MEAT LOAF GLOWING LIKE THE METAL ON THE EDGE OF A KNIFE

Meat Loaf came on the radio a couple of years back while I was driving chaperones for French foreign exchange students around town.

They were in their twenties, too young to know Meat Loaf. Hi, Quintan. Hi, Marion.

I almost pulled over in stitches when they started singing along to Paradise By The Dashboard Light.

What. The. Hell?

Years before the song came out I was walking around my hometown when a guy a year older pulled over to stay hello. Or something.

The girl on the passenger side leaned over to the driver’s window and said, “We’re a couple now. He said he loves me.”

“You make a nice couple.”

What else do you say? After Paradise came out it and became an all-time soundtrack, I knew the answer.

So did anyone who heard it:

RIP Meatloaf. Thank you for making this song part of my life growing up.

I was twenty-two when it came out and it sounded like it had been around decades, like an answer to Wake Up Little Susie.

My mom played the f#ck out of this album and it was beaten into my brain as a kid. RIP Meat Loaf! Thanks for all the childhood memories.

It’s a song of hope and accountability, about loving someone to the end of time.

Or it could be.

My dad always played this song when he was drinking. I’ve memorized everything, it’s basically muscle memory now. Rest in Peace Meatloaf. You are a legend.

The Meat Loaf Legend Of Love

I never had a girl
Looking any better than you did
And all the kids at school
They were wishing they were me that night

The beauty of the song is its universal appeal to a certain time and place.

Everyone can be seventeen again for a few minutes without regrets or explanations.

Ain’t no doubt about it
We were doubly blessed
‘Cause we were barely seventeen
And we were barely dressed

The video shows a big sweaty-man Meat Loaf singing to a hot babe on stage who holds her own against him.

Before we go any further!
Do you love me?
Will you love me forever?
Do you need me?
Will you never leave me?
Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life?
Will you take me away and will you make me your wife?
Do you love me!?
Will you love me forever!?

Before thinking this is a song from one point of view, fans make the correction. Mary says:

Paradise By The Dashboard Light – Being a teenager captured for all time. All of Meatloaf’s work was ICONIC and we have his work for all to hail as their Anthem. He LIVES especially when parked in a car and watching the Submarine Races for ALL TIME! Can only imagine the band he is working with now in heaven. LOVE

RIP Meat Loaf. This song reminds us that love can be epic, tragic, heroic, obsessive. We need that now.

Why Paradise Will Last Forever

From seventeen to sixty-seven things change. If you didn’t know, now you know.

But one thing never changes and Meat Loaf got it down.

I’ll never break my promise or forget my vow
But God only knows what I can do right now
I’m praying for the end of time
It’s all that I can do
Praying for the end of time,
So I can end my time with you!

Paradise is educational.

He taught us the consequences of hasty choices made in the heat of the moment. Thank you Meatloaf. You will be missed.

Paradise is historical.

It was long ago and it was far away
And it was so much better than it is today

And its lasting power is still going strong.

The times sitting at the campfires at our cottage, Heather getting on the table and Greg standing on the floor next to her singing this song to each other at their wedding and tradition of everyone getting up to sing and dance to this legendary song every time it played will forever be in our memory.

At its core, Paradise By The Dashboard Light is a love song for the ages, and one hilarious video.

I wish young ppl could experience the feeling of driving down the road and popping in the cassette of Bat Out of Hell to listen to this masterpiece over and over. “We were glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife.”

No one did it better than the original.

Meat Loaf will never lose his glow.

Play your music.