Meatloaf "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)"

*****Number One, November 5th, 1993*****

Hot on the heels of last week's thoroughly successful randomization modification, we return to the charts today to consider five new options for my pointless poking and prodding.  Below is the the most recent batch of number one songs from music history that those industrious ghosts of the internet have sent my way.  The list is strong.  

And, more than a little bit relationshippy.  

I mean, sure, the entire universe of songs is pretty much built on the foundation of the topic of humans and their odd proclivity for wanting to kanoodle with other humans.  Whether it's pre-kanoodle, post-kanoodle, or raging against the kanoodling machine, it's an extremely familiar device.  But, based on my initial knowledge of the selections in this group, they all feel to be on very similar footing.  

To help check this theory out, and assess my pick for this particular post, I'll grab a couplet from each tune.  Hey, couplet, couple.  Ooh!  Hey I am being clever, which is working out great for me, thanks for asking, Brad.  

Whoa, totally unplanned symmetry here

*March 26, 2004*

Usher (featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris) "Yeah"

Key Couplet

"Yeah! Okay (Usher, Usher, Usher)

Lil' Jon"

Ok, I know, this song is not about the dudes performing it.  It pertains to clubs, fancy ladies and all those unsavory yet enticing things that old white guys like me have no connection with anymore (or ever really have, if I'm honest). However, it's always nice to mention your bros, and I'm sure they feel very special for the honor.  Friendship is a relationship too!  I won't bother you guys, go have fun.

*January 24, 2000*

Christina Aguilera "What a Girl Wants"

Key Couplet

"Whatever keeps me in your arms

And I'm thanking you for being there for me"

I considered selecting this song for the post, until I pulled the video up.  Ehhrr, not comfortable. I feel like just by watching part of it that I was placed on some sort of official list of potential online sleazes.  Seriously, Christina is really, really young in that clip.  I googled a bunch of early-bird specials and 401K discussions to wash it away.  Yeeks.  So dirty.

*November 5, 1993*

Meatloaf "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)

Key Couplet

"Maybe I'm crazy, but it's crazy, and it's true"

Yes, yes it is true.  But, please hold on Mr Loaf, we'll get to the crazy.

*April 4, 1963*

The Chiffons "He's So Fine"

Key Couplet

"He's a soft-spoken guy

Also seems kind of shy"

Clearly, I should have come of age in the early sixties.  As unqualified as I am to live in an Usher song, I'm that inversely suited to appeal to the ladies of this period.  Looking for someone who lingers in the corners, barely speaking above a whishper with anyone?  I'm your guy!  Wow, thanks probably-dead ladies, I appreciate it.  For that, I won't fiddle with your chart topping smash.  It's perfect as is!

*October 12, 1962*

The Four Seasons "Sherry"

Key Couplet

"Sherry baby (Sherry baby, Sherry baby)"

Honestly, it doesn't matter how good or bad the words are in this song (they're awful), I just can't stand the singer's sound.  I know, Frankie Valli; famously Italian be-suited guy your grandmother probably once had a lewd thought about.  But, man, this tune is grating.  I'd be happy never to hear it again.  This is why nobody is named Sherry anymore.

I won't even drink Sherry! The song is that annoying.  

So...Meat.  Yup, that's the one we're going with.  Why?  Oh, there are reasons.  Way more than I can possibly list here, of course.  I mean, the man had a huge career before and after striking number one gold.  I could only cherry pick the more interesting aspects to display here.  The details below are allegedly true.  My comments that follow each bullet, eh, less so.

Let's start with the obviously needed factoids about the guy himself.

• He slept in a plastic crib, and for the nametag, his father asked a nurse to write "Meat" because he looked like "nine and a half pounds of ground chuck."  The nametag indeed read "Meat", and that became a childhood nickname.  The "loaf" part came when he was a heavyset teenage football player.  
• Sports nicknames are just the worst.  As are alcoholic fathers.
• In addition to more famous appearances in the Rocky Horror Picture Show and Fight Club, he also can be found playing drums in the WWF video "Land of 1,000 Dances" and as a bus driver in The Spice Girls movie.  
• When you've share a craft service table with the Iron Sheik and Sporty Spice, you've had a life. 
• He identifies as Christian, supports the New York Yankees, and endorsed Mitt Romney for president in 2012.  
• So, he's got that white/rich thing going for him, which is nice.  For him.

Cool, great.  Hmm, what about the music video for this number one hit?

