Bat Out of Hell

Bat Out of Hell (1977-2006) was a Wagnerian Rock experiment created by deranged Peter Pan enthusiast Jim Steinman, human motorcycle Todd Rundgren and ironic vegetarian Meat Loaf. It consists of over 9000 albums, each containing numerous deaths, rebirths, winged mammals, and poems about motorcycles having sex (See Nocturnal Pleasure). It was conceived in 1975, but was born about 3 years later, spending FAR too much time in Steinman's womb. To date, the creatures have been sold to over 70 million motorcycle porn fans worldwide. After the 27th iteration, released in 2006, Bat Out Of Hell died in its California estate at the age of 29 under strange circumstances.

Bat Out Of Hell
Note the motorcycle and the big-ass bat. They're on each and every cover.
Album by Meat Loaf
Released	1977, 1993, and 2006
Recorded	The beginning of time
Genre	Wankerian Rock
Number of Discs	9000
Running Time	Infinite
Record label	Cleveland
Producer	Jim Steinman
Professional reviews
Mid review	.1/5
Intelligent Rock Reviewer Magazine review	"They made another one?"

Creation

The Experiment

In 1967, pianist Jim Steinman fell down a well, and was assaulted by bats, who killed his parents and girlfriend. But remember, this was before Batman Begins was made, so he had no idea what to do. He decided that the best course of action would be to develop a Peter Pan fetish, befriend a whale named Meat Loaf, and start writing a musical based on the bats that so influenced his life.

After enrolling himself in the New York University of Bats and Motorcycles, Steinman dreamed of one day perverting the minds of other children with his tales of woe. His first attempt was Neverland, a musical he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in starting in 1971. Unfortunately, audiences did not react as Steinman had planned. When the flying kangaroo read its monologue in Act 4, Steinman was met with tears of confusion instead of tears of joy, and the presumed cheers of victory at the death of Santa Claus on page 856 of the transcript was received with a theater-wide walkout. Steinman was devastated that people didn't understand his insane ramblings, but had hope that someday, he'd meet two other people in the music industry as desperate as he was.

Pregnancy

In 1974, Steinman's prayers were answered. God was obviously looking down on poor Jimmy when he asked for someone who believed in his style of music. What Jim failed to specify to God was that this person should preferably be under 500 pounds, and not be named after a food. But hey, God can't get everything right.

Marvin "Meat Loaf" Aday met Steinman at an audition for another of Steinman's attempts at pleasing an audience with one of his ramblings. The play flopped, but Loaf and Steinman developed a strong friendship, and shared many similar childhood experiences (well, except for the whole "family murdered by bats" bit - Loaf's parents were actually eaten by him before the bats could arrive). When the pair was thrown out into the New York gutter for the 80th time, they decided they'd get the job done themselves, and in record time, met with producer Todd Rundgren to record 7 of Steinman's favorites from over the years. Meat Loaf sang the entire 12 sided record in one breath, and the trio thought to themselves: "We have one hell of a record." Unfortunately, there wasn't another soul in the entire world that agreed with them.

The following is their final track listing for the record:

1. "Bat Out Of Hell" (19:50)
2. "You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth" (14:32)
3. "Heaven Can Wait" (13:55)
4. "All Revved Up With No Place To Go" (11:23)
5. "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad" (15:12)
6. "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" (32:59)
7. "For Crying Out Loud" (∞) *

* Denotes That The Song Is Endless

Birth

In the spring of 1976, Meat Loaf was working in a Burger King, "taking care" of the burger storage container, and Jim Steinman was huddled in the corner of his empty apartment building staring at the now finished Bat Out Of Hell. He knew he had created a monster that could devour the entire world. For this reason, he couldn't wait to release it. Unfortunately though, not a soul would touch the thing. It had attained the title of "damaged goods," and probably did have AIDS and Syphilis, so no record companies were willing to poke it with a ten foot pole. The album lived with Steinman for another year before he attempted to murder it in its sleep. It awoke to the image of Steinman wielding a Peter Pan bookmark, ready to slice through all 12 sides of its record glory. It simply walked out the door and started whoring itself to nearby record release agents.

Down the road at Cleveland International Records, Bat Out Of Hell put on an impressive lap dance for the executive Vice President, and signed its soul over to the company for eternity. This pleased Jim Steinman, and Meat Loaf was so brightened by the news, he quit cocaine, marijuana, lsd, cabbage and meat products. Finally, the duo's creation could be heard at a select number of record stores in the Ohio area, but Bat Out Of Hell had higher prospects - the world.

