Two out of Three? Seriously?

It was 80's day at the hair stylist yesterday. There was plenty of crimped and feather hair, leg warmers, bangle bracelets, and I'm pretty sure I might've even seen a Member's Only jacket. In addition to the righteous duds, they also had some totally bodacious 80's music playing in the background. Halfway through my snipping, one of the worst songs of the 70's and into the 80's came onto the boombox - "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" by Meatloaf.

This song was on the "Bat Out of Hell" album - sandwiched in between, "You Took the Words Right out of my Mouth" and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light". Now all three songs were written by Jim Steinman, which is interesting only in so far as how one person could write such dramatically different lyrics. 

Of course I, along with every other person alive in the 1980's, has heard this song and pondered to themselves - What kind of an a-hole could actually say that to a woman? - but it didn't occur to me until that moment in the cutting chair how terribly awful that song truly is. What's even more pathetic than the sentiment of the song, is the fact that I haven't been able to get it out of my brain for over 24 hours now. What a depressing earworm. 

So I started thinking that maybe the Loaf was refusing to leave my brain for a reason. The first thing I did was to add a new line to my book referencing the song. It actually hadn't dawned on me until yesterday that the lead character in my book, Jay, was essentially singing this song to me on repeat for almost a year before I realized the mute button was on and opened my ears. With that mission accomplished, the earworm still was burrowing its way into my consciousness. Hence, I'm giving the song its own blog post and hoping that that will be enough for the cheesy music Gods. 

The story behind this song? It was an attempt to write a 'simple' song. It was the last song written for 'Paradise' and in a conversation with a cast member of one of Steinman's musicals (he'd been writing them since school-age) he was asked why he had to write such complicated songs. The challenge became to write something simple. During the conversation, Elvis' "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You" was on the radio. Can't you write something simple like that? - So he went home and came up with the chorus, "I want you, I need you, but there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you". He called it his most simple song, and the epitome of cheese had ascended past the likes of "Billy Don't be a Hero," "Seasons in the Sun," and even the impossible to beat, "Disco Duck". 

The only question I can think to ask is which song do you think was the 2nd WORST song of the 1970's?

And one last note - I'd like to give a shout-out to Alex at Lens Crafters for making the proce pick out some awesome stage glasses yesterday. They are purple, sparkly, have a paisley design, and I can't wait to rock them on stage this Friday at the Music Buffet.