Meat Loaf: Midnight at the Lost and Found (1983)

The year was 1983 and Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman had released their mega hit album "Bat out of Hell" (1977) followed in 1981 by "Dead Ringer", after Meat had lost his voice and Jim had released the material for the original follow-up as his own album "Bad for Good" (see previous posts on "Bat" and "Dead Ringer".)

Times had been hard, Meat had been battling to get his vocals back, and he was going out on the road again. The original tour for "Bat" had included the Kulick brothers Bob and Bruce on guitars, Steve Buslowe on bass and vocals, Jim on piano and vocals with Paul Glanz on keyboards and vocals, Joe Stefko on drums, Karla DeVito as the female lead vocal (she had also released her album "Is This a Cool World or What?" in 1981, which is well worth the listen), and Rory Dodd on backing vocals (I will be talking more about him in future posts.) Only Steve Buslowe would return for the next tour, which introduced Davey Johnstone on lead guitars (who had also performed on "Dead Ringer"), Mark Doyle on guitars, Paul Jacobs on piano and vocals, George Meyer on keyboards and vocals, Terry Williams on drums, Pamela Moore as the new female lead, and Ted Neeley and Eric Troyer on vocals. (Thanks again, Mr. Wikipedia. I would have written more about them, but this post would end up an epic like one of Jim's songs.)

The 1981-82 tour was documented on VHS with the release of "Live" in 1986, which is interesting from memory because you can see how Meat was still struggling with the vocals, while he was giving everything he could to the shows. It also included a version of Meat and the band singing the Chuck Berry song "The Promised Land" which will be of importance on the next album I'm about to write about.

So it was time for the next album! By now, Meat had his voice back in full force, and he was rearing to go. According to his auto-biography "To Hell and Back", Meat came to the record company (probably at some point in 1982 or 83) with a whole bunch of songs he wanted to record, but they turned them down. It was too much money, too much hassle. They were annoyed with him, I believe, because they wanted another "Bat" and instead they got "Bad for Good" and "Dead Ringer" which had been released in the same year and neither of them were selling on that level. Sure, the albums had done well enough. "Dead Ringer for Love" featuring Cher was a Number 5 hit in the UK. "Bad for Good" the album would go platinum. "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" was a minor hit. But it was not "Bat" levels of success. Put it this way, Meat hadn't come back like Michael Jackson after "Thriller" and delivered them a "Bad". He hadn't come back after "Dark Side of the Moon" and put out a "Wish You Were Here". So Meat had to go away by himself and write the songs himself. Say what now?

Not to mention songwriter Jim Steinman?? It had always been Meat and Jim. "Bat" was supposed to have been released as Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman, but the credit was changed to "Songs by..." instead. Jim had written Meat two albums worth of material, and according to Meat Loaf he might have recorded "Making Love out of Nothing at all" and "Total Eclipse of the Heart" which would become massive hits for Jim the same year this album was released, without any material from Jim.

Meat seems to have taken this in stride, judging by his promo interviews in 1983, and work on writing and recording "Midnight at the Lost and Found" had begun. Meat had not really written songs since his days in his 60s rock group Meat Loaf Soul/Popcorn Blizzard/Floating Circus, and the process was challenging at first, but he got on a roll. (All of this is talked about in these interviews. There should be scans somewhere on one of the Meat Loaf groups, plus the excellent lyric archive Almost Complete Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman.) By the end of the process, he and the band had about nine songs which they were going to record, and then with the addition of "The Promised Land", they were ready.

The producer this time was Tom Dowd. Todd Rundgren had not worked on "Dead Ringer", which used about four different producers, but he had co-produced Jim's "Bad for Good". Tom had told Meat basically that if you wanted to make a hit album, I'm your man, otherwise he wasn't interested. Meat said in the promos he was excited. He was singing well, and there's no doubt to me that he was in finer voice here than he was on "Dead Ringer", but something happened. Whether he was miserable from the beginning, and he just couldn't talk about it in the promos, or something changed his mind, Meat would end up dismissing this album years later in various interviews and articles.

