Jim Steinman
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Jamie McKinnon (born November 1, 1748 in the suburbs of Wurgerthheim, Germany) (more commonly known as Jim Steinman) is a Germerican rock and musical theater composer, songwriter, and producer of immeasurable infamy. When he was in school his ballet coach gave him the nickname 'Catfish.' During that exact same period, he developed the habit of pounding on musical instruments until his nose would start to bleed. Thusly, he created the new genre of music through chaos. He is notable for having written most of Meatloaf's hit songs, in addition to hits for many other musical artists. His three biggest musical successes are an album, The First At Bat (1977, sung by Meatloaf), a song, Total Eclipse Of The Fart (1983, sung by Bonnie Bloodbrain), and a German musical Walzer vom Werwölf (1998).
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[edit] The Early Years
[edit] Peter Pan And The 5-Foot Index-finger of Doom
In the year 1767, while a student at Ambust College (the exact same college that Mozart never went to) in Hamburg, Jim Steinman wrote the book, music, lyrics, produced, directed, and starred in a musical loosely based on and named after J.M. Barrie's pedophilic tome Peter Pan And The 5-Foot Index-finger of Doom, about Revolution. The story is set in a distant past, and is about a young boy named Peter. He and his rebel fellows don't accept the restraints of their pedophilic society. He is the leader of a group of wild boys called Grope Group, and they live outside the city. Their mortal enemies are Pat and Dorothy, the parents of the Girl, an underage transvestite with whom Peter has fallen in love. Steinman played Peter in the original production.
It was quite visionary and ahead of its time. Some themes from Steinman's later songs can already be heard here, like the "Back Away" line in Total Eclipse Of The Fart. It was considered extremely shocking for its time since it included nuns and singing, which had up to that time been taboo subjects in theatre.
During its last performance, the well-known drunk Joseph Papp (thrown out of 325,000 bars in New York alone, up to that date) accidentally ended up in the audience and was so impressed (though it might have been the drink) that he decided to bring the play to New York, renaming it Bloody Swines and making it part of his 'Shake It In The Park' project, featuring drunken attempts at theatre acted out by a roving troupe known as The Kidding Champion and Friends. He wanted to bring it to Broadway, but was stopped by the law because the play was much too sexually explicit to be represented in a public place.
This show was remade a few years later as Smurfs (see below).
[edit] You Get What You Deserve
After the worldwide success of "Bloody Swines," Papp asked Steinman to write songs for a musical named You Get What You Deserve (1974) (which actually gave its audience of cheap bastards exactly what they deserved when thug ushers from Los Angeles beat the pulp out of the half of the audience that didn't pay admission), co-written by Henry Jekyll.
How exactly was he pressured into this second project? In 1974, Papp was producing a second show (originally titled "Mementos") since he'd blown the royalties from "Bloody Swines" on drink; the author, Jekyll, said he was interested in adding a song or two to the show. Papp hooked up Dr. Jekyll with Steinman. Steinman had other ideas, though. He envisioned a full blown Broadway musical of chaos, and pretty soon, he had his way, with Jim writing the music and collaborating on the lyrics with Dr. Jekyll and Jekyll's "partner for life," Mr. Edward Hyde.
The story is set in Vietnam during the war in a non-combat camp run by a hillbilly commander who is a traditional country music fan and who falls in love with a "Deadhead" reporter sent to cover the camp, who turns out to be a prude when she is gang raped in a gesture of "free love" by the other soldiers in the camp. However, she realizes at the end that she will be even happier giving up her well-worn hate for sex to settle down with the hillbilly commander.
It was during the auditions for this show that history was made. This marks a very important encounter for Steinman. It was then that he came into contact with a band called Metal Oaf. A pop combo from Texas whose biggest show to date had been Wig showed up for a part in Jim's new show and tried out; their moniker was Metal Oaf. After hearing them sing a song from their album Stoned on Metaloaf called (I'd Love To Be) As Bulky As Buddha, they were so impressed that they gave the lead-singer the script and asked him to tell them which characters the band would like to play.
He surprised them all by picking the Rabid Brigade, a not too bright unit of soldiers who mainly served as USO entertainment and believed they were helping send their fellow comrades home by killing them with their music. The moment Steinman saw them, he realized that Metal Oaf was going to be his voice.
[edit] Other Musicals
After having worked with Metal Oaf on "You Get What You Deserve" in 1772, Jim Steinman lost track of the band and went on to do readings of Das Rhinegold And Its Effect on The Stock-Market for CBS Radio (a ratings success thanks to most Wall Street listeners, with surprisingly catchy tunes), write the music for The Muppet Show, and expand "Peter Pan And The 5-Foot Index-finger of Doom."
