive relationship. The girl who has been singing to him like a siren on the waves has awakened Meat's passion. ML berates his friend's behaviour of putting out the girl's light and locking her inside a deep dark prison. He can't stand it, and he's obliged to take her away from his friend and promises he will have her burning with desire by the night's end. To restore her to her original state, like a jewel in the crown. 

I'm gonna love her for Both of Us is pure Steinman gold, his unique blend of romanticism, big broad brushstrokes of melodrama and clever little twists. It's all corny and over the top, but it works.

Yes, Meat is setting himself up as the hero saving a girl who is suffering, but what it boils down to is he is stealing his best friend's girl, no matter how noble his intentions may be.

Steinman had so much mischievous fun with his music; he would take something like a ballad or a love song and turn it around into something unexpected. What does he exactly mean when he says he will love her for the both of us? Is there a menage a trois involved?

Both lyrically and musically, Steinman had a gift of melding together different elements to create his musical form. He would take bits and pieces of his favourite musical influences and combine them to create a new sound. Steinman's music quotes influences from elements as diverse as Wagner, 1950s Country music, Johnny Cash, Boogie Woogie, classic American Rock and Roll like Elvis, Phil Spector, The Beach Boys, and Led Zeppelin, amongst others.

Steinman mixed the most unexpected extreme elements, from chivalry to stealing someone else's girlfriend, conflicting concepts that undermined the story's intention—turning things on their heads and putting a twist or punch line. And he did it all purely for his amusement and caprice. After more than forty years since Bat Out of Hell was released, Steinman is still laughing and winking at us, wondering if we will get the joke.

I’ve put together a playlist over on Spotify of some of my favourite Meat Loaf songs, together with some of those mentioned in this post. Click on to have a little listen.

A playlist of my fave Meat Loaf songs

The exceptional life of Michael Lee Aday (Part2)

Early life and childhood: Poor fat Marvin

Meat Loaf's early life was difficult and filled with deep trauma. Marvin Lee Aday was born in Dallas, Texas, on the 27th of September 1947. His mother, Wilma Artie, was an English teacher and sang in her own Gospel group. While his father, Orvis Wesley Aday, was a former police officer and war veteran. After being wounded, his father was medically discharged from the US army during World War II; it was after this he developed a problem with alcohol.

Marvin's father soon became a full-blown alcoholic, and often, he and his mother would have to go in search of his father, who would disappear for days at a time. Marvin would have to drag his father out of bars and pubs late at night and frequently fell victim to his violent outbursts. 

It was Orvis that gave Meat Loaf the first piece of his nickname. Seeing his chubby newborn son, he remarked his bright red colour made him look like mincemeat. He cruelly insisted the nurses label his son's bassinet in the hospital nursery 'meat' and that Marvin be displayed front and centre so others could see his giant meaty offspring. 

The Loaf part of his name came later when he was in school. Playing gridiron, he accidentally trod on his coach's foot with his football shoe spikes and was promptly called a Meat Loaf, a nickname which stuck with him his whole life.

To say Marvin Aday had a difficult childhood would be an understatement. His big meaty stature and general clumsiness led him to be teased mercilessly. He was a big baby and as he grew and developed, his weight became a problem. By 12, he was 5 foot 2 inches (158 cms) and weighed 240 pounds (108kg). As a result, he was bullied and ostracised at school. His classmates' parents even told him that he was too fat to play with their children. 

As a result, he became timid and spent a lot of time alone. This one factor led him to become extremely shy and persistently suffer from social anxiety throughout his life. But later, he did say that this time alone allowed him to develop his creativity and imagination.

Another story Meat Loaf told about this period was about a radio advertisement for Levi jeans which used his name to say 'Poor fat Marvin couldn't wear Levi's.' This led to ever more teasing at school. He never forgot this and grew to hate his name. Later he legally changed his first name to Michael.

Meat Loaf was a boisterous child; he was always getting himself hurt and getting into trouble. He went through a stage at around five years of age where he persistently ran away from home. 

As a child, he was extraordinarily accident-prone and began gathering concussions like boy scout badges. Later in several interviews, he even bragged he had a total of 18 concussions in all shapes and sizes, from being hit in the head by different objects, on the football field, car accidents, running into things and through other scrapes he got into.

One of Meat Loaf's most famous tales that he fed to journalists with embellishments for his amusement was when he got hit in the head with a shot put. He was knocked out and spent a week in the hospital. He was proud of how tough it made him sound. He said many people wouldn't live to tell the tale, and he credited the accident with making him realise he had a voice. After being hit in the head, he said he found out he could sing.

