The Power of Song

Music has always had the power to comfort and bring joy and enrich the lives of its listener. This goes back, oh time immemorial. To me, some of the greatest pieces I've ever heard include Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" from his opera "Die Walküre", "Libera me" from Verdi's "Messa da Requiem", Elvis Presley "Suspicious Minds" and "Devil in Disguise", the Beatles "A Day in the Life" and the B side to "Abbey Road", Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon" and "Wish You Were Here", Elton John and Bernie Taupin's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", and so much more, among them songs like "For Crying out Loud" and "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are" from the hit "Bat out of Hell" albums by Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman.

The first most lurid musical experience I can remember having was about the year 1991, when Michael Kamen wrote the score for "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" and Bryan Adams had that massive song with "Everything I do (I do it for you)". To this day, sometimes I might hear the opening notes and get the chills. I don't know why it is. It's something to do with nostalgia, memories, how you felt at the time, I don't know. Songs like Billy Joel "All About Soul" and Seal "Kiss from a Rose" came after that.

And then there's the music of Jim Steinman which has been on a level that I can't really describe, and if I tried to it would probably come across a lot like his saying: "If you don't go over the top you'll never see what's on the other side". All right then, why don't we go over the top? Let's pick, say, the original cast album of "Tanz der Vampire: Das Musical" composed and produced by Jim. The "Overture" will have just started. It's like something out of "Harry Potter". I'm blowing up like Aunt Marge in "Prisoner of Azkaban" and they're trying to pull me down from the ceiling. Oops, it's too late. The window's wide open and the fly screen does nothing. I've just gone straight through it and there I am, floating high over the suburbs where I live, up, up, up into outer space, where somehow I have no idea how I've managed to defy space, actually survive, and start bouncing my way across the surface of the moon, still with the music playing in my head, because I've left my headphones way behind me. OK, that was over the top, but how would I have been able to see what's on the other side?

My journey with Jim's music began with "Bat out of Hell" and "Bat II" on cassette. The next albums I heard were Meat Loaf's "Dead Ringer" and Jim's own album "Bad for Good", before I realized Celine Dion "It's all Coming Back to me Now" and Bonnie Tyler "Total Eclipse of the Heart" were Jim as well (with a very popular Nicki French version at the time). Thanks to sites like Dream Pollution and Neverland Hotel, Jim Steinman Temple and others, I was able to find out all the other projects he'd done. The amazement that comes from listening to his music continued from there. I went pale as a sheet, when I rented out a video of music videos from the movie "Streets of Fire", and Diane Lane came onscreen singing to Holly Sherwood's vocal on the first time I ever heard "Tonight is What it Means to be Young". This was super-music. "Whistle down the Wind" and "Tanz der Vampire" followed and I have not looked back.

Songs like "For Crying out Loud", I believe Meat in his recent story in Rolling Stone that this is the greatest love song he's ever heard, songs like Jim's original version of "Left in the Dark", listen to his vocal and that orchestra, Rory's demos of "Making Love out of Nothing at all" and "Vaults of Heaven (Her Hymn)", I could go on and on... The chorus of "Braver Than We Are", a song that began life in "Tanz der Vampire" and morphed into a brilliant demo version by Karine Hannah, before Meat Loaf recorded it with Ellen Foley and Karla DeVito as "Going all the Way is Just the Start", is indescribable. But again, let's go over the top so we can see what's on the other side. Suddenly I'm climbing, climbing this tall mountain looking out over this great valley, right as the sun's beginning to set, and all the lights are coming on in the houses below, and there's a river up ahead somewhere behind the houses running all the way up past the mountains (which meet the heavens above), there's a thick woodland on both sides of the valley, and a highway somewhere which you could only see through a pair of binoculars, it's one of those perfect autumn days, not too warm, not too cold, it's just right, and I get right to the top as the orchestra lands on the chorus and the singers sing "We always seem so much braver than we ever are". In that moment, I feel alive, I could stay up there for three hours. This is the way this music makes me feel.

"Not Allowed to Love", a song Jim had written for an unproduced "Batman" musical which he used in the "Bat out of Hell" musical for Tink, is my personal favourite Steinman song and one of the best songs I've ever heard. I don't know that I can explain this, again, and really there are so many great songs that Jim's written that you're probably wondering to yourself, "Why on earth that one? And it's only like five minutes long." There's something about that melody, something about those words, and the little bee sting at the end of it, "Nothing's gonna change the truth/My night is better", that just leaves me smitten. Please don't ask me to explain that one, besides I've probably scared you enough already (really, bouncing on the moon, mountain climbing?)

When I heard the news that Jim had passed, I was trying to get my thoughts together so I could express how much this music means to me, and what it's brought to people's lives. All the music I've mentioned above has a special place inside of me, but there's something about Jim's music as well that I can't quite describe. It's heavenly, ethereal, atmospheric, and that's just the tunes themselves. It's brought something to my life that's been one of those things like, I've experienced magic, and that I would love to give it back.

There are so many problems in the world, but to sit there and experience something like "Bat out of Hell" or "Wish You Were Here" is an extremely rewarding magical thing. I don't know that it's going to change the world, but it's going to be inspiration and escapism of the highest order.

Thank you for reading my message here, and remember everything Jim told you.... You're never alone cause you can put on the phones and let the drummer tell your heart what to do. The magical effect of music! The power of song!

Ryan.