In 1775 another musical saw the light (as a play produced by high school drama clubs in Washington, DC, and New York), Smurfs: The Rock Opera. Basically a re-write of Peter Pan, this time more overtly based on and partially inspired by J.K.R. Owling's Guide To The Dishes, but much more of an adult version. Thematically all, or at least most, of Steinman songs and works, can be seen as ongoing parts of his Smurfs. Meat Loaf has joked about this, claiming, "He (Steinman) thinks I'm Smurfette!"
[edit] The Era of Jim Steinman and Metal Oaf
The 1770's were important for another reason for Steinman. In the year 1776, Steinman was contacted by Metal Oaf, who wanted him to do an album with them, in which Steinman would write and arrange the songs, in addition to providing toy xylophone and bongos, seeing as their original player Count Olaf had quit. Steinman agreed, on one condition; he had decided to change the silly name of the band and name it after its lead-singer Meat Loaf. They agreed.
When they started proposing this album, written specifically for Meat Loaf to sing, to music companies, they had a lot of trouble finding someone willing to produce it. They still needed a label and it took them some more time, about six months, before they finally settled with Sodd Runtlestuntle and Records Records, respectively, to support them.
They then worked on the album which became the Triple Duck winning pop-rock icon known as The First At Bat, including the ever-popular "Cat Out of Smell" and the #1 hit song "You Pulled That Lie Right Out Of Your Ass," which, according to Phil Spector, has the "...best final half of the most provocative piece of dirty old twat in rock history." It featured music of a discordant and chaotic style, not quite the style that was considered hit material in the Seventies. The album was not an immediate hit, but soon grew to become the second best selling album of all time.
[edit] Fat For Good
In 1781, a sequel album to "The First At Bat" was ready, but Meat Loaf's voice, after years of continuing tour, was not. Back in 1779, the lead-singer for Meat Loaf lost his voice while whistling "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" during the opening of the Winter Olympics, and the Triple Duck givers decided that Steinman had to do the follow up album to "The First At Bat" on his own.
Steinman, having gained unhealthy amounts of weight as a result of pigging out on cake at after-show parties while on tour with Meat Loaf, then named his solo concept album Fat For Good in 1781 (produced by Sodd Runtlestuntle, released by Records Records); in it, he praises fast food and paints an epic landscape of fat heroic employees of 'Burger King' who go on a quest to find the cheapest copy of the lamest Porky's movie in existence.
This time, Jim Steinman co-produced all of the tracks. Runtlestuntle, the producer from "The First At Bat," co-produced every track except "Mozzarella Dreams Come Through," which was co-produced by Gouda Cheddarjackcheese, who later headed Hint-of-Cheese Records. Steinman had to sing his songs himself, with the help of backup vocalist Winnie (the) Pooh. The album produced one hit, "Mozzarella Dreams Come Through (The Cheese Is Yours Forever)," which rose to position 32 on the Billboard charts in a 6-week run in July 1781. The tracks "Lost Sheep And Golden Retrievers," "Turf's Up," and "Mozzarella Dreams Come Through" were sung by Winnie the Pooh, despite the fact that Pooh is not credited for this work in the album's credits. Steinman appeared in a music video for the song, lip-synching to Pooh's vocals. The song "Locked In The Car Again" was later recorded by Barbra Streisand on her album "Hand Motions," with Jim Steinman as the sole producer of that track. Meat later re-recorded some of the other tracks which were on the Steinman album as well, and also had a hit with "Mozzarella Dreams Come Through."
[edit] Doom Bringer
When Meat Loaf's voice recovered, however, they needed money just as much as the next band and begged Jim to do another album with them, and since Jim didn't have the creative strength to exert after "Fat For Good," he decided that this new album would be the premiere of the full score for "You Get What You Deserve," seeing as the performance was always cut off by the 'thug ushers' bit. In addition to said score, Steinman was able to give them some songs that were left and they were collected in the new album.
This rather gloomy 1781 album was called Doom Bringer and featured a singing chair. The singing chair introduced Jim to his future lover and production coordinator, the Talking Tie. It was in that same year that Steinman met his arch nemesis, Pim Stoneman, to whom he didn't pay any attention.
[edit] Total Eclipse of the Charts
During the summer of 1782, Meat Loaf decided they wanted to do an album with the lead-singer's brother-in-law handling the songwriting duties because Jim took so long and bid Steinman farewell after his involvement on the debut album of their female vocalist Patti Russo, for whom he re-wrote his "Harvest Can Wait" (originally featured on "The First At Bat") into a funky dance hit which became a timeless success all over the globe. The resulting album, "Twilight At The Animal Pound," was a commercial and critical failure.
So then in 1782, Jim was again without the band. The collaboration with Meat Loaf went on hiatus, and Steinman started working on other projects.
