Meat Loaf hit #1 with “I’d Do Anything for Love”

I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That) Meat Loaf

Writer(s): Jim Steinman (see lyrics here) Released: September 15, 1993 First Charted: September 5, 1993 Peak: 15 US, 16 CB, 11 GR, 3 RR, 9 AC, 10 AR, 17 UK, 12 CN, 18 AU, 4 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.4 US, 0.79 UK, 2.83 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 157.0 video, 124.44 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: The debut album from Meat Loaf (born Marvin Lee Aday), 1977’s Bat Out of Hell, has been estimated at 50 million in worldwide sales, making it one of the three best-selling albums of all time. Subsequent releases over the next decade didn’t even reach a million in sales in the U.S., and by the 1990s it looked like his career was over. However, he reteamed with Jim Steinman, who’d written the songs on Bat Out of Hell, and they created Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell in the same “bombastic, piano-driven style.” SF The original album charted three top-40 hits, but his highest charting song had been “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” at #11. With “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That),” the first single from Bat Out of Hell II, Meat Loaf didn’t just chart again, he went all the way to the top. In addition to spending five weeks at the pinnacle of the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S., the song reached #1 in 27 other countries. WK The song was the UK’s best seller in 1993 and earned a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo. Meat Loaf and Steinman had talked about reuniting as far back as 1984, but Meat Loaf’s record label at the time wasn’t interested. When he moved to MCA, Steinman was busy working with the group Pandora’s Box, who released an album in 1989. They did finally reunite and Steinman played “I’d Do Anything for Love” for Meat Loaf in 1990. It had all the traits of a Steinman song: “power chords, the pseudo-classical piano sequences, [and] the tearful verse followed by a triumphant chorus.” LW The version that they recorded for the album was 12-minutes long, but was cut down to a five-minute version for the single. As he did for all his songs, Meat Loaf assumed the role of a character. In this case, he said he imagined he “was a 14-year-old looking at this girl trying to figure out how to get up the nerve…to ask her out.” FB Listeners seemed puzzled over what it was that Meat Loaf wouldn’t do for love, but he said the answer’s right there in the song. “I’ll never forget the way you feel right now…I’ll never stop dreaming of you every night of my life.” FB At the end of the song, the female singer, Lorraine Crosby, declares “You’ll see that it’s time to move on” and “You’ll be screwing around” to which Meat Loaf responds, “I wont do that!” Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Jim Steinman FB Fred Bronson (2007). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (4th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 821. LW Alan Lewens (2001). Popular Song – Soundtrack of the Century. Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 172. SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 2/8/2021; last updated 11/24/2022.

Guns N’ Roses chart with “November Rain”

November Rain Guns N’ Roses

Writer(s): Axl Rose (see lyrics here) Released: February 18, 1992 First Charted: September 28, 1991 Peak: 3 US, 13 CB, 4 GR, 2 RR, AR 15, 4 UK, 5 CN, 5 AU, 3 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.6 UK, 2.29 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 227.151 video, 919.48 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: “November Rain” hit the album rock chart in September as soon as Guns N’ Roses released their highly anticipated Use Your Illusion albums. However, it wasn’t released as an official single until February 1992 and it wasn’t until June that it finally hit the Billboard Hot 100 chart, eventually peaking at #3. With a running time of nearly nine minutes, it is the longest song to reach the top 10. WK The original version was 25-minutes long. SF Guitarist Slash said they band jokingly called it “the ‘Layla’ song.” WK Lead singer Axl Rose started working on the song in 1983 SF and it was first recorded in 1986 prior to the band’s monstrous Appetite for Destruction album. That version has since been released on an expanded, box set-version of that album. Lead singer Axl Rose wanted to tackle the song again, giving it “a sweeping string arrangement,” WK but the rest of the band were reluctant, wanting to focus on more direct rock songs. WK The video was one of the most expensive ever made, costing more than a million and a half. SF It was the first made prior to the founding of YouTube in 2005 to pass the one-billion-views mark. WK Rose is portrayed as marrying then-girifriend Stephanie Seymour and later grieving at her funeral. The video, as well as the song’s original lyrics, are based on the short story “Without You” by Del James. SF NPR’s Stephen Thompson called the song “one of the ultimate hard-rock power ballads.” NPR New Zealand listeners of radio station The Rock ranked it #1 of all time in 2006. WK Resources: SF Songfacts NPR NPR (6/28/2018). “Hear a Never-Before-Heard, Piano-Only Demo of Guns N’ Roses ‘November Rain’” by Stephen Thompson WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 2/1/2021; last updated 4/30/2024.

