Songfacts®:

• Before Barry Manilow popularized this breakup tune on his 1983 Greatest Hits Vol. II collection, Meat Loaf introduced the Jim Steinman-penned rock ballad on his sophomore album, Dead Ringer. It finds the singer trying to pen a passionate missive to his ex as he grapples with his emotions over their split.
• Jim Steinman produced "Read 'Em And Weep" with Jimmy Iovine, who mixed some tracks on Meat's 1977 debut, Bat Out Of Hell. In the interim, Iovine co-produced Tommy Petty And The Heartbreakers' Damn The Torpedoes and Dire Straits' Making Movies.
• This was the third single from Dead Ringer, following "I'm Going To Love Her For Both Of Us" and "Dead Ringer For Love." It didn't make the charts until Manilow took it to #18 (#17 UK) a couple years later.
• Although Steinman also produced Manilow's rendition of the song, Meat Loaf didn't think the soft-rock singer (or Barbra Streisand, for that matter) understood what it took to bring a Steinman song to life. Following Steinman's 2021 death, the singer told Rolling Stone:
  
  "But what Barbra Streisand [who covered Steinman's "Left In The Dark"] and Barry Manilow didn't understand is that you can't just have a great voice and sing a Jim Steinman song. You have to become a Jim Steinman song. You have to be the song. You don't sing the song. You are the song."
• Dead Ringer went to #1 in the UK, but with sales of 300,000 copies, it was considered a commercial failure compared to his smash 1977 debut, Bat Out Of Hell, which remains one of the best-selling albums in history with 43 million copies sold worldwide.
• The follow-up to Bat Out Of Hell was supposed to be Bad For Good, a batch of songs Steinman ended up recording himself while Meat Loaf was struggling with vocal issues. In the meantime, Meat returned to acting to take his mind off his troubles, starring in the rock-and-roll comedy Roadie, and Steinman wrote the eight songs that became Dead Ringer.