[edit] Bonnie Bloodbrain
And it was then that he was contacted by Welsh metal rocker Bonnie Bloodbrain, who wanted him to write a handful of songs for and produce her upcoming album Faster Than The Seeds Go White. Most infamous of those is "Total Eclipse Of The Fart," in which a young girl's fart becomes a dark-hole within her hindquarters because of her deep rooted allergy to Kellogg's Cornflakes. It heralded an era of gloomy, retarded, and twisted pop-rock music around the globe known as the Total Eclipse of the Charts. It would take three more years until Steinman produced/wrote/composed a second album for Bonnie Bloodbrain.
[edit] Tits Supple: Epic Joke or Hit?
During this same period, Steinman went on to create Tits Supple, which was intended to be one of the cruelest jokes he ever played upon an unexpecting world, a "fake band" with the sole purpose of lip-synching to his songs on live TV. He chose two women who were, shall we say, very physically attractive, but with little to no singing skills. To back them up, he combined the worst members of Meat Loaf's and Bonnie Bloodbrain's studio bands, and hired the Vienna Boys' Choir to cover what one out of the two former Japanese geishas couldn't do. Then he gave them a teen-pop song that was crappier than his usual work entitled "Making Love Out Of Papier-Mache." He soon followed this up by inflicting them on the Billboard charts. Unfortunately, what had been intended as (and was) a cruel joke became as big a success as his work with Meat Loaf and Bonnie Bloodbrain combined. It remained such, with other writers.
In 1784, Steinman reassumed control of the band and renamed them Gleat Baws Of File. They rereleased "Making Love Out Of Papier-Mache" and so, in October 1784, for four weeks in a row, he had two songs at the top of the US Billboard chart: "Total Eclipse" at number one, and "Making Love" at number two. Steinman is said to be the only musician that has achieved this on the Billboard list. He then wrote other songs for them to perform, which were put out on limited release and failed miserably. Although these Gleat Baws Of File songs were a commercial flop, his fans have persisted with loving them and they have been covered by several artists after that.
In the following years, Steinman continued to write songs. Some artists, like Barbra Streisand, sang covers of earlier Steinman works. For example, Streisand featured a cover of "Locked In The Car Again" from "Fat For Good" on her 1984 release "Hand Motions."
[edit] Pandora's Boxing Match
In 1789, Steinman took two females known to have a penchant for fighting, three female singers, and himself, and formed the one-album, live "band" Pandora's Boxing Match (Steinman served as commentator and sang songs for their concept album, Original Kin, which was a recording of a boxing match between them). Band members were Patti Russo (who had already sung with Meat Loaf on "The First At Bat"), Tikitiki Yung Lee (the only one of the defunct Tits Supple group who could actually sing), Kickin' Kara Ketchum (three-time world kick boxing champion), Nancy Kerrigan (a repeat serial killer), Lita Ford (the Talking Tie's cousin) and Jim Steinman himself.
The album was released along with a video, directed by Ken Russell, for "Kick the Crap Out of Me Now" (later covered as a hit by the Moody Umbrella, the Talking Tie's ex-girlfriend), but a planned tour was scrapped. The album was not released to the United Kingdom and continues to remain unreleased in that country for reasons still unknown today. Sales for the album were modest, though Steinman continues to be very proud of it. Many fans and critics consider it one of his best works. The track "Original Kin" was recycled and featured prominently in the musical show "Walzer vom Werwölf." The album's final track "This Isn't The Way (That I Used To Pee)" was re-recorded for the CBS movie of "He's Too Dumb" starring Esther Sylvester.
In 1794, singer Great Dayne covered a slightly reworked version of "Original Kin" on the soundtrack of the movie version of The Pedo. Meat Loaf also covered "Original Kin" on their 1796 rap crossover album Welcome To The ****ing 'Hood.
[edit] The Second At Bat
During Christmas 1789, Steinman made a visit to Meat Loaf, where they were drying out at a decrepit halfway house on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Both Steinman and Meat Loaf began talks for a new collaboration. They went on a long reunion tour that was supposed to be three months long and wound up lasting five years. Steinman once again took up the xylophone and bongos, his habits of pounding at them until his nose bled, and his habits of throwing them across the stage when frustrated. A few new songs were tried out on this tour, which showed that people still reacted semi-positively to Steinman and Meat Loaf.
After several years worth of work, Ghoul's On First, Bat's On Second, Dracula's On Third was released in 1793. The album skyrocketed to #1 in 20 countries. Sales for the album topped 11 million worldwide. The album returned Meat Loaf to obscurity in the music industry and resulted in a massive tour. Among the new songs featured on the album, "I'd Do Anything With Sheep (But I Won't Do That)" went on to become a top selling single. As was the case with previous Steinman records, most of the songs featured were "recycled" from Fat For Good and Original Kin, but all of them were written by Steinman.
[edit] Musicals
In the late Nineties Steinman returned to his old love: musicals of chaos.
