Never Let Your Meat Loaf

Sadly, Marvin Aday, also known by his stage name “Meat Loaf,” just passed away. I always admired his bat-out-of-hell chutzpah and stood in absolute awe of his enormous brass balls (even If I hadn’t exactly been a rabid fan of the music). Truth be known, my musical tastes run more to Progressive Rock and Jazz Fusion, so I never really listened  to his music. As I recall, Mr. Loaf was often overlooked by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) Nominating Committee (Meat Loaf was never nominated for an Oscar for his cameo performances in films). Was this merely a Hollywood snub of an industry outsider, or was his over-the-top style simply too large to fit into the small, mean box of an award category?

For Meat Loaf, music and acting were the twin pile drivers of his life in the arts, so he may not have seen coaching children’s baseball or professional Fantasy Baseball on the career horizon any more than I did (my objects were definitely not larger than they appeared in the rear view mirror). My only bone to pick with Meat Loaf is this:

In his 1993 hit song I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That), Mr. Loaf sang the lyric “I would do anything for love …but I won’t do that” without ever saying exactly what “that” was. It could be that “that” involved some kind of risky behavior, like exposure to HPV or Butt-Herpes, or maybe “that” involved something really, really serious, like French-kissing someone’s sphincter or loaning a co-worker money. Now that he’s gone, I guess we’ll never know for sure, though we just may be indebted to the man for sparing us the potentially disgusting details; however, my specific complaint is only with the song title itself. Truth in advertising demands something more like “I Would Do Almost Anything For Love (Except For Muff Diving, Rim Jobs, or Contracting Anal Herpes),” or “I Would Do Almost Anything For Love Except the Dirty Sanchez.” It is entirely plausible that, in fact, Meat Loaf did try to use such a title (I really don’t know) …but I do know corporate executives and the way boardroom conversations tend to play out: “GREAT JOB, Mike! The Marketing boys thought a couple of the titles were a little too long for the liner notes, so we made a few minor changes but, overall, Hey, Dude! GREAT JOB!.”

Anyway, I say we give him a pass on the title.