Besides getting into trouble and playing sports, Meat Loaf also discovered acting. Through high school, he got a part in every school play. He found he had a talent for making people laugh, and he come out of his shell. He loved to connect to the audience and his fellow performers. Later, Meat Loaf reflected how going on stage was a good way of concealing his shyness.

When he was fourteen, he got a part as an extra in the 1962 remake of Rodgers & Hammerstein musical State Fair. He watched the filming on a friend's farm and was roped into becoming a part of the action. He also got a walk-on role in a local production of Carmen, and witnessing the reality of professional acting life; he fell in love with the rebellious nature of a career on the stage and screen. 

Soon he walked away from the football and baseball field and delved into performing getting involved in local bands.

His mother Wilma didn't want Meat to get into the music scene, but he did it anyway. The first song he ever sang was a cover of the Stones' Satisfaction, and he was promptly asked to tour with a local band.

Rebelling against his mother's wishes, he became the quintessential problematic teenager, staying out late and getting into trouble. Meat Loaf's mother promptly took away his car and grounded him. Losing his temper he slapped his mother; immediately remorseful and afraid of what his father would do if he found out, he promised to walk the line and never disrespect her again. Wilma made sure he kept this promise.

After high school Meat Loaf enrolled in Lubbock Christian University, where he threw himself back into sports like baseball.

Just when you think Meat Loaf's childhood and adolescence couldn't get any worse, his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was sick for many years and eventually passed away when ML was 19.

Music journalist Mick Hall in his biography Like a bat out of hell: the larger than life story of Meat Loaf, describes the events after the death of Wilma. At the funeral, Meat was so insane with grief he tried to lift Wilma out of her coffin in the funeral parlour and yelled out for them not to take her away from him. He blocked out the funeral from his memory. He told Rolling Stone many years later that it all felt like he was in a movie.

The truth was that Meat Loaf had been in denial and had run from the confronting situation of his mother's terminal illness. After Wilma's death, Meat Loaf's relationship with his father went from bad to worse. Meat's father, Orvis, was even worse at coping with the emotions surrounding the death of his wife than his son. Orvis went on one of his drinking binges and took everything out on his son.

Wilma had left Meat Loaf a small inheritance, but Orvis was trying to take control over it. So Meat went before a judge where the money was given directly to him. Orvis became more unstable and hurled abuse at his son. One night, he grabbed a kitchen knife, and tried to stab Meat. 

Luckily Meat Loaf dodged his father's drunken attempted murder and fought back. Later ML told how he had to fight for his life, breaking his father's nose and three of his ribs. He left his childhood home that night. Meat walked out of the house in nothing but his t-shirt and shorts, got into his '65 Chevy, and drove off.

He took his inheritance from Wilma and rented an apartment in Dallas where he closed the door on the outside world and didn't open it for three months. Wrapped inside his grief during those months, he slowly came out of it with a strange new resolve and purpose. He took his pain and loss and fed it into his psyche and desires. Whenever he had a song, he knew what he was singing about and who he was singing for. So he bought a ticket to LA to find out what he could do with his talent.

Early career: Finding his way

The early months in LA for Meat Loaf were still heavy with grief and sadness. He rented a small apartment on Ventura Boulevard and felt incredibly lonely and sad over his first Christmas and New Year alone. But it was music that helped him to find focus in his life.

For anyone wanting to get into music or acting 1960's Los Angeles was the place to be. The swinging 60s were filled with an energy of new sounds, bands and creative opportunities. He began to socialise at the Balboa Youth Centre in Encino, where he watched many contemporary bands who still hadn't made it to Texas. He saw Jimmy Hendrix, then the Yardbirds featuring a young Jimmy Page. He fell under the spell of Janis Joplin with her massive emotional voice, and performances were a tremendous inspiration to him.

While singing a cover of Janis's Piece of my heart, he caught the eye of LA garage band musician Gary Spagnolo who was a part of the local trendy psychedelic scene. Gary hooked up Meat with a band called The Prunes, and they recorded two songs that Meat had written by himself. He sang the songs as hard as he could, and even though he wasn't a songwriter, he made them work, and people began to notice his powerful and expressive voice.

In 1968, Meat Loaf formed his first band named Meat Loaf Soul. The band started off doing small gigs around the place and opened for Iron Butterfly, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, the Who and Buffalo Springfield.