Meat Loaf's Promotion Plan

Despite a release, the early sales for Bat Out Of Hell were dismal, and Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf struggled to find a working method to attract an audience. Over the next decade, they'd experiment with mutliple methods.

The Neverending Tour Of 1978

A headline after Meat Loaf's third death in 1978.

In summer 1977, Jim Steinman recognized the fact that the more shows a band performs, the more fans they attract. Meat Loaf took this statement a little too seriously. From 1977 to early 1979, Meat Loaf and the Neverland Express preformed an average of 25 shows a day, 8 days a week, 13 months a year. Meat Loaf died four times over the course of the tour, and his voice box was paralysed by the constant screaming of the three high C's. Jim looked on in horror. His singer was dying, but surprisingly, the record was doing brilliantly. Within the first two years, Bat Out Of Hell was easily in reach of the 5 million units milestone. After Meat Loaf's third death in July 1978, the record sold an approximated 500 K units, and after his rise from the grave several days later, it sold an additional 1 million.

Adding to the effects of the tour, Jim and Meat's relationship was entering a sour point. Jim felt that Meat was getting all the attention, and Meat was jealous that Jim had outlived him five times over the course of the year. They were, however, able to hide the tension, and audiences accepted their insanity with open arms. This method of ongoing tours reached its end in early 1979 when a zombie-like Meat Loaf entered production for the sequel.

Attempts At Recording A Sequel

In 1979, Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman were ready to add to their motorcycle porn collection with a sequel, the fabled Bat Out Of Hell II. Unfortunately, the 1978 tour had some negative effects on Meat Loaf. For one, he was now a zombie, and he also had lost his ability to sing, as he had a paralysed vocal cord. Jim tried multiple methods of curing Meat.

Attempt 1 - Jim read Meat from his Peter Pan book, hoping that the magic of Tinkerbell would guide Meat to being cured. It didn't.

Attempt 2 - Jim hired Chuck Norris to bless Meat with his powers, but sadly, Chuck was too busy kicking ass.

Attempt 3 - Jim ringed God again. No answer.

Attempt 9 - Jim introduced Meat to Barry Manilow. Meat attempted suicide, but no progress was made on his voice.

Attempt 17 - A wizard visited Meat Loaf in the night. Meat thought it was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and stabbed him in the chest. That's how Jim's brother Kenny died.

Attempt 45 - Jim was beginning to lose digression and just try anything by this point. He had a theory that paralysed vocal cords were like sea urchin stings, so he decided to piss on Meat Loaf's throat till he was cured. What he got was a fist to the balls.

After another year full of sad attempts to cure Meat Loaf, Jim gave up.

Bad For Good and Dead Ringer

In 1981, Meat Loaf was back working at Burger King, and Jim Steinman was once again huddled in a corner of his apartment complex. His object of fixation this time was on Bad For Good, the sequel to Bat Out Of Hell that Meat Loaf had failed to record two years earlier. Jim had recruited Rory Dodd to sing in Meat's place, but was now struggling with getting the new record accepted to a publishing company. He decided to toss the record out the window in the hope someone would find it and give it the proper respect. Instead, a hobo took a piss on it, and a trash truck ran it over several times before it died.

On the other side of things, Meat Loaf had quite a fixation of his own - the whopper. He became a whopper addict in 1981, which messed with his mind so much that it effected the recording of his own attempt at a new record - Dead Ringer. He had recently found one of Steinman's rejected songbooks which contained 8 songs that failed to make the cut of Bad For Good. Meat Loaf didn't give a crap, and recorded them, strained voice and all, and released it later that year. The same hobo that pissed all over Bad For Good was involved in a group pissing tournament on the corpse of Dead Ringer, which failed to gain an audience comparable to Bat Out Of Hell.

Bonnie Tyler and The Neverending Tour II

The 1980s were separate times for Meat Laof and Jim Steinman. For musical purposes, they had broken up, and the separate paths they took ended up leading back to Bat Out Of Hell II, which, like "Judgment Day" in the Terminator series, can only be delayed, not prevented.

Jim Steinman started working with Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler on an album partially planned as a revenge scheme on Meat Loaf. Starting in 1982, they began gathering together material for the album Faster Than The Speed Of Night, which was, to the disappointment of Bat Out Of Hell fans, not motorcycle porn. Jim had offered Bonnie the option of recording some of his more motorcycle/bat related material, but she threatened his life, and he was forced to write a ballad about a moon shaped heart instead.

