Jim Steinman
Best lyricist music has ever known


Jim Steinman is a phenomenon. Never has any songauthor been able to write down what he wants to say in such beautiful sentences.

Pathos, melancholy, melodrama ... Jim's been there and has done that. But whatever he does and has done (let it be musical, film or music), it's so utterly compelling and good it makes you wanna quit every entertainment bizz.

In 1980, after the unexpected monstersuccess of Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell-opus, Jim and Marvin (Meat Loaf's real name) sat around the table together (Meat needed two chairs in those days) to discuss a follow-up. Jim had already written 8 new songs, but arguments cooled off the relationship between the two. Meat Loaf also experienced financial and narcotic problems. He even lost his voice for a couple of years. In the end, Jim was so fed up with waiting and waiting that he decided to record and publish the album he had written for Meat, Bad For Good, under his own name.

Jim wrote and produced many other brilliant things : Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse Of The Heart and the only good song Celine Dion has ever sung, It's All Coming Back To Me Now, to name but a few.

He's still planning to release his musical Neverland in its entirety, using songs from Bat I & II and Bad For Good. He translated his opus Dance Of The Vampires to the stage. The performance was a critical and commercial failure though. The music was praised, but the entire performance was slashed down in the press. Few people showed up and the musical became the biggest financial loss in the history of Broadway. Too bad, but not Jim's fault.

I still hope I'll be able to meet him and interview him someday for a musicmagazine of some sort. To ask where he gets the terrific ideas. To ask what's going on in his mind right now. And to let my reader-audience know he's the greatest. Jim Steinman is fantastic. Say it once, say it loud and say it proud : Jim Steinman!!!


Julian, 11 June 2005