Soon, Meat was courted by record business executives looking for new talent to exploit. He hid his insecurities behind a new rock star persona he invented for himself, strutting around the stage with confidence, showing off his big voice and bigger than life sweaty extravagant showmanship.

Not wanting to be taken for a ride by smooching record execs, Meat Loaf Soul began touring along the west coast, opening shows for well-established acts like Van Morrison, Janice Joplin's band Big Brother and the Holding Company.

Meat was sleeping in the back of his car up in the Highland Hills, but he would get a hotel room when he made some money. He said he made ends meet doing little odds and ends, including dodgy things like selling hallucinogens. After all, it was 1968, the summer of love filled with a new rebellious generation of recreational drug-taking, weed-smoking and alcohol consuming hippies.

Meat Loaf continued to concentrate on his band, who were performing wherever they could. They would load up their gear into a truck and drive 36 hours to Michigan to play with bands like the Iggy Pop fronted Stooges. His band's lineup changed regularly, as did their name; they even tried calling themselves Popcorn Blizzard. But they kept going on the road for the next couple of years. They opened for Ted Nugent and played with MC5.

As Meat Loaf was making his name on the music scene, he was also being offered roles in musical theatre. In between gigs and jobs, a friend of his had lined up some work parking cars outside the Aquarius Theater, where a production of the new musical Hair was playing.

Meat's friend introduced him to Greg Carlos in the car park, who was playing the lead in Hair. Striking up a conversation, he told Greg he was trying to put a band together and that he sang and was invited to audition as the production was going on tour. 

Seeing a queue of hundreds of hopefuls, he refused to wait for hours for an audition. So Greg took him to the front of the line and introduced him to the director Armand Coullet.

Meat told the story of how, when meeting Coullet, he was asked what he wanted to do. Meat shrugged and said he was trying out for a job in the parking lot. He made everyone laugh, and now they were curious to hear him sing. He sang a blues number which sounded like something epic coming from his gospel voice. That night he wasn't parking cars outside rather inside, watching and preparing to perform his part in the show.

Meat Loaf and Hair were a perfect fit; they were rebellious, trailblazers who didn't look or sound like anything else. Hair: the American tribal love-rock musical was about a Vietnam war draftee who befriends a tribe of hippies on his way to sign up for the army. The hippies introduce him to marijuana, LSD and their network of unorthodox relationships and anti-war draft evasion. Meat's soulful voice shined out from the chaos of the then-experimental new age music. Both Meat and Hair were a massive hit.

By the time the tour got to Detroit, Meat's performance review was on the front page of the local Detroit Free Press paper, and it got the attention of record companies. The legendary Motown records approached him. Meat met with Harry Balk, who offered him a record deal but with a condition. Meat wanted to form a duo with a girl named Stoney, a fellow cast member from Hair who he thought was one of the best singers he'd ever heard. Meat got approval from Harry and was elated at the prospect of recording his first album.

Motown initially saw Stoney & Meatloaf as the perfect addition to their new rock imprint, Rare Earth which was supposed to branch out and showcase new non-Afro American talent in the Motown signature style and genre.

But Motown wasn't like other record companies. Singers were just singers, and if they didn't sell records, they were unceremoniously dumped. 

While Stoney & Meat Loaf's album launched with a bit of a buzz and excitement, listeners were enthusiastic at first. But the public was confused when they discovered the duo was white and felt as if they had been misled. So through no fault of his Meat Loaf found himself back to square one.

But just when Meat was wondering what to do next, he got a call from Hair director Armand Coullet to say the production was going to Broadway and if Meat wanted to come.

Unfortunately, Hair in New York was a disaster. The producers had fired half of the cast, so everyone who turned up to replace them found themselves in very turbulent waters. After a few days of negativity and stress, Meat Loaf left town and joined another production in Pittsburgh and another in Buffalo.

Just as he wondered if he was destined to move from town to town singing Aquarius forever, he did a few other shows, including an off-Broadway gospel musical titled Rainbow in New York produced by the legendary NY impresario Joseph Papp.

Under Papp's wing, Meat Loaf worked for the New York Public Theatre as a part of the Shakespeare in the Park Festival. He starred in As You Like It alongside Raul Julia, Meryl Streep and Mary Beth Hurt.

Meat knew he wasn't a traditional thespian, and after the production, he headed to Kansas City and back to singing.

