Streets Of Fire: Original Soundtrack

The pantheon of rock ‘n roll movies is littered with a handful of great films, from either musical or cinematic standpoints, but mostly dominated by some horrible missteps. Yet, even some of these turkeys have their fans, who enjoy them from a “so bad it’s good” angle. As with albums, what makes a great rock ‘n roll movie is largely a matter of personal humor. Also, the nostalgic value will vary depending on personal experience. Therefore, the following may baffle most readers.

Streets Of Fire was supposed to be Walter Hill’s next blockbuster following 48 Hrs., but despite one hit single, this supposed “rock & roll fable” made no dent at the box office. Not did it take off in heavy cable rotation, even with the star power of Michael Paré, fresh off his iconic lead role in Eddie & The Cruisers, which did manage to gain a following on the smaller screen. Granted, the setting was a little weird—‘50s crossed with ‘80s in a city that appeared to have been built in a basement but still rained a lot—but it had Diane Lane at her jailbait hottest, Rick Moranis in a really bad suit, and Willem Dafoe as a psychopath with a tendency to wear fishing waders without a shirt. We could go on (Bill Paxton! Lee Ving! E.G. Daily! The other cute girl from Too Close For Comfort!) but then we’d never get to the music.

The soundtrack is an odd hodgepodge of styles, right in line with the anachronistic setting of the film itself. The two big production numbers come from the grandiose mind of Jim Steinman, loaded with multisyllabic verses and turns of phrase, pounding drums and percussive pianos, with the usual suspects (Rory Dodd, Roy Bittan, Max Weinberg, etc.) making up the faceless “Fire Inc.” “Nowhere Fast” would be recorded by Meat Loaf that same year, yet “Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young” appears to have been largely ignored, albeit tailor-made for the likes of Bonnie Tyler.

Half the album was produced by Jimmy Iovine, who called in favors from some important friends. “Sorcerer” was written by Stevie Nicks, sung by one Marilyn Martin, who would go on to duet with Phil Collins for another soundtrack and nothing else for a long, long time. (Indeed, it’s not too tough to discern Stevie’s voice in the mix, indicating that this was an outtake from her most recent solo album.) Meanwhile, “Never Be You” is a rare collaboration between Tom Petty and Benmont Tench, sung in the film by Laurie Sargent, but on the album by Maria McKee, not yet known from Lone Justice, except by Benmont, who was infatuated with her. Placing the music directly in the “now” is “Deeper And Deeper”, an occasionally lengthy track by the Fixx (conveniently signed to MCA, which released the soundtrack) used over the end credits.

Part of the plot involved an R&B vocal group, so the mostly a cappella “Countdown To Love” demonstrates their doo-wop prowess, while “I Can Dream About You” is supposed to be their big breakthrough; indeed it made it to #6 in the real world, voiced by the white guy who wrote it. For our money the best tunes here are by the Blasters, with the obscure Leiber-Stoller nugget “One Bad Stud” and their own “Blue Shadows”. (Ry Cooder composed and performed all the incidental music in the film, mostly in the vein of Link Wray’s “Rumble”, and represented only on the album by the rather dull “Hold That Snake”.)

We’re not about to suggest that either film or album deserves an elevated level of respect, but anytime we come across anyone who’s seen Streets Of Fire, much less enjoys it, we feel a sense of brotherhood like no other. At the very least, it’s got enough connections to people with fervent cult followings to be mentioned as a sidebar in their discographies. And just like Tom Cody, we’ll take it wherever we can get it.

Streets Of Fire: Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1984)—3

Meat Loaf: Bat Out Of Hell

In between his own albums and touring behind them, Todd Rundgren got quite a bit of work producing other people’s albums. Wide-ranging examples from a five-year period include The Band, Badfinger, Hall & Oates, New York Dolls and Grand Funk Railroad. But if the money was there, it can be assumed that he’d work with anyone, which is how he ended up with a guy whose claim to fame thus far had been in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and a songwriter with designs to be the rock version of Richard Wagner. Though he says he doesn’t get royalties for it anymore, Bat Out Of Hell is easily the most successful album Todd ever produced.

Meat Loaf’s persona was that of a sweaty fat guy with long hair in a ruffled tux without a tie, clutching a handkerchief. His size and voice were about as overblown as Jim Steinman’s music and ego; therefore they were made for each other. Steinman’s hair was about as long, and his propensity for mirrored shades shouldn’t be construed as a desire to stay in the background. While not as prominent as that of the artist, his name does feature on the cover, directly above the fantasy porn image of a motorcycle emerging from a grave.

To this day it’s easy to recognize a Jim Steinman song on first listen: the title is either lengthy, a corrupted expression or both; the lyrics include at least one repeated phrase that could well be the song title but isn’t; each line of the verse is about 35 syllables and painstakingly rhymed; the musicians feature singer Rory Dodd and members of the E Street Band and Utopia. These elements aren’t limited to this album; “Total Eclipse Of The Heart”, “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now”, “Making Love Out Of Nothing At All” and the two gems from Streets Of Fire (“Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young” and “Nowhere Fast”) all have different singers but might as well have the voice of Meat, who would end up recording some of them anyway.

Nearly forty years on, Bat Out Of Hell reminds us of rainy days during the very hot summer of ’78 at camp, where we failed to learn to swim. In time we’ve learned to appreciate it for its camp value; part of this was helped by the early days of MTV, where the limited playlist included promo clips for this album, featuring backup singer Karla DeVito in that tight white halter top (even though it was Night Court’s Ellen Foley on the recordings themselves). That likely kept boys interested through the ‘80s, and the album’s continual budget pricing meant you could get the cassette for about five bucks and the inevitable CD for as low as ten.

Rundgren’s touch is all over, particularly in the guitars and layered harmonies. On the biggest and longest numbers, the songs ape Bruce Springsteen, from the arpeggiated piano to the saxophone. Did we mention that the songs are long? The title track is nearly ten minutes, with a lengthy overture-like intro and guitars that sound like motorcycles and their eventual crashes. “You Took The Words Right Out Of Mouth” uses the “Be My Baby” beat and Spector percussion, but only after a goofy spoken prologue. “Heaven Can Wait” is a string-soaked clunker that sounds nothing like Springsteen, unlike “All Revved Up With No Place To Go”, which oozes Asbury Park.

What sold the album on AM radio was “Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad”, a ballad that gets more depressing the more you hear it, but FM was all over “Paradise By The Dashboard Light”. The cleverest track on the album by far, this three-part epic sports named sections and the pushed metaphor of Phil Rizzuto (of The Money Store) calling the action. The “let me sleep on it” section is well balanced, and the turnaround where he’s “praying for the end of time” is hilarious. The album should have ended there, leaving off the nearly nine minutes of “For Crying Out Loud”, where all the orchestral stops are pulled out.

One of the managers at the first record store where we worked took offense at our scoffing about this album. We said we had no problem with anyone enjoying it, but rather with anyone championing it. When its “sequel” arrived in 1993, consisting mostly of older Steinman songs yet to be recorded by Meat Loaf, its success was not entirely unexpected, while the initial sales of the second sequel only speak to the state of the record industry in 2006. As long as the perpetrators were around to flog it, Bat Out Of Hell would not be limited to a mere trilogy.

Meat Loaf Bat Out Of Hell (1977)—3