• Michael Bay directed it.  Seriously.  
• There were almost no Transformers involved.
• Daniel Pearl was the cinematographer.  He is most famous for filming The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Also seriously.  
• There were definitely no Transformers in that.
• According to one studio executive, "it probably had the budget of Four Weddings and a Funeral."   
• There is no clarification as to why this random movie, of all things, is used as the barometer for music video spending.  However, it is fun to use this to ascertain the overall cost of other videos.  Using this calculation, we can surmise that November Rain by Guns N' Roses costed a whopping three and a half Four Weddings and a Funeral, while Left of the Dial by The Replacements came in at just one-thirty-second of said film.  Fascinating!

Amazing stuff.  Really.  Ok then, we should move on to the song itself.

• It reached number one in 28(!) different countries
• I've been to eight different countries.  I can vouch that twenty-eight is more than eight, and is a lot.
• The tune was used in an M&M commercial AND the flick Sausage Party.  
• Wow.  Just, wow.
• British adventurer and noted urine drinker Bear Grylls cites this song as his inspiration to apply for selection into the Special Air Service.  He said "Enthusiasm and determination count for so much more than skills, brains or qualifications...and all this expressed itself to me through Meatloaf's song!"  
• The exclamation point is his, apparently.  

But I will do that!

The song essentially had three different versions released.  For radio, they used the shortest cut at just over five minutes (which is still pretty lengthy, to be fair).  The music video supported a version that ran nearly eight minutes.  The album track itself clocked in at a cool twelve minutes.  Twelve!

That's like, six Ramones songs.  Sheesh.

Thus, lets talk about the lyrics.  There are a freakin' lot of 'em.

Though there are instrumental interludes in the full song, as well as motorcycles (because...I don't know, vroom), the word salad is massive.  As you'd suspect, there is a lot of repetition about love, specifically regardings things he would do for it, and things he wouldn't.  The song is long on explanations, and they occasionally read like a goth teen's diary.

"Some days it don't come easy

Some days it don't come hard

Some days it don't come at all

Some days I work at Hot Topic in the mall"

At about the two-thirds point, after roughly a hundred kajillion sentiments about his commitment to this whole love thing, the lyrics change a bit.  We enter a question and answer phase of the music.  In what I thought may be an attempt by Meatloaf to showcase his abilities as a gameshow host (his true calling), a half-dozen queries are laid out in the text.  

But, hang on, in listening to the tune, he's not the one asking these questions in the song.  Another singer is asking them of him.  No wonder he never got that gig at Card Sharks.  Really poor planning, sir.

Anywho, his object of desire (the loaf-ette, if you will, though please don't) lays out her needs in this series of asks.  They start off fairly benign:

"Will you get me right out of this godforsaken town?"

Yeah, of course!  This place sucks.  It only has chain restaurants and there are almost no other dudes named Meatloaf.  Lame!

"Will you make it all a little less cold?"

Um, sure babe, I'll go give the thermostat a degree or two bump.  Or you could put on a sweater?  I mean, the gas bill is kind of high.  No big deal, it's just that, ya know, my job isn't paying as well as I thought, and your home candle-making business isn't bringing in as much cash as we hoped.  But, no, it's fine.  It's fine!  I'll go turn the heat up.

From there, well, the stakes go up more than a tad.

"Will you cater to every fantasy I got?"

All of them!?!?!  Even the one with the giant jars of pickle juice, eight trained gophers, and the corpse of Lee Trevino?  I mean, how would I do that?  And I don't even know if Lee Trevino is dead.  That could put a fly in the ointment.

"Will you take me places I've never known?"

How would I...sure.  Sure.  You've never known Shoney's, right?  Let's go to Shoney's.

This tiring and tiresome tune finally ends with one of these two incredibly difficult people proclaiming that they won't cheat on the other.  That's the "that" they won't "do".  Then the song ends.  That's it.  All of these promises and requirements and motorcycles and werewolves (that's what he is in the video, right?) and the payout is that he promises he won't shtupp the lady running the smoke machine.  That's number one across the planet.  Oy.

Meatloaf stuffed with cheese.  Check please.

I've gotta say, while I figured this top hit to be a little bit ridiculous, I didn't expect to roll my eyes so many times.  Not having ever stepped toe into this guy's world of music, there were hopes that maybe something weird or cool bubbled underneath.  Long hair, odd fashion choices, iconic film roles, seems like there could be something in here that had some heft.

Nope. Nada.

Can't believe it.  I should've been drinking sherry this whole time.