Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell
Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell is the sixth studio album by American rock singer Meat Loaf and the second in the Bat Out of Hell trilogy, which was written and produced by Jim Steinman. It was released on September 14, 1993, sixteen years after Meat Loaf's first solo album Bat Out of Hell. The album reached number 1 in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. Three tracks were released as singles, including "I'd Do Anything for Love ", which reached number 1 in 28 countries.
The album was released by MCA in North America, and Virgin Records internationally. The third part of the Bat trilogy, Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, was released in 2006. Like the first album of the trilogy, Bat Out of Hell II was a commercial success, selling over 14 million copies worldwide.
History
In the midst of the success of Bat Out of Hell, desperate for a follow-up, management and the record company put pressure on Steinman to stop touring in order to write a follow-up, provisionally titled Renegade Angel. In a 1981 BBC Rock Hour Special interview, Jim Steinman recalls the writing process.I started writing what I felt was Bat Out of Hell part 2, definitely like The Godfather part 1 and part 2, that's how I saw it. I wanted to do a continuation and I wanted to do an album that went even further and that was more extreme, if possible, which a lot of people felt wasn't possible but I just wanted to see if I could make a record that was even more heroic because that's what I thought of it... Bat Out of Hell to me was ultimately very heroic though it was funny... and I wanted to do one that to me would be even more heroic and more epic and a little more operatic and passionate.
In a 1993 promotional interview for the album, Steinman reasserts the continuation of the Bat world. "I didn't call it Bat Out of Hell II just to identify with the first record. It really does feel like an extension of that... It was a chance to go back to that world and explore it deeper. It always seemed incomplete because I conceived it like a film, and what would you do without Die Hard 2?" Meat Loaf himself was more succinct, telling an interview at the time, "We called it Bat Out of Hell II 'cos that would help it sell shitloads."
Steinman rejoined Meat Loaf and the band for a live performance in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1978 with the intention of going through the songs for Bat II after the show. However, someone broke into their dressing rooms during the show and stole several possessions, including the new lyric book. Then, Meat Loaf lost his voice and was unable to record Renegade Angel. Steinman says "he sounded literally like the little girl in The Exorcist... like a dragon trying to sing—it was a horrifying sound." Steinman "kept writing the music to Bat Out of Hell part 2... my sequel." Not being able to "bear for people not to hear those songs," Steinman recorded the album, retitled Bad for Good, as a solo project, although Rory Dodd contributed lead vocals on some songs. Four songs from Bad for Good were included on Bat Out of Hell II. In 1989, Steinman formed all-female vocal group Pandora's Box. The album, Original Sin, was a commercial flop, but featured two songs which would also appear on Bat II. However, according to Meat Loaf, one of them was written for him, saying that "Jim put 'It Just Won't Quit' on Original Sin without telling me. I could have strangled him."
By the time Meat Loaf set about finally recording Bat II in the early 1990s, the industry's enthusiasm for the project had waned. According to the artist's then manager, Tommy Manzi, in an interview with HitQuarters, "That project was considered a joke as far as the industry was concerned," and Manzi's management company Left Bank were "laughed at" for attempting to revive the fortunes of a well-established act rather than focus on "the next hip band".
Production
After a series of financial and legal disputes during the 1980s, Steinman and Meat Loaf met at the singer's house in Connecticut at Christmas in either 1989 or 1990, and sang Bat Out of Hell on piano. Steinman says that "working together again seemed like the cool thing to do."Steinman gave Meat Loaf half the songs for the album, but refused to give him any more until he changed managers. The singer was being managed by Walter Winneck and George Gilbert, who Meat Loaf credits as being "honest guys" but, under Steinman's influence, thinks would be "incapable of dealing with the record companies" on Bat II. On Steinman's recommendation, he hired Allen Kovac.
Recording of the album took place at Ocean Way Recording in Los Angeles, California, then at The Power Station in New York City, New York.
Many of the performers from the original album returned for the sequel. Roy Bittan performed keyboard and piano on most tracks, with Todd Rundgren, Ellen Foley, Rory Dodd and Kasim Sulton returning to provide background vocals. Meat Loaf and the musicians are credited as co-arrangers, and Bittan and long-term Steinman collaborator Steven Rinkoff are credited as associate producers. The album was mixed by David Thoener with the exception of the final track, which was mixed by Rinkoff.