Years later, he told the story that he had to sing during his Shakespeare in the Park role, and his voice drew the attention of some opera patrons. They approached him and offered him $60,000 a year to train for five years as an opera singer and then debut at the Metropolitan Opera house. But he refused after he realised the controlling nature of opera conductors. He was too rebellious to be limited by others. So he refused. But if he had taken advantage of this classical training, he may have been able to take better care of his voice.

In the post-Shakespeare in the Park period, he auditioned for a part in the new musical Grease. He got the region and was literally on the way to sign his work contract when he met Jim Rado, the creator of Hair who had a new play and wanted Meat to star in it. Rado sent Meat to talk to his agent Jeff Hunter. And before Jim could do anything, Jeff told him about a different project. 

More Than You Deserve was an experimental theatre piece produced by Joe Papp, which was even more crazy and out there than Hair had been. The auditions were happening on the same day in the East Village auditorium. So Meat walked down to the audition, which turned out to be probably the best decision he would make in his life.

When Meat got to the building, the only person there was a strange-looking guy named Jim Steinman. The wealthy young intellectual rebel who had convinced perplexed academics from the prestigious Amherst College into allowing him to produce experimental theatre while also nearly flunking out of the school. And who now had caught the eye of Joe Papp, who was producing More Than You Deserve.  

Meat sang a song from the album he recorded with Stoney titled: I'd love to be as heavy as Jesus. Jim Steinman quipped that Meat might be as heavy as two Jesuses when he finished. Apart from Steinman's sarcasm, this first meeting was the beginning of one of the most successful collaborations in contemporary rock music history.

As soon as Steinman heard Meat Loaf sing, he fell in love with his voice and immediately thought Meat should be singing Wagnerian rock opera. Jim said that Meat Loaf had his dream voice. So it was like an epiphany. Mear was perfect. The only problem was he didn't have any idea what. 

Steinman didn't know what to do. So he had them write a part for him in More Than You Deserve. After singing the main show-stopping song in the performances, the audience would burst into thunderous applause. So then Jim discovered that Meat was a great singer and an outstanding actor. From that moment, Jim knew Meat would be perfect for performing his songs because Meat would be able to act out what Steinman had in his imagination.

Later in an interview, Steinman described Meat Loaf's singing as witnessing paranormal activity. His voice was booming; he made the room shake, his eyes would roll into his head so you'd only see the whites, and his hands would contort. It was a spectacle to be beheld. In the performances with his touring band, the Neverland express Steinman said Meat would get so worked up that his body would sweat so much that there would be steam emanating from him, like an athlete working out in a gym.

So after Joseph Papp was called in to hear Meat, he was offered a part in More Than You Deserve. The bizarre plot was about a US army major stationed in Vietnam who falls in love with a nymphomanic news reporter after other soldiers gang-raped her. Meat was offered the part of the maniac soldier named Rabbit, a good-hearted junkie conscript with an obsession with blowing up people with grenades.

In the middle of the show, Rabbit gets a letter from his mother telling him his wife has left him, and that's when Meat sings the song More Than You Deserve. The title song was a showstopper, and from the first time, Meat sang, it immediately got a standing ovation.

For Steinman, this was the first sign of what would happen next. Meat Loaf was the catalyst and cornerstone for Steinman's most successful compositions. Meat Loaf would become the embodiment of Steinman's entire creative universe.

More than you deserve was a song about an outsider, an outcast in love who not only loses but is also humiliated. It's a song for anyone who has ever been bullied, left out, betrayed or unaccepted in life. 

Meat Loaf took the pathetic figure of Rabbit and gave him a deep sense of pathos. He wasn't simply a man whose wife cheated on him several times, and with several people instead, he became a natural person who a cruel destiny had thwarted. 

There was something of pure innocence, and deep hurt in the way ML sang More than you deserve. In the hands of any other performer, it could have become something of a cruel farce, but Meat Loaf gave it a real sense of emotion which turned it into something different. It was still very theatrical, yet it had a genuine emotional heart that connected to the audience.

Steinman would spend the next forty years exploring the theme of the heartbroken outsider in his songs, from the yearning of those who didn't have and never will, the hurt of betrayal, and the romantic melodrama of desire and obsession, otherworldliness, fantasy and broken unrequited love.

More Than You Deserve is the song that inspires the songs from one of the most popular albums of all time Bat Out of Hell. It led to the creation of Two Out of Three ain't bad, For crying out loud, I'm going to love her for the both of us and later I'd do anything for love (but I won't do that). An intense broken, hearted epic genre that Meat Loaf brought to life with his superb acting and pureness of voice.

