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| re: Overthinking It | |
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Rupert 05:30 pm UTC 03/31/11 |
| In reply to: | re: Overthinking It - RSG 09:32 pm UTC 03/30/11 |
| These are the comments from the analysis of the cover of Bat out of Hell. Jonathan on Tue, 31st Aug 2010 8:38 am I always assumed that the motorcycle driver is not just taking off, but that he has broken the roof of Hell and into our world (our supernaturally apocaliptic red world). Instead of a zombie crawling clumsyly from his grave, he comes back in style. PS: Great site, excuse my English as it is not my mother language. Not even my second cousin language :-P Sam on Tue, 31st Aug 2010 8:44 am I never interpreted this scene as occurring in Hell, but rather in a graveyard directly above Hell. The rider is clearly bursting through the ground, “out of Hell”, and the I always saw the giant bat as some sort of demonic gatekeeper or hellish sentinel, who in mere moments will give chase to the “ripped naked dude”. John Perich on Tue, 31st Aug 2010 10:13 am Sam: give chase LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL? Simber on Tue, 31st Aug 2010 12:01 pm Agree with above comments. Maybe it’s the grave of Dr. Faustus that functions as a portal to hell. I always saw the bat as Satan himself and the biker as a sort of Satan’s Little Helper or, more to the point, a Hell’s Angel. I’m newly intrigued by the fact that ripped naked dude is in no way ‘riding’ the bike; he’s being yanked forward holding on for his dear, well toned life. Anyway: great album cover to Overthink, I really look forward to reading more in this series. Can we leave requests? lee on Tue, 31st Aug 2010 12:14 pm Yes! Please do leave requests. I hope this becomes a more frequent series along the lines of the Musical Talmud. Karaoke Guy on Tue, 31st Aug 2010 4:16 pm Rush – Permanent Waves Def Leppard – Pyromania Supertramp – Breakfast in America Led Zep – Houses of the Holy Van Halen – 1984 RHCP = BloodSugarSexMagik Spinal Tap – Smell the Glove :) Valatan on Wed, 1st Sep 2010 12:32 am Also, any Boston album cover Timothy J Swann on Tue, 31st Aug 2010 5:19 pm I guess it would have to be something by Storm Thorgerson. I.e. is the Muse – Absolution cover making reference to the rapture and similar dispensationalist eschatology. Matthew Belinkie on Tue, 31st Aug 2010 2:15 pm I’m a big fan of Meat Loaf’s music. Everytime I go to karaoke, I always look to see if they added any new Meat Loaf tunes (I’m hoping for “Everything Louder than Everything Else.”) So I was somewhat surprised to hear that Bat Out of Hell is meant to be ironic. Really? Is Meat Loaf basically The Darkness, pushing things to ridiculous extremes to be funny? I suppose the name suggests that this band is not taking itself remotely seriously. And yet, I don’t think every Meat Loaf song is meant to be taken as a joke. Rather, I’d say that these songs are sincere, but written by someone with a good sense of humor. So yes, a lot of Meat Loaf INCORPORATES irony, but that doesn’t mean that “I’d Do Anything For Love” is meant to be funny. I think Jim Steinman is deadly, deadly serious about making music that absolutely drips with emotion. A lot of people find his operatic style to be hilarious, but I don’t think he’s in on the joke. Tulse on Tue, 31st Aug 2010 11:37 pm So yes, a lot of Meat Loaf INCORPORATES irony, but that doesn’t mean that “I’d Do Anything For Love” is meant to be funny. Really? I agree it’s a real love song and not just a novelty, but man, there’s a double-entendre right in the chorus: “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that”, surely implying some sort of sexual act, an interpretation that is later undercut by the song’s final lyrics (lyrics which actually don’t make much sense in the context of the chorus). And certainly “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”, while again an impassioned song about teen love/lust, has parts that are obviously humorous: “we were barely 17 and we were barely dressed”; the use of the baseball play-by-play as a rather literal-minded representation of “running the bases”, and “I said I’d love her ’til the end of time/And now I’m praying for the end of time/To hurry up and arrive”. I don’t think anyone could write the lyrics Jim Steinman did for Meat Loaf and not intend to be funny — he didn’t intend to write songs that were jokes or novelties, but they are definitely intentionally funny