Videodrone #18: I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)

Videodrone is a weekly feature looking at music videos from the last half century. 

I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That) (1993)

By the time the 1993 rolled around, there was a lot going on. Grunge was omnipresent (you could get the whole look at K-mart for short money), alt-rock was on the charts, hip hop and new jack swing was all over MTV. It hardly seemed like the right time for a comeback from a sweaty, theatrical 300-pound singer who peaked 16 years earlier, but that's exactly what happened.

Meat Loaf (aka Marvin Lee Aday) started performing in the late '60s with his first band Meat Loaf Soul, opening for Them and Question Mark and the Mysterians and later (under the band name Floating Circus) opening for the Who, the Stooges, MC5 and the Grateful Dead. He joined the Los Angeles production of Hair, did some recording for Motown and also acted in plays, including the original cast of The Rocky Horror Show. 

In 1972, he started working with songwriter Jim Steinman on an album called Bat Out of Hell, but they didn't get serious about it until a few years later when Meat Loaf decided to focus on music exclusively. They struggled to find a record label, but talked Todd Rundgren into producing and playing guitar on the album, which was adapted from a rock musical based on Peter Pan that Steinman had written. They were finally signed by Cleveland International Records, a subsidiary of Epic, and was released in October 1977. 

The initial response to Bat Out of Hell was indifference. It was full of long, bombastic, wordy songs that didn't connect with label execs, but got a good response from radio programmers. A Toronto rock station, CHUM-FM, started playing songs from the album in January 1978 and listeners were enthusiastic. Similarly, videos made for some of the songs generated interest in the U.K. and Australia. Eventually, the U.S. caught on and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" became a huge hit. I remember hearing it on the radio all the time in sixth grade, complete with the Phil Rizzuto baseball play-by-play and the sexual innuendo. 

Eventually, Bat Out of Hell sold over 43 million copies worldwide, certified 14x platinum in the U.S. alone. It's one of the biggest selling albums of all time. But Meat Loaf struggled to follow it up. He lost his voice after constant touring and drug use, so he turned to acting and cleaned up before recording 1981's Dead Ringer. The album was also written by Steinman, but it struggled in the U.S. (although it did hit #1 in the U.K.). Loaf had a falling out with Steinman and put together the next album without him, but it did even worse, failing to chart at all in the U.S. Adding to this, Meat Loaf had money struggles and faced 45 lawsuits totaling $80 million, which led to him filing for personal bankruptcy. 

After a few more album duds, Meat Loaf and Steinman made up and started working on Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, which was released in September 1993. They went back to worked on the first album, releasing operatic and over-the-top rock as exemplified by the first single, "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)." Like "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," the new single featured Meat Loaf duetting with a female singer. And like that song, the singer from the recording did not appear in the video; on "Paradise," original singer Ellen Foley was replaced in the video by Karla DeVito. 

With "I'd Do Anything," the female vocals were done on the album by Lorraine Crosby, who was credited as "Mrs. Loud" in the liner notes. But in the video, the female protagonist was played by model Dana Patrick, who lip-synched Crosby's vocals. 

On the album, "I'd Do Anything" is 12 minutes long, but it's cut down for the video to a concise 7:48. Directed by Michael Bay, who replaced original director David Fincher after the latter's proposed $1.7 million budget was rejected, the video was filmed for $750,000. Apparently, Bay and Fincher had feuded in their music video directing days before becoming big-name movie directors; Fincher later worked with Meat Loaf in 1999's Fight Club.

The video was based on Beauty and the Beast and The Phantom of the Opera, with Meat Loaf made up to look like a hulking deformed beast who is on the run from police and hiding out in a castle. He comes across a beautiful woman in the woods and drama ensues; meanwhile, the police are on his trail. And then (spoiler alert), they embrace and Meat Loaf transforms back into a human and they ride off into the distance on his motorcycle. 

The song never really specifies the one thing he wouldn't do for love, leaving that up to the listener's imagination.

It's not an exaggeration to say the video was in constant rotation on MTV at the time. Power ballads were big business, as Aerosmith and countless hard rock bands had discovered over the previous decade or so. The song was getting played to death on top 40 radio as well, becoming Meat Loaf's first and only #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100. It also topped the U.K. Singles Chart and was the best-selling single of 1993 in the U.K.; indeed, it went #1 in 28 countries. Meat Loaf won a Grammy award for the song as well. 

Bat Out of Hell II sold over 14 million copies worldwide and this time, Meat Loaf was able to sustain his success a little better. His 1995 release Welcome to the Neighborhood went platinum in the U.S. and had some top 40 singles. He continued to release new albums and tour over the next few decades, including Bat Out of Hell III in 2006. His last album was released in 2016. He died in 2022 at age 74.

If nothing else, Meat Loaf's career proved that doing your own thing comes back into style every 15 years or so.