"I care as deeply about this music as other people care about their children," Jim Steinman explained. The songs he wrote were extravagant, often piano-based compositions that took their time telling their stories. Inevitably cut down for radio, they were still much longer than typical pop songs, but well worth the listen.
Looking over this list of his biggest and most grandiloquent hits, you'll notice his songs were recorded by singers of extraordinary vocal and emotional range, including Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion, and of course, Meat Loaf.
Looking over this list of his biggest and most grandiloquent hits, you'll notice his songs were recorded by singers of extraordinary vocal and emotional range, including Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion, and of course, Meat Loaf.
"Paradise By The Dashboard Light" by Meat Loaf (1977)
Billboard branded this one a "novelty" song, the same label given to Weird Al Yankovic. They clearly didn't get it. The song tells the story of a teenage couple in lust, but it's rather one-sided. The boy feels like he's going to burst, but the girl keeps holding out. Finally, he agrees to her terms: He'll love her to the end of time. He swears on it.
We then find out it didn't work out so well. Now he's "praying for the end of time to hurry up and arrive."
Despite a running time of 7:57 (for the single!) the song still got a lot of airplay and even cracked the Top 40 at #39. Playing on the song are Max Weinberg (drums) and Roy Bittan (keyboards and piano), members of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. And the baseball announcer is Phil Rizzuto, a Hall Of Fame shortstop for the New York Yankees that had transitioned into the broadcast booth as their announcer.
"Paradise By The Dashboard Light" Songfacts
"Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad" by Meat Loaf (1977)
Like "Paradise By The Dashboard Light," "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad" shows up on Meat Loaf's classic album Bat Out Of Hell, which you probably have on cassette in your basement along with some back issues of Sports Illustrated. The album sold over 14 million copies in America, with 10 million of those after 1986 as its legend grew.
And like "Paradise," it's tinged with humor. Meat Loaf's girl is giving him the boot because he won't commit, and he's trying to convince her that two out of three items on this list should be good enough:
I want you
I need you
I love you
It's rooted in a song by Elvis Presley called "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You," with Steinman applying his trademark pathos to the saying, turning that last part into, "There ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you."
"Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad" Songfacts
"Total Eclipse Of The Heart" by Bonnie Tyler (1983)
Quintessential Steinman, "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" is a vampire story inspired by the classic film Nosferatu. This love in the dark will last forever, since vampires are immortal.
The song was offered to Meat Loaf, but his record label wanted him to write his own songs at this point, so it went to Bonnie Tyler, a Welsh singer with a distinctive rasp who had a hit in 1977 with "It's A Heartache."
Despite, as usual for Steinman, the song being much longer than radio stations prefer (5:31 in the radio edit), it went to #1 in America and became one of the most famous songs of the '80s. In 1995, the British singer Nicki French had a hit with her dance version, but Tyler's original has proved everlasting. It comes back around every time there's an eclipse.
"Total Eclipse Of The Heart" Songfacts
"Making Love Out Of Nothing At All" by Air Supply (1983)
Remember how Meat Loaf turned down "Total Eclipse Of The Heart"? He did the same with "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All," which landed on the desk of the Australian soft rockers Air Supply. Their version was a big hit, #2 in America for three weeks, held off by... "Total Eclipse Of The Heart."
Steinman never talked about the meaning of the song and didn't seem as tightly bonded to it as many of his others, which is probably why he let Air Supply have it. The duo were hit machines in the early '80s, specializing in songs with "love" in the titles. Their other hits include "All Out Of Love" and "Lost in Love."
As he did with "Eclipse," Steinman produced the song and used Max Weinberg, Roy Bittan and guitarist Rick Derringer on the track.
"Making Love Out Of Nothing At All" Songfacts
"Holding Out For A Hero" by Bonnie Tyler (1984)
This one is from the movie Footloose, used in a scene where Kevin Bacon plays a game of chicken on a tractor and wins because his shoelace gets caught when he tries to bail (his foot wouldn't come loose).
Steinman has a co-writer on "Holding Out For A Hero": Dean Pitchford, who wrote the screenplay to the film and the lyrics to all the songs, which include the Kenny Loggins title track and "Let's Hear It For The Boy" by Deniece Williams, both #1 hits.
It wasn't Steinman whom Pitchford was after, it was Bonnie Tyler, but to get her involved, he had to write a song for her to sing with Steinman.
"I'd known Jim Steinman's work from all of his Meat Loaf days," Pitchford told Songfacts. "So I sat down and listened to a lot of Jim Steinman. And I came up with 'Where have all the good men gone and where are all the gods? Where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?' I wrote that lyric with an ear toward snaring Jim Steinman, and it worked. He looked at the lyric and he immediately knew what to do with it because it was so much in a style that he was familiar with."
"Holding Out For A Hero" Songfacts
"Left In The Dark" by Barbra Streisand (1984)
Steinman was also a singer, and in 1981 he released his song "Left In The Dark" on his solo album, Bad For Good. In 1984 he produced Barbra Streisand's version, which was the lead single to her album Emotion. It's a very dramatic song, written, as Steinman put it, from the perspective of "a teenage Othello." In case you slept through that particular English class, Othello killed his wife, Desdemona, in a fit of jealousy.
According to Steinman, Streisand wasn't thrilled with the lyric, where she has to play the part of a longing lover waiting for her man:
I've been lying in our bed in the dark all alone
And I've been waiting, I've been waiting for you
And yes, that's Kris Kristofferson behind the bar in the video. He and Streisand dated around the time they starred together in the 1976 version of the film A Star Is Born.
"Left In The Dark" Songfacts
"I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" by Meat Loaf (1993)
Meat Loaf made a stunning chart comeback in 1993 after mending fences with Steinman and recording this song on the sequel album Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell. It sounds like something that could have come out of the '70s, which in the early '90s was a good thing for anyone not enamored with grunge or hip-hop.
It's a passionate, piano-driven song where Meat Loaf lists all the things he'll do for love, like run right into hell and back. But this being a Steinman song, it's not that simple. He'll do anything for love, but he won't do that. OK, what's he talking about here? "I won't do that" is emphasizing the previous line, so when he sings: "I'll never stop dreaming of you every night of my life," then follows it with "I would do anything for love, but I won't do that," that is "stop dreaming of you every night of my life."
If you have 12 minutes to spare, treat yourself to the album version, which is a little audio play with some intriguing dialog. The single was cut to 5:13 and went to #1 for five weeks.
"I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" Songfacts
"It's All Coming Back to Me Now" by Celine Dion (1996)
That's right, Jim Steinman wrote one of Celine Dion's most enduring songs, one that brings the house down at her concerts (hopefully we'll hear it again soon as she recovers from Stiff Person Syndrome). But he didn't write it for her. Steinman wrote it for a girl group he produced called Pandora's Box, which released the original version in 1989 with an elaborate video. It was issued in the UK and tanked, stalling at #51, and didn't get released in America. But the song suited Celine Dion perfectly, and her 1996 version was a big hit as she ascended to the top of the diva pyramid with the likes of Shania Twain and Mariah Carey. The next year she released the unsinkable chart-topper "My Heart Will Go On."
So, what's the song about? It was inspired by Emily Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights. "It's like Heathcliff digging up Cathy's corpse and dancing with it in the cold moonlight," Steinman explained. "You can't get more extreme, operatic or passionate than that."
"It's All Coming Back to Me Now" Songfacts
March 12, 2025
Further Reading:
Interview with Ellen Foley
Interview with Holly Knight
Songs that are over 10 minutes long
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