Paradise By The Dashboard Light – Meat Loaf | Top 40 Chart Performance, Story and Song Meaning
Chart Performance: Pop (#39); 1978
Story Behind The Song By Ed Osborne
Meat Loaf’s music – a fusion of Broadway bombast, B-film melodrama, and rock ‘n’ roll excess – must surely rank as some of the strangest of the classic rock era.
Meat Loaf, allegedly the childhood nickname of Dallas-born Marvin Lee Aday, moved to L.A. where he formed the bands Meat Loaf Soul and Popcorn Blizzard opening for headliners such as the Who and Ted Nugent.
Meat also performed in a West Coast production of Hair, which got him into the stage show biz where he met Jim Steinman. By 1976, Steinman was hard at work on Never Land, a musical take on Peter Pan.
Most of Never Land‘s music eventually ended up on the Todd Rundgren-produced Bat Out Of Hell album. Among Bat‘s gems was Paradise with Ellen Foley taking the role as Meat’s feisty girlfriend, and baseball announcer Phil Rizzuto calling the play-by-play.
This content and all Song Meaning articles were created and written by Top 40 Contributing Editor Ed Osborne. © 2024 Ed Osborne. All Rights Reserved. In addition to these song meaning articles, Ed has written our “Year in Music 1960s-1990s” articles.
Produced by:
- Todd Rundgren
Lyrics Written by:
- Jim Steinman
Ed Osborne
Hi. I got my first record at age two and never looked back, spending a decades-long career in radio and the music business. Even after years of reading about and listening to all types of music, I am still fascinated by it. Apart from that, I’m endlessly intrigued by art, nature, and the inner lives of people (and dogs).