- Writer: Jim Steinman
- Producer: Todd Rundgren
- Recorded: Early 1977 at several studios in New York
- Released: Summer 1977
- Players:
Meat Loaf — vocals
Ellen Foley — duet vocal
Todd Rundgren — guitar, vocals
Kasim Sultan — bass
Roy Bittan — keyboards
Jim Steinman — keyboards
Roger Powell — synthesizers
Max Weinberg — drums
Edgar Winter — saxophone
Rory Dodd, Marvin Lee — backing vocals
Phil Rizzuto — play-by-play - Album: Bat Out Of Hell (Cleveland International/Epic, 1977)
- Also On:
Hits Out Of Hell (Epic, 1984)
Live Around The World (Tommy Boy, 1996)
The Very Best Of Meat Loaf (Epic, 1998)
VH1 Storytellers (Beyond, 1999) - Before making it big on his own, Meat Loaf played a role in The Rocky Horror Show and its film adaptation, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and sang on Ted Nugent‘s 1976 album Free For All.
- The Bat Out Of Hell album was conceived by composer Jim Steinman, who met Meat Loaf in 1974 when he appeared in an off-Broadway production of Steinman’s play More Than You Deserve.
- The eight-and-a-half-minute “Paradise By The Dashboard Light” was the album’s third single, and peaked at Number 39 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
- The track depicts Meat Loaf trying to seduce a date — voiced by Ellen Foley — in the back seat of his car, ultimately with promises of enduring faith. Baseball Hall-Of-Famer and the late former New York Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto makes a cameo appearance, calling the progress of a runner around the base paths as Meat Loaf tries to “go all the way.”
- The song was set up like a suite and divided into three parts — “Paradise,” “Let Me Sleep On It,” and “Praying For The End Of Time.”
- Bat Out Of Hell reached Number 14 on the Billboard 200 album chart. It hit Number One in several other countries, including Australia.
- In the U.K., Bat Out Of Hell spent 471 consecutive weeks (more than nine years) on the album chart.
- Meat Loaf found himself overwhelmed by the album’s success, however. He said, “I didn’t know how to deal with it. I went into self-inflicted exile. I said, ‘I don’t want to do this. I don’t like this.'”