I've seen paradise ...

If you are of a certain age, just that snippet of a song ought to be enough to bring memories flooding back.

Naturally, I am talking about the artist “Meatloaf”, and the song: Paradise by the Dashboard Lights. Released in 1977, on the album “Bat Out of Hell” it became a teenage anthem.

The song is in three acts, I - Paradise, II - Let Me Sleep on it, and III - Praying for the End of Time, and if you’ve heard the song, you probably didn’t break it down like that, but in hindsight, I get the thematic ties.

If you haven’t heard it, it is the tale of young love, impulsiveness, and epic amounts of hormones roiling together to drive (often) bad decisions.

I remember my own struggles as a teenager, the marinating in these emotions and struggling to fit in. Naturally, I heard this song long after that period of my life was in the rear-view mirror.

The song isn’t particularly brilliant in structure, or flashy. Meatloaf’s (Marvin Lee Aday) didn’t have a huge range, but he brought a level of heart, and a growl to his part.

No, the brilliance is his interplay with the female foil, Ellen Foley, telling a story as timeless as any of the classics. The back and forth, the call and response, is visceral, and it just makes this tune a true classic.

Meatloaf left this plane of existence in 2022, and his politics were a bit too rightward for my tastes, but I will still remember him from his part of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and this song in particular.

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