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Ridiculously Long Songs I Like; Bat Out Of Hell
More Mike's sort of thing, but I'm going to take a stab at it myself.
First up is Meatloaf's signature track from his 1977 album of the same name. Although the radio edit is a respectible 4:54, the album version weighs in at an operatic 9:51 so this certainly qualifies as ridiculously overlong, and yet you're given a full narrative and sweeping strokes of emotion and power chords.
Opening with a frenetic pacing of keyboards and staccato machinegunning of electric guitar with occasional wails and whines it builds and builds to a crashing announcement of a genuine hair-rock epic. 2 minutes in and you still haven't heard a lyric until everything slows and Aday himself sets the tone.
The urgency imparted in the first verses before the chorus kicks in evoke images of teenage rebellion and anti-establishment sentiment. Things slow to a choral admission of vulnerability before we're back into the immediacy of instant gratification, for one night only, and if he's gotta be damned then he might as well be damned with her. Maybe the bat in question is actually his batshit desire to escape and tear out of there on his bike.
Switching between the slow church organ admissions of guilt before tearing into more road racing rock keeps the track from becoming repetitive and more like a road journey. Just try and avoid thinking of being on that hog with your arms wrapped around Meat Loaf's waist.
And then the crash.
The inevitability of it and the resignation to his fate, almost welcoming it, knowing that this was his destiny, to die young and hard and fast after one pure experience turns tragedy to triumph and as the young lady croons in the background and the bells toll you almost feel like going and doing something incredibly foolhardy and stupid yourself.
May.24.2007