11. Everything louder than everything else- Meatloaf

For as long as I can remember I’ve been a sucker for a good tune, lyrics to make you cringe and that overwhelming feeling that something is grabbing your insides and squeezing you tight. This song encapsulates all that into a nifty 8 minutes. I could have picked anything from the Bon Jovi/Def Leppard/Bryan Adams back catalogue but nothing else gets closer to defining my love of uncool music that makes me put my fist in the air, sing at the top of my voice and want to drive off cliffs triumphantly.

Meatloaf himself is an incredibly uncool person. He has no style or taste, looks or even critical appreciation. You don’t admit to liking Meatloaf. And if you do it’s probably only because Bat out of Hell IS a classic rock album and you want to show you know things like that. The fact that his music makes you lie on your back on the floor playing air guitar remains a closely guarded secret between you and your bedroom walls. Especially if you are a girl. This is, in theory, the music of boys. The music that makes them want to grab girls, drive off into the night and get laid in a good all time American way. But it still does something in the deepest darkest regions of my soul that I don’t want to talk about.

The song itself sums up and defines everything about the genre that I love, from the opening; ridiculous dialogue and unashamed passion for lines that no human being should be allowed to say out loud. “Goddammit daddy, you know I love you, but you got a hell of a lot to learn about Rock and Roll”. I mean, really. How do you get away with something like that? But from those opening lines to the very first power chord you are hooked into something that approaches embarrassment, but ends up grabbing you by the scruff of the neck and pushing you into a room that you long to enter but have never dared. You see, the song has an affect, it makes me write overblown long pompous statements. It is an overblown long pompous song and I love it.

It sums up the disaffection of youth, the desire to escape, the feelings of being misunderstood, and and and…. Look, lets forget the cod psychology and sociological explanations, the song rocks. more importantly it ROCKS. I can’t defend the song. It has no defence, it’s overblown, stupid, cheesy, clichéd and far far too long. But I love it. I love that I can sing along to it at the top of my voice. I love that when it comes on I want to sing with all my heart, and truly believe that a wasted youth is better by far than a wise and productive old age. That life has no meaning so we might as well sing into the night, jump onto a stage and play music until we can play no more.

Who knows, maybe it’s just me. I wish I was cooler, I wish I reacted differently, but there is something about this music. It’s got me. Cheesy rock. The anthem of the rebel stuck inside me that wants to stick two fingers up at life and believes that problems can be solved and life can be worth living if all you have is a guitar, some drums and a few killer riffs. And write clichéd sentences with the phrase ‘killer riff’ in them. Oh dear.

Kill me now.