Meat Loaf, on the other hand, had regained his voice, but was now without a writer. He could find only one thing to do - Continue touring. Starting in 1984, Meat Loaf started a continuous world tour, but surprisingly, did not die at any point during the performances. He started from the ground up, performing in nightclubs and acting as a birthday party clown. He then moved on to high school talent shows and Bar Mitzvahs until Americans finally started to recognize him. By 1989, he was back to selling out hotel bars and making insane asylum crowds go wild. The tour continued until he was offered the job as his daughter's softball team's coach. Only a fool would turn down that offer, so Meat gladly accepted.

Adding To The Series

By the 1990s, Bat Out Of Hell had re-emerged around the world thanks to the efforts of Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf in the 1980s. This resulted in millions more sales, and demands for the long awaited sequel(s).

Bat Out Of Hell II - Back Into Hell

In 1990, Jim Steinman was huddled in a corner yet again, this time staring into the eyes of his least sensical creation yet, a song titled I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That). The song combined Jim's motorcycle fetish with a Phantom of the Opera vibe, adding up to a 12 minute long journey through Jim's repetitive mind.

This was only the first in a long series of efforts made at releasing Bat Out Of Hell II. The second, and arguably the most important step, was talking Meat Loaf out of resigning as his daughter's softball coach. Jim did this with promises of many man whoppers and pork sandwiches. Meat Loaf quickly divorced his wife and handed in his resignation to the Little League, and joined Jim in a project known as Back Into Hell.

The cover art for Bat Out Of Hell II. Original, isn't it.

Over the course of the next 3 years, Jim wrote some of the longest titles in music history, and wrote equally long songs to go along with them. The following was the final track listing for Bat Out Of Hell II - Back Into Hell.

1. "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That, No Matter What That May Be, Though I Might Do It For Sex)" (12:00)
2. "Life Is A Lemon And I Want My Money Back (Though A Gift card Or Store Credit Would Do)" (18:00)
3. "Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through (Wet Dreams Don't Come Through Often Enough)" (13:34)
4. "It Just Won't Quit (Even After It Was Fired From Burger King)" (27:12)
5. "Out Of The Frying Pan And Into The Fire (And Then Into Meat Loaf's Mouth)" (16:51)
6. "Objects In The Rear view Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are (And There's A Wet Road Ahead)" (∞) *
7. "A Wasted Youth Is Better By Far Than A Wise And Productive Old Age/Everything Louder Than Everything Else" (55:09)
8. "Good Girls Go To Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere, And Bat Girls Are Raped By Jim Steinman" (21:50)
9. "Back Into Hell/Lost Boys And Golden Girls (Peter Pan And Betty White)" (∞) *

* Denotes That The Song(s) Are Endless

Bat Picture Show

In 1993, Bat Out Of Hell II was released to the public and sold over 10 million units within 2 years of release. This prompted Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman to go on tour yet again, though it was reduced to a mere 37 shows per week, as Meat Loaf was no longer as limber and active as he had been in 1977. Because Meat Loaf was now 48, most expected the tomb that was created for him in 1978 to finally be put to use, though he managed to go the whole 3 year tour without dying a single time. His success at avoiding death caused Meat to enter a fit of activity. Over the next 7 years, he managed to land a role in shitty movie masterpiece Spice World and cut off the horse mane of hair that made children of all ages run in fear.

Operation Canadian Thunder

At a chance meeting in no way planned by Jim Steinman for several years prior to the event, Canadian singer Celine Dion was approached with the prospect of recording a new Steinman song - It's All Coming Back To Me Now, a song either about indigestion or sex, possibly both, knowing Jim. Dion agreed. When singer Meat Loaf receioved word that a foreigner was recording a song he thought was his, he got hooked on phonix, a comically lethal drug in no way related to the children's reading advertisements. By 1996, Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman hated each other again.

The Celine Dion single release of It's All Coming Back To Me Now proved to be a smash hit. Meat Loaf punched a wall in his New York apartment, shaved his head, and changed his name to Michael.

Mr. Steinman Goes To Broadway

For about two seconds, Jim Steinman had the delusion that the theater world was willing to give him a second chance after his recent success. Over the next few years, he attempted to bring his own unique style to Broadway. He failed.

Wissle Duwm Tht wing

Jim Steinman and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber united in the summer of 1996 with prospects of writing a musical. Unfortunately, nobody cared enough to even spell the name correctly, and audiences sometimes hit negative numbers.

Meat Loaf attended a show in 1997, deciding to give his old pal Steinman a ticket sale, the only one of the show's entire run. What he saw inspired him to sneeze in Act II, pass out in Act III, and sign a contract deal in Act IV to record three of the songs from the musical in his latest Best Of compilation album.