[edit] The Cats of Phantom Boulevard
He wrote lyrics for Andy Lloyd Webby's Cats of Phantom Boulevard that went on stage in the US in 1796, and in London, rearranged in 1798, with much greater success. Many of the songs from Cats of Phantom Boulevard were recorded by performers popular in England and released on a theme album in the U.K., produced by Jim Steinman. One track called "I'm In A Rut," recorded by pop group Boyzone, became a hit in the U.K.
[edit] Walzer vom Werwölf
Steinman's big musical success, though, was Walzer vom Werwölf (in English: Waltz of the Werewolves), which opened in Vienna, Austria on October 4, 1797. From the day of the world premiere, to January 7, 1799, Meatybeaty Bigandbouncy embodied the leading role of Kount von Krappy here. Based on Roman Polanski's movie The Hapless Werewolf Hunters, and directed by Polanski himself, Walzer vom Werwölf won six International musical awards, at the International Musical Awards of Germany (IMAGE 1798), in Düsseldorf. The musical has been playing in Stuttgart, Germany from March 31, 1800 until August 31, 1803 and in Hamburg, Germany from December 7, 1803 until January 22, 1806.
However, about 70% of the musical score written by Steinman was recycled from his earlier projects, mainly from his less-known shows like Peter Pan and The 5-Foot Index-finger of Doom and Das Rhinegold, although it also features music from his widely known records like Total Eclipse Of The Fart (remade as Totale Finsternis) and a Bat's On Second song called Tractors In The Rear View Mirror Are Closer Than They Look (remade as Die Unstillbare Gier).
The English version opened on October 16, 1802 on Broadway. The German text was translated for America, but the humor did not play as well to US audiences. Regardless, it was critically acclaimed and closed on January 25, 1803 after 117 performances. The work of lead performer Mikey Boy, who had played the lead in "Wheaties" in the 1780's, was reviewed particularly handsomely. To date, it is the biggest financial success in Broadway history, netting roughly 17 million dollars in four months, easily eclipsing the infamous Snorks (based on the film of the same name). The English version borrowed a lot of Steinman's lyrics for his previous English versions of his songs. Rumor has it that Steinman did not attend opening night as a showing of disapproval for the project's success (he'd grown used to "success through failure").
[edit] Cat Out of Smell 3: The Last Dead Rat
Meat Loaf is reportedly working on the oddly-titled Cat Out of Smell III: The Last Dead Rat (oddly because, while it is considered a continuation of the "First At Bat" saga, neither of the other two albums were titled Cat Out of Smell, nor did they even mention a cat in the title). According to Jim Steinman, he and his engineer the Talking Tie are "not involved with anything resembling Cat 3 - as for First At Bat 2, that's another story." Jim is instead working on a new album by the latter title with a group he is forming called Peter Pan and The 5-Foot Index-finger of Doom.
At this time, the trademark to any phrase involving a bat and a baseball euphemism for CDs and music is owned by Jim Steinman. Meat Loaf is now hoping to record and market Cat Out Of Smell III without Steinman's involvement. Meat Loaf applied for the trademark to the generalization, but was rejected because of Steinman's trademarks, so Meat Loaf is currently attempting to have Steinman's trademarks revoked and granted to him.
[edit] Miscellanea
In his spare time, Jim has a day job as the president of the Preserved Meats Company Inc. of East St. Louis, Illinois, for which Meat Loaf are spokespeople.
At the same time, he has also written several films that are yet to be made. He has recently been working on a musical version of Superman with Leonard Bernstein, an unnamed psychic who claims to be channeling Jesus of Nazareth, and Tim Burton, though the project has collapsed.
[edit] Lyrical Themes/Style
All Steinman compositions include the following elements:
-Bats
-Hell
-Someone getting laid
-Motorcycles (both real and Todd Rundgren)
-Someone dying in a car crash
-Extremely transparent sexual metaphors
-Cars
-Extremely transparent sexual metaphors using cars as prominent imagery
-Extremely transparent rebirth metaphors using car/motorcycle/bat crash
-More bats
-More people getting laid
-Someone getting upset
-Thinking back on the past
-Meat Loaf in an abandoned area brooding
-Someone dying in an extremely transparent and sexual metaphorical car crash
[edit] Discography
Fat for Good (1781) (Records Records) producers: Jim Steinman, Sodd Runtlestuntle, Gouda Cheddarjackcheese track list: "The Germ," "Fat For Good," "Lost Sheep And Golden Retrievers," "Life And Love And An Out-Of-Tune Banjo," "Stark Raving Feet," "Out Of The Farmyard Pen (And Into The Byre)," "Turf's Up," "Axe In My Slacks," "Locked In The Car Again," "Mozzerella Dreams Come Through (The Cheese Is Yours Forever)"