Guns N’ Roses “Patience” charted

Patience Guns N’ Roses

Writer(s): Guns N' Roses (see lyrics here) Released: April 4, 1989 First Charted: December 24, 1988 Peak: 4 US, 4 CB, 6 RR, 7 AR, 10 UK, 10 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.2 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 319.5 video, 185.72 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: After the success of their 1987 Appetite for Destruction album, Guns N’ Roses released G N’ R Lies as a sort of stopgap. The collection packaged the group’s 1986 Live Like a Suicide EP with four new songs. They included an acoustic reworking of “You’re Crazy,” which had appeared on Appetite, the eyebrow-raising “Used to Love Her” about killing one’s girlfriend, and the highly controversial “One in a Million” which insulted homosexuals and immigrants. The song’s big hit, however, was the ballad “Patience” about “waiting it out in a relationship.” SF The song has often been assumed to be about Axl Rose and his troubled relationship with Erin Everly, but the band has said Izzy Stradlin wrote the song about his ex-girlfriend Angela Nicoletti McCoy. WK The song was originally recorded with all acoustic instruments and no drumming, although they use electric guitar and drums when performing the song in concert. The song also features Axl Rose whistling – something he also does on the GNR hits “Paradise City” and “Civil War.” The song is a favorite for karaoke, but Kimberly Starling of The Karaoke Informer says it is one of the top 5 songs that tends to bomb. SF A version of the song by Chris Cornell (Soundgarden, Audioslave) was released posthumously in 2020. He recorded the song after helping his daughter, Toni, learn it. He took it to #1 on the Billboard mainstream rock chart. Resources: SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 8/6/2022.

REO Speedwagon “Can’t Fight This Feeling” hit #1

Can’t Fight This Feeling REO Speedwagon

Writer(s): Kevin Cronin (see lyrics here) Released: December 31, 1984 First Charted: January 18, 1985 Peak: 13 US, 12 CB, 13 GR, 14 RR, 3 AC, 5 AR, 16 UK, 11 CN, 2 AU, 5 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.4 UK, 1.45 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 204.1 video, 297.02 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: REO Speedwagon had slogged their way across American venues for a decade before hitting big with 1981’s “lighters-up power ballad” SG “Keep on Loving You,” a #1 song from Hi Infidelity, which became the best-selling album in America that year. SG They also landed top-10 hits with “Take It on the Run” and “Keep the Fire Burnin’,” the latter from their 1982 Good Trouble album. While MTV threatened to derail “the old arena-rock battleships” SG REO rode the storm out and, when “the excitement over British art-school synthpop was starting to fade” SG they were right there again with more “pure prom-slow-dance grandeur” SG – “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” from their 1984 Wheels Are Turnin’ album. Lead singer Kevin Cronin started writing the song a decade earlier, even recording a demo when he left the band for a bit in the early ‘70s. WK While on vacation in Hawaii during a break from recording Wheels Are Turnin’, he thought of the song again and added a chorus and title. He explained how he had become attracted to a woman who was in his friend group, but he couldn’t say anything because she was dating one of the other friends. WK He finally finished the song when he realized he “couldn’t figh the feeling anymore and made the move to kind of go for it.” WK They ended up having a relationship and although it didn’t last, they stayed friends. WK He explained that the song is about “that moment in time where…it gets to be too painful to be where you are and you know you have to change…but change is hard…and you overcome that fear of change.” FB More specifically, it “is a song about giving in and admitting that you actually care about someone.” SG He said it was tough to express himself emotionally growing up, so when he does so in the song “he does it in the biggest possible way: Massed harmonies, screaming guitars, pounding drama-nerd pianos, overwrought metaphors about ships and candles and whirlwinds. He turns surrender into something ecstatic.” SG It is “adult-contemporary gloop. It’s dramatic and self-serious and massively catchy, with tremendous drunken-singalong potential.” SG Resources: FB Fred Bronson (2007). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (4th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 603. SG Stereogum (9/23/2020). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 12/25/2022; last updated 12/26/2022.