Songs that Changed the Landscape of Human Thought and Understanding: Mike Reno and Ann Wilson's "Almost Paradise"

Ever since the first moments when humans were able to realize that life on Earth can sometimes be a severe pain in the ass, they have tried to imagine PARADISE. For the Fourteenth Century Italian poet Dante Alighieri, "paradiso" was the ten spheres of Heaven. Similarly, John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) concerns the fall of man from Paradise, the Biblical Garden of Eden, because of that big-time jerk and perpetual muse to heavy metal musicians everywhere: Satan. Milton writes, "To all delight of human sense exposed, / In narrow room, Nature's whole wealth, yea more, / A Heaven on Earth: For blissful Paradise / Of God the garden was, by him in the east / Of Eden planted." Sounds much better than this window-less office where I write this on the company's dime. Still, in the historical moments following the invention of the light bulb--and, henceforth, all great ideas--many musicians have tried to describe paradise for us in song. Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses, in their song "Paradise City," describes it is a place "Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty." This could be nice. But what if one is allergic to grass and doesn't particularly fancy pretty girls? Then it would be a nightmare. For Meat Loaf, on his epic cut "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," paradise is bangin' in the car when you're seventeen, preferably as a longtime baseball color-commentator provides innuendo-laden play-by-play. Because of abstinence-only education, though, this is no longer a possibility for seventeen year-olds. Since paradise is inestimable, we can only approximate it. It took two great titans of song, Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart, to bring us to this simple but profound realization. Thanks to their song "Almost Paradise," we now have a firmer understanding of this thing poets and philosophers have been trying to describe to us for centuries.

For nearly three decades, the mysteries of Mike Reno and Ann Wilson's "Almost Paradise" have puzzled literary critics. It was long thought that paradise in the song referred to being an oppressed white teenager in a small town who overcomes a variety of obstacles in order to dance and listen to rock music with impunity. But years of scrutiny have revealed that it is about a man and a woman, presumably, who love each other something fierce and can "see forever" when they look into each others' eyes. Now that they "hold the future in their hands," they realize the love they share is not paradise, but "almost paradise." This realization, though, brings with it another, more profound one: that we can only reach paradise when we die. How stupid is that? Reno notes, "in your arms salvation's not so far away." Then, Wilson, now recognizing Reno as her magic man, chimes in, "it's getting closer, closer every day." Reno and Wilson's voices fuse into a sweaty bandana of sweetness. Even if they concede the point that paradise on Earth is unattainable, they persevere knowing their compatible and complementary love for each other is good enough, and that when they die, they can dance all they want [pending they: a) were decent enough human beings to be granted some sort of beneficent afterlife; or, b) invest in the rather expensive technology that will enable their crusty, feeble, old, decaying, dead bodies to dance forever]. Either way, by proving that our mortal selves can only arrive at a place called "Almost Paradise," what they really manage to do is create a living paradise ... FOR OUR EARS!

Here's the video for this unparalleled piece of brutally brilliant music:

Songs that Changed the Landscape of Human Thought and Understanding: Meat Loaf's "I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)"

Love makes the world go 'round, literally. Every time a person utters the word, draws a heart, or puts "XOXOXO" at the end of a text message, it powers the rotation of our planet. It's science. It's true. It's been that way forever! Because of this, people have done some strange things for love. Wars have been fought for "love of country." People will occasionally murder somebody in "a fit of passion." But, thanks to Meat Loaf and his Wagnerian #1 hit "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)," we now know that there exists THE POSSIBILITY of things that people would not ever be willing to do for love. Here is just a brief list of some of the things Meat Loaf wouldn't do if we totally run on the assumption that his love-interest has some rather EXORBITANT demands:

--He wouldn't stick his left leg in a wood-chipper.
--He wouldn't get a large tattoo of a swastika on his forehead and walk around Jerusalem.
--He wouldn't eat human flesh marinated in Box-of-Wine puke.
--He wouldn't call his significant other 'Mommy Dearest' during sex.
--He wouldn't get a job as a telemarketer.

For nearly two decades now, people have wondered what Meat Loaf WOULDN'T do for love as they ponder the miracle of this song. During the chorus, when Meat Loaf initially admits, "I would do anything for love," we as listeners assume this is unconditional. However, mindblowingly, he immediately disqualifies the claim, adding, "But I won't do that." This is all just a part of the web that makes "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" so genius. The listener is forever left to speculate what "that" really is. Perhaps the most radical achievement of the track, though, is that it undid years of damage caused by the powerful jingle "What would you do for a Klondike Bar?" I'm pretty sure that if somebody did a mash-up of the two songs, a black hole would immediately form.

Marvin Lee Aday, nee Meat Loaf, rose to superstardom in 1977 with the release of his album Bat out of Hell. With its campy lyrics, over-the-top production, and Meat Loaf's dramatic vocals, it went on to sell over 14 million copies in the U.S. Success, though, eluded the Loaf in the years following Bat out of Hell. And by the early 1990s, he was more known, to the kids at least, for his part in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) than for "Paradise by the Dashboard Light." After patching things up with Bat out of Hell composer Jim Steinman, the two got back together at an unlikely time in music history. The year was 1993. Grunge had dethroned the likes of Michael Jackson and M.C. Hammer from the top of the charts. Bill Clinton was pissing off Republicans. The Clapper was in bedrooms all across the United States. What the world needed was a song that fused that old Meat Loafiness with one of the eight-minute songs from Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion II that made us, as human beings, rethink the power of love and its limitations.

The seven-minute song (the album version is twelve minutes long!) is passionately sung by the Loaf as he easily convinces the listener just how HARD he loves. I mean, shucks, he is willing to "run right into hell and back" for it. (Of course, this only seems extreme if one believes there is a hell. Literally running into "an abstract concept" and back suggests he is barely willing to do the minimum amount possible for love.) After making his case, he reaches the conclusion that there are some instances where indulging in outrageous actions for love are just not warranted. He just doesn't provide any specifics, though. The moral of the song is that people are prone to making bad decisions when they are in love (like the inability to recognize they have fallen in love with an utterly horrible person). Clearly, Meat Loaf's love-interest is using him because of his apparent gullibility, but he has been, up until now, unable to realize this dynamic. His love-interest (voiced by the otherwise obscure singer Mrs. Loud) gives Meat Loaf some rather esoteric exercises to prove his love to her near the end of the song, including "build[ing] an emerald city with these grains of sand," "colorizing" her "black and white" life, "tak[ing her] to places [she's] never known," and, weirdest of all, "hos[ing her] down with holy water." Meat Loaf is perfectly willing to do these things, which suggest that the guy is a total freak! However, after her un-named, specifically dubious demand, he now realizes how far he has gone and how much farther it will take for him to get back. I don't know what this means, but neither does anybody else.

The point is this: With "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)," Meat Loaf created the most ambitiously ambiguous song in the history of animal-, plant- and man-kind. I still maintain, to this day, she has asked him to punt a football made of broken glass barefooted to prove his love to her. It's totally in the lyrics ... somewhere ... I guess. What do you think?