as well as heartfelt. Now, on the other hand, “Total Eclipse of the Heart” seems deadly earnest, which makes it all the more unintentionally hilarious (especially the “Literal Video” version). (And on a completely unrelated note, if I may be permitted a “Well, actually…”, when referring to fonts, the lettering style for Meat Loaf’s name is less-confusingly called blackletter, since in font terms “gothic” often refers to sans serif fonts (which of course are the aesthetic opposite of the highly ornamental blackletter). Valatan on Wed, 1st Sep 2010 12:23 am I think you’re misunderstanding the chorus– ‘would you raise me up, would you help me down, would you take me right out of this godforsaken town? Would you take me places I’ve never been?’ ‘I can do that.’ ‘would you cater to every fantasy I’ve got, would you hose me down with holy water, if i got too hot? Woudl you take me places I’ve never been?’ ‘yeah I can do that’ ‘With all the territory I’ve been around, it’ll all turn to dust and we’ll all fall down. Sooner or later, you’ll be fooling around…’ ‘No, I won’t do THAT‘…. The ‘I won’t do that’ clearly refers to the stupid things taht lovers do that undermine love if you listen to the lyrics closely–I’ll do anything for love, and in addition, I won’t do that thing that you worry may undermine our love’. The grammar is awkward as hell, but that is the clear intent. Also, supposedly, Steinman actually cried when they removed a minute of motocycle revving out of the recording when they created the video cut, so I wonder how much humor he treated that song with. Tulse on Wed, 1st Sep 2010 7:37 am The ‘I won’t do that’ clearly refers to the stupid things taht lovers do that undermine love if you listen to the lyrics closely–I’ll do anything for love, and in addition, I won’t do that thing that you worry may undermine our love’. The grammar is awkward as hell, but that is the clear intent. Yes, that meaning of the chorus is made clear at the end of the song, but until then I think the chorus wording is meant to come off as a double entrendre. After all, given your interpretation above, the “but” in the chorus makes no sense, since the “but” is clearly meant as a restriction on the “anything [he] would do for love“, as in “I would do anything for love except for this particular thing”. Clearly “foolin’ around” is not something one would do “for love”. (Recasting the chorus as “I would do anything for love, but I won’t fool around” makes the problem clearer, as it in that case should be “I would do anything for love and I won’t fool around” or “I would do anything for love including not fool around”.) The grammar of the chorus is awkward because the chorus is written to be (humorously) misleading, with the referent for “that” ambiguous, and only clarified at the end of the song. Maybe like Mark Lee I’m “overthinking” Jim Steinman, but I have to agree with him that most of his lyrics for Meat Loaf to me have always had a wryly humorous edge to them, a leavening for their otherwise operatically bombastic nature. Valatan on Wed, 1st Sep 2010 11:17 am I still don’t buy it. Take the first few couplets of the song: And I would do anything for love, I’d run right into hell and back. I would do anything for love, I’ll never lie to you and that’s a fact. But I’ll never forget the way you feel right now, oh no, no way. And I would do anything for love, Oh I would do anything for love, I would do anything for love, But I won’t do that, No I won’t do that. The ‘that’ is clearly referencing ‘forget the way I feel right now’. It’s still plenty awkward from a grammatical standpoint, but I really dont’ think there’s another way to read it, even with this bit in isolation. He lists three things that he’d do for love, and then has something that he will refuse to do to undermine the love. The song would be clearer if, as many songwriters around 1990 were wont to do, it were titled (I would do anything for love, but) I won’t do that. Or maybe I’m too much of a math person. Tulse on Wed, 1st Sep 2010 6:57 pm He lists three things that he’d do for love, and then has something that he will refuse to do to undermine the love. I agree that the verses require that reading, but I think that the chorus (or at least title) of the song is still intended to be cheeky. The problem is really with the conjunction used — I would be all over your interpretation if he said “and I won’t do that”. In the chorus, the “but” is clearly put in opposition to the “anything for love”. The song would be clearer if, as many songwriters around 1990 were wont to do, it were titled (I would do anything for love, but) I won’t do that. The official title (at least on iTunes) is “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”, and with just that text alone, I’m hard-pressed not to see the title as a double entendre. I suppose it’s all in the eye of the beholder. For me, if it’s not meant to be somewhat playful, I think the song is a lot less interesting. Brimstone on Thu, 2nd Sep 2010 2:44 am i love this album, and i don’t think it’s meant to be ironic. it’s a more over the top version of Springsteen’s urban hellscapes – movie version of his novels fenzel on Fri, 3rd Sep 2010 3:36 pm You are misunderstanding the concept of “irony” pretty severely — but then again, most of the writers on this site do it a lot, so I don’t blame you ;-) (My private war on “earony” continues.) Irony does not mean something isn’t serious. Irony is not the opposite of earnesty or sincerity. Not in the slightest. Not even a little bit. The greek tragedies are the poster children for irony, and they are tremendously earnest, sincere and serious. There is no conflict at all between something having both sets of qualities. A lot of the time, irony makes something more serious, more earnest, more sincere. Meatloaf was his nickname when he was a high school football player, because he was (and is) fat — but he was (and is) a big, strong, powerful dude. His songs reflect this. Consider his scene in The Rocky Horror Picture show — yeah, he’s not svelte, but what his character represents isn’t that much different from the ab-sporting barbarian on the motorcycle. You don’t have to be thin to be masculine. People seem to be forgetting this in the age of the Decline of Man. In hindsight, the singlet on Andre the Giant seems ironic, but at the time, it was another way to heighten the obvious masculinity of such an imposing presence. Gab on Sun, 5th Sep 2010 7:48 pm May I suggest a Think-Tank wherein y’all debate the definition of irony and give your favorite example(s)? Matthew Wrather on Sun, 5th Sep 2010 9:32 pm I’m not sure there’s much debate a good dictionary or a glossary of literary criticism wouldn’t settle. For what it’s worth, I recommend this one: http://amzn.to/cMx3GX Gab on Mon, 6th Sep 2010 8:45 am Well, it seems to me there’s a difference between dictionary definitions and personal usage, so what I meant was personal definitions, I suppose. Sorry. Gab on Sun, 5th Sep 2010 11:16 am My Request: Green Day, Dookie. chris strange on Mon, 6th Sep 2010 6:22 am It is the Bat Out of Hell, so the iconography should be about somebody that is being released from hell. The reddish hued landscape is not hell, because that is what the inappropriately attired motorcyclist is escaping from. Therefore surely the album cover must be seen in this context. You often saw naked people springing from their graves in medeaval dipictions of Last Judgement in order to fit with the Christian teaching of bodily resurrection. There are other traditions about the end times amoungst Christian sects but that is the one that seems to fit and the prominant use of crosses on the grave markers means that this is definitely a Christian graveyard. However a Christian would not have been burried with grave goods, in this case a fantastic Morotcycle (which is probably not a Harley because it has a strait four engine rather than the traditional Harley V-Twin). Grave goods were often placed by other cultures that, as far as we know, believed in bodily resurrection and physical after life. Of course the Christian dogma is that pre-Christians would also get ressurected and judged I believe that so that still kind of fits. So we have a pre-Christian corpse being resurrected during a Medeaval Christian end-times, however our pre-Christian has a motorcycle, which would date him in the post-Pagan era. My first option to resolve this conflict would be with Terminator, because everything is better with Terminator, and the cyborg nature of the motorcycle does fit. However the release dates unfortunately make this impossible. So maybe that is what the Bat is doing: laughting at the anachronistic nature of the rest of the cover art. > ? > > > Suggest you copy and paste the content of people opinions > > here which would start up a discussion. > > > > > An analysis of, Bat Out Of Hell... cover art! | |
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