According to Meat Loaf, he and Steinman had only one "big fight" throughout the album's production, which occurred during the mixing of "Life Is a Lemon". Production took a long time, mainly because of the length of the songs. The singer says, "Jim's songs may be miniature operas, but they're always too long for radio." Steinman fought with Kovac over the edit of "I'd Do Anything for Love", with the manager advising that radio stations were unlikely to play anything over five minutes long.
Steinman had secured a contract with Meat Loaf's recording label MCA for Lorraine Crosby, a club singer from North East England whom he was managing. While visiting the company's recording studios on Sunset Boulevard, Crosby was asked to provide guide vocals for Meat Loaf, who was recording "I'd Do Anything for Love". Crosby recalls, "I went and sang it twice and I never thought anything more of it until six months later when I got a phone call saying, 'Would you mind if we used your vocals?'" Cher, Melissa Etheridge and Bonnie Tyler had been considered for the role. However, as Crosby had recorded her part as guide vocals, she did not receive any royalties from the song.
Compositions
The album opens with "I'd Do Anything for Love ", a marathon twelve-minute opus which was edited for single release in some countries. The track begins with a guitar played to sound like a revving motorcycle, a reference to Todd Rundgren's contribution in the middle of "Bat Out of Hell". Each verse comprises two things that he would do for love, followed by one thing that he would not do. It is that latter parts of each chorus that is the "that" of the title. However, some people misunderstand the lyrics, claiming that the singer never identifies what the "that" is that he is unwilling to do, a confusion that Steinman predicted during production. The song combines stadium rock and power ballad for much of its twelve minutes. However, near the end of the song, a female vocalist is introduced. Credited in the liner notes as Mrs. Loud, this part was sung by Lorraine Crosby. Some countries managed to play the opus from start to finish.Rundgren points out that "the themes of the songs were darker." The second track, "Life is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back", demonstrates this pessimism. Several things are identified as "defective", including love, sex, gods, childhood and the future. AllMusic labels it "a stomping rocker that wraps serious feelings in a cryptically witty metaphor." Despite the pessimism, both AllMusic and Meat Loaf point out that "it is a funny song."
The third track, "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through", is a prayer to rock music, celebrating how it is always there to help you through troubled times. One of its lyrics is "You're never alone, 'cause you can put on the 'phones and let the drummer tell your heart what to do." The fourth track also has dark overtones. "It Just Won't Quit", Steinman explains, "is about the fact that there are some things you never shake off... That's love, I guess." "Out of the Frying Pan " is a more upbeat song.
The album's sixth track, "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are" is a three part narrative that uses pathetic fallacy, where the seasons reflect the atmosphere of the events being described, drawing "its inspiration from the singer's often-tragic childhood. The lyrics portray a man who has overcome tragedies in his life yet still feels haunted by their memory." Steinman says that it was "the hardest song to write and get across."
It's a very passionate song. It's really, I think maybe, the most passionate one on the record. I mean, I'm really proud of it because that's really one that goes over-the-top in the sense that it's got images—it has religious imagery of resurrection, it's got images of fertility and rebirth, it has really very good sexual images, images of cars—which I always like.
The track quotes lyrics from Bat Out of Hell's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light", as does the next track, "Wasted Youth", a spoken word fantasy monologue. The 1977 song's opening line "I remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday. I was barely seventeen" opens this track also, but instead of being "barely dressed" the protagonist "once killed a boy with a Fender guitar." Influenced by The Doors, Steinman wanted to write a piece where "the rhythm wasn't coming from the drums so much as the voice—the rhythm of the spoken voice and the heartbeat behind it."
According to Steinman, "Good Girls Go to Heaven " is a "teenage prayer". "Lost Boys and Golden Girls" is "Steinman's interpretation of the story of Peter Pan." The composer says that Peter Pan has "always been about my favorite story and I've always looked at it from the perspective that it's a great rock and roll myth because it's about—when you get right down to it—it's about a gang of lost boys who never grow up, who are going to be young forever and that's about as perfect an image for rock'n'roll as I can think of."