Songfacts®:

• Hang Cool Teddy Bear is the 11th studio album by Meat Loaf. The disc's concept is based on a short story by Meat Loaf's screenwriter friend Kilian Kerwin, in which a dying soldier sees his life flash forward rather than back. This is the album's opening track, and it sets up its central theme. Meat Loaf explained at a London listening party: "It's the story of a soldier. He's been in an unspecified battle, and he's lying face down on the ground. They talk of seeing your life flash backwards when you're about to die, but this guy's life flashes forwards instead. He can't get up. He tries to crawl and he's unable to do that, too. The songs are about the different scenarios he finds himself in as his life goes by. At the conclusion… well, let's just say it's not a Hollywood ending."
• The singer told The London Times April 9, 2010: "The anti-war people will probably say this is an anti-war record, the pro-war people could probably say it's pro-war. But it's not about a war, it's about a human being and where he is; the guy is keeping himself alive with these nightmarish events. This entire record is the same character, so I sang with the attitude of someone who was 21 to 24. I had to forget anything I could have possibly learnt in the last 40 years."
• In an interview with Billboard magazine, Meat Loaf dismissed some comparisons that have been made between Hang Cool Teddy Bear and his Bat Out of Hell series. "Sonically, this record is so far removed from any album I've ever done before, and I wanted it that way," he explained. "I wanted it to be more organic. I wanted the songs to be about a human condition as opposed to always attempting to get laid, 'cause that's basically what ('Bat' partner Jim) Steinman writes about. Every song with him is about the anticipation of getting laid or wanting to get laid, which is not a bad thing, but everything is about sex. This one is not. This is about the human condition. The lyrical structures, the character structures, are completely different on this. It's an emotional wave that rides a different side of the brain. It really is a departure."