Jim Steinman has died at age 73. He’s best known as the progenitor – music, lyrics, production, schmaltz – of Meat Loaf’s songs.
Bat Out of Hell. Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad. Paradise by the Dashboard Light. I Would Do… well, I’m getting tired of typing out those lengthy titles, but you know the songs.
But I remember him best from a September in Edinburgh. 1983, and it was raining, as is the norm for September in Edinburgh, and people were bustling past the shops on Castlehill, and from every other storefront came Bonnie Tyler rasping her way through Total Eclipse of the Heart. We ducked into a tea shop for scones, and I remember it played twice while we tried – and failed – to wait out the rain.
But it didn’t matter. There was a magic to Edinburgh and Festival and Bonnie Tyler and even Scottish rain, highlighting an afternoon I have never forgotten.
Jim Steinman wrote that. And that’s the song I’ll remember him by.
Here’s a live version Bonnie Tyler recorded a few years ago.