Discovering music

When it comes to music I have a clumsy knack of accidentally discovering things by mistake. I come from a working-class family of Italian migrants whose main concern was work. The most precious gifts my parents and grandparents gave me was the freedom to experience art, music and words. I never had anyone telling me what to listen to, read, or watch, I’ve discovered everything with blissful randomness.

I came into contact with opera and classical music one Sunday afternoon as a bored twelve-year-old channel surfing on the t.v during school holidays in Australia. I stumbled upon a live Met opera broadcast on the ABC network and it has never left my memory ever since. Twirling through the radio channels on my old stereo made me find ABC Classic FM, a radio station dedicated to classical music, which educated me on all sub-genres of this complex type of music, up until my mid-twenties when I moved to Italy and sadly lost this soundtrack to my life.

I first heard the American beat poet Allen Ginsberg performing his Ballad of the Skeletons on Australian Triple J radio station, the year that he died, which lead me to Jack Kerouac, Patti Smith and an entire generation of artists I didn’t know existed.

I heard Roy Orbison when his final album came out in 1988, warbling out You Got it, I fell for his ephemeral voice and slowly worked my way backwards through the catalogue of one of the founding fathers of Rock and Roll, gathering an understanding of everyone from Elvis Presley, to Charlie Perkins, Johnny Cash and the Grand Old Opry. 

The Travelling Wilbury’s lead me to the songbooks of Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Jeff Lynn. Which led me to Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello and Tom Waits all in a natural organic progression through American and British rock.

I discovered musicals also from the t.v watching Sunday afternoon re-runs of classics from Gene Kelly’s American in Paris, Singing in the Rain to Mary Poppins, the Sound of music, Carousel, Seven brides for seven brothers, Brigadoon, The Wizard of Oz and a whole universe of stories. 

I’m eternally grateful for late-night classic movie re-runs which gave me the joy of witnessing Fred Astair’s fancy footwork and amazing works of art performed by amazing actors like Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall, Peter Lorre, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, Charlton Heston, Kurt Douglas, James Stewart, Vivien Leigh, Bette Davis and the endless stars in a galaxy who shone so brightly in the now classic Hollywood style. But then that’s a whole other story. 

Today my playlist is a motley succession of artists from Icelandic princess Bjork, to the hauntingly addictive voice of Thom York, the beautifully retro sound of Amy Winehouse, the original power of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and equally powerful Florence Welch. And this will change according to my moods, the seasons and whatever else I may be thinking of, consuming or witnessing in the world.

There is precious little pop in my listening unless, despite the best of my ability, I find something too catchy to ignore or become transfixed on a chorus or a tune, but it soon works its way out of my system.

I’m Australian so I grew up with some great lyricists playing on my radio including Nick Cave, Paul Kelly, Missy Higgins and Gotye.

The haphazard habit of discovery continues today when I am suddenly struck by the unique sound of someone like Billie Ellish or Grace Vander Wall.

There was a period of my life where I forgot about music. As is the case with grief, loss or trauma, your body goes numb and you kind of phase-out of the world completely as you take time to heal your heart and slightly damaged soul. For a moment listening to music was painful. But eventually, the music came back, it eventually does as you begin to live again. Music has helped me immensely to keep going despite great sadness and holds up many of us.

Words and music have been the two things that have helped me through life. Music reminds us we are never alone, that we are each a part of a wonderful story which is, in turn, a part of ourselves. Our emotions are the same as everyone's, and our experiences contribute to this collective knowledge which grows and continues beyond us. Music is a part of the universal language of love, compassion, emotion and humanity which sustains us all.

I live in Italy now and I’m fascinated by the sounds of contemporary Italian music which has developed along the same line as Britain, America and Australia. I love the sounds of Italian rap artists like Fabri Fibra, Fedez and Jovanotti or the trendy almost K-pop sounds of Maneskine or the Kolors and the soul singer sounds of Noemi and Fiorella Mannoia.

It is truly fascinating to think of how we each have a unique relationship with music and song. For me, it's about finding a unique sound or story which sticks to my mind. It may be something which gives me pleasure, helps me to forget, laugh or cry, but above all it’s a unique connection to an emotive universal language.

I want to write more about music so I’ll be publishing occaional posts here about my electic listening habits and share some visseral reactions to different sounds I’ve heard. Be sure to listen and read along here on A Babel of Words as words and music cannot exist without one another.

My listening playlist is uniquely connected to me and my personality, we each have a personal soundtrack which accompanies us through life.