To music listeners everywhere, it was certainly different. For a start, it was missing two important components: the songs by Jim Steinman which had made up the two previous albums, and the fantasy cover art which fascinated record buyers everywhere. There were people who bought "Bat out of Hell" just because they wanted to own the cover art, and then they became fans listening to it. This time, instead of an almighty Harley busting out of the middle of some hellish cemetery which wouldn't have felt out of place in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", or an ocean-going motorcycle defying a perilous thunderstorm, siren ladies in tow, there was a black and white image of Meat Loaf's face. It was like switching off a light. It was like stepping out of the colourful world of the land of Oz, or Frank-n-Furter's mansion from Transsexual Transylvania, into sepia Kansas and Denton, the Home of Happiness. Damn it Janet, where was the Technicolor?

I first heard this album in early 1999, after I'd waited a number of weeks for an imported copy from the US as the album seemed to have vanished from stores over here, and I remember feeling a bit... the word's not disappointed, but deflated. It was cool hearing "Razor's Edge" and "Midnight at the Lost and Found" in the album context, but overall. I don't really know what it was.

It was super-fan Gary Haldane, while we were talking in the foyer at "Pandora's Requiem" in Melbourne 2016, who really clarified my thoughts. I can remember what he said: "It's just a great little rock album." I guess I'd sort of known that, and it had grown on me from that first listen, but everything really slotted into place from there. Without "Bat" or "Dead Ringer", and the next album "Bad Attitude", not to mention the absolutely stupendous work Jim was producing around this time, "Midnight at the Lost and Found" is just this great little rock album that could have co-existed nicely with the soundtrack for "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", something in the vein of Little Nell's singles (which I've never fully heard) or Tim Curry's albums (which I've never heard at all!). I can see it.

With that said, as a Meat Loaf fan, I enjoy "Midnight at the Lost and Found". Let's have a look at the songs.

"Razor's Edge"---dour and depressing, and that video clip is kind of scary, but I really like it. There is an excellent cover version by someone named Kitty Plum playing it at her piano on YouTube. That cover to me could be a single today. Please listen to it.

"Midnight at the Lost and Found"---the most famous one from this album and the one that always stayed, throughout most of the tours. Yes, I add my voice to the chorus of people who like this.

"Wolf at your Door"---the lyrics are written by Meat's then wife Leslie, and they portray some of the difficulties they were going through at the time. It's moving for that reason. Besides that, it's an OK little rock song, nothing that rocks my world.

"Keep Driving"---this is one of two songs on this album featuring work from Paul Jacobs who would go on to write some brilliant songs for the next Meat Loaf album with his wife and co-writer Sarah Durkee. I like this song.

"The Promised Land"---I think it's very cool they actually recorded this, instead of just playing it in the shows. It makes you wish they might have done "Johnny B. Goode" or "River Deep, Mountain High" at some point too. Meat is singing this with a number of people. At first I thought this seemed odd, but I like it.

"You never can be too sure about the Girl"---this is where this album starts to lose me. This is the weakest song on here. I like the little reference to "All revved up" by the way.

"Priscilla"---the other song by Paul, this time writing with Sarah. This is pretty groovy.

"Don't you look at me like that"---we find Meat singing a rock ballad duet with Dale Krantz-Rossington. I've heard people not liking this, including Meat himself I believe, but I'm not with that camp. I really like it.

"If you really want to"---this is the one co-written by the guy from the "Jesus Christ Superstar" movie, with Caroline Munro from Ray Harryhausen's "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" (I had to get that in, OK) in the awesome video clip about a man getting tangled up with a vampire lady. Apparently Meat never liked this one, but oh I couldn't disagree more. This is probably my favourite on here!

"Fallen Angel"---this one is very nice, and a cool little underrated song from Meat. It's no "Martha" from "Welcome to the Neighborhood", but on an album of Underrated Hits out of Hell, this would be on there.

So that's all from this album. Or is it!!!!!

On the 90s Australian CD version of "Hits out of Hell" there was a song called "Lost Love" which had originally been taken from a B side from this album, and it just beggars belief as to why it wasn't on there!!! I don't understand it, but it should have been, and if you haven't heard it and you love Meat Loaf's music, then you must remedy that. A remedy for all your ills at the lost and found... 

Thank you for reading,

Ryan.