The album sold two copies, one to Meat Loaf himself, and one to the hobo who pissed on Bad For Good, who was feeling like a good piss. By the year 1998, Meat Loaf was hungry for the final installment in the Bat Out Of Hell trilogy. Either that or it was pork chops, but it was probably the album.

Batman The Musical

Yes, Batman The Musical almost happened, and would you guess none other than Jim Steinman to be the mind behind it. Needless to say, Peter Pan was able to warn Batman before Steinman could get too far into production, and the musical never became a reality. Desperate singer Meat Loaf, however, was taking notice. He had been pestering Jim about writing another motorcycle porn record, but finding Jim dressed in a black cape singing about Commissioner Gordon made Meat Loaf considerably angry. Not angry enough, however, that he wouldn't try out for the part of Batman.

Final Years

In 2001, at the age of 24, the Bat Out Of Hell record was still selling, Jim Steinman was still buying Peter Pan collectables, and Meat Loaf was still eating whoppers. Not much had changed, especially when Meat Loaf publically announced the third installment in the Bat Out Of Hell series to be released shortly in the future. By shortly in the future, Meat Loaf meant 5 years.

Bat Out Of Hell III or Desmond Child and the Last Crusade

Jim Steinman's lawyers or something were pissing Meat Loaf off. This pissing was intense, so intense that derranged lunatic Desmond Child stopped glaring creepily at a mailbox and began stalking Meat Loaf. Meat Loaf had no clue who the man was, but judging by his creepyness and insanity, he wagered that he must be a record producer. He was right.

In the fall of 2005, Desmond Child and 9000 other musicians began work on Bat Out Of Hell III - The Monster Is Loose. While Meat Loaf was in the bathroom, they managed to finish recording the album, shipping it all around the world, and mailing a box of breadcrums to Jim Steinman. Meat Loaf exited the bathroom, fired everyone, and developed a cyst on his vocal chords.

Desmond Child. Fear him.

To Meat Loaf's dismay, the following is the final track listing for Bat Ouf Of Hell III:

1. "The Monster Is Loose (But Who Cares [The Monster Sucked Anyway])" (87,0000,000,0003:3939:4284928)
2. "Blind As A Bat (Haha, there's a 'Bat' in the title. How original.)" (87:99)
3. "It's All Coming Back To Me Now (I Still Hate You, Celine)" (w)
4. "Bad For Good (Wanted: Hobo to piss on me)" (2)
5. "Cry Over Me (Or Piss on Me, either one works)" (%#@$)*
6. "In The Land Of The Pig The Butcher Is King And Desmond Child Is A Derranged Lunatic" (3.14159)
7. "Monstro (It's kinda like monster but sounds kinda Italian)" (11235813:4327489374897)
8. "Alive (Well, if you don't count the 12 times I died already)" (Who cares)
9. "If God Could Talk (He'd Tell Desmond To Shut The Hell Up)" (A buch of minutes and seconds)
10. "If It Ain't Broke Break It And If It's Desmond Punch It In The Face" (About 60 years)
11. "What About Love (What About Bats [What About Hell])" (Slept Through This One)
12. "Seize The Night (Just Don't Let Desmond Child Seize You While You Do)" (∞)
13. "The Future Ain't What It Used To Be (And 90% Of The Game Is Half Mental)" (Who knows)
14. "Cry To Heaven (Or Laugh Cuz It's Finally Over)" (∞) *

* Denotes That The Song Couldn't End Soon Enough

Death

On October 31, 2006, Bat Out Of Hell died mysteriously in it's California estate at the age of 29. The police ruled it a suicide, though A1 Steak sauce and several of Desmond Child's teeth were found in its body. Meat Loaf was contacted immediately following news of the death, and was noticeably upset, swearing to avenge the death of his baby. He went of a yearlong tour. Jim Steinman's carrier pigeon, Peter (I wonder where he got the name), brought word of the death of his only non-retarded child, and Jim wept a single tear. He then met up with the hobo that pissed on Bad For Good and helped him piss on the body of Bat Out Of Hell.

Attempts At Resurrection

Apparently, Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman both secretly (shh...) want to make a few more Bat Out Of Hell records. The death of the series is simply a minor inconvenience. Meat Loaf has hopes it can be resurrected much in the same way he was in 1978. Jim has already begun work on a Bat Out Of Hell musical. Yes, you heard that right. A Bat Out Of Hell musical featuring each and every Bat Out Of Hell song. Jim is persistent.

No advancements have been made on Bat Out Of Hell IV, though Desmond Child usually pops up when you least expect it.

It's not a question of "whether" Desmond Child will kill you. It's "when."

See also

• Jim Steinman
• Meat Loaf
• Desmond Child
• Andrew Lloyd Webber