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I’m looking for Steinman related videos in European PAL format, and rare music by Jim Steinman.
Please e-mail me if you have something I might be interested in.

How dare you call yourself a human being?

My thoughts about some songs by Jim Steinman
   Free association. I once heard somebody say how you must never use free association when you write about music and other arts. One example of this was: “This song reminds me of last summer when I went fishing with my uncle”.
   Unfortunately that’s exactly how I’m going to write about these songs. I want to tell what they make me feel, which events in my life they remind me of... This is completely unscientific.
   Remember that these are only my thoughts. People have written to me saying things like “You’re wrong, For Crying Out Loud isn’t about God”. Maybe it isn’t to you but it is to me. And I am just as right as you are. And so is the person who said that Heaven Can Wait is about suicide. The only person who could tell us the absolute truth about these songs is Jim Steinman. Or maybe not even him. I think what the songs mean to us is as important as what they mean to Jim.

Suicide is painless?
Heaven Can Wait

Heaven Can Wait by Jim Steinman and Ave Verum Corpus by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are the most beautiful songs ever written. There the same kind of timeless beauty in both of them. I think Heaven Can Wait may be the most optimistic song Steinman has written - then again someboody said it’s about suicide... For me it's about somebody who already was a bored and cynical grownup but who found his childlike innocence again. Lost Boys and Golden Girls and No Matter What are a lot like this song.
   Watch the classic movie Heaven Can Wait by Ernst Lubitsch.

Songs that aren’t about me
Dead Ringer for Love and Paradise by the Dashboard Lights

I often feel like Steinman's songs were about me. But these two songs most certainly aren't about me. I don't have a car, and having one definitely isn't my ultimate dream. I'm not interested in baseball. I don't like beer. When I was in highschool, I wasn't dating the most beautiful girl of the school. But these songs are a lot of fun anyway. The lyrics are funny (actually quite tragic in Paradise), and the music rocks. Dead ringer is the ultimate rock'n'roll song for me.

Summer day and still the Spring in the heart
Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire

   Always when I listen to this song, I think of a music video that hasn’t ever been made. It’s mostly based on the lyrics of the song. It starts with a band playing in a garage on a hot summer day. In the end of the intro the singer (maybe myself) puts off his guitar, goes out of the garage and starts walking down the streets of the town.
”Then I saw you like a summer dream”: A beautiful girl passes him by and is left staring at her.
“You can feel the pulse of the pavement...”: More of the town.
“I’ve seen you sitting on the steps outside”: He sees her sitting on the steps outside. He stares at her and she gives him a tired look.
Chorus: The band playing in the garage with the singer.
Second verse: The same as in first but when he sees her, she stops too. They stare at each other for a while and he asks her to come inside.
“So wander down”: She wanders down the hallway of an ancient palace. She opens a door to a chamber with a king-size bed. Sunshine fills the room.
“And I wanna take you out of the frying pan”: The singer singing.
“Fire, fire, fire”: The singer and the girl making love.

The last evening with my love
It's All Coming Back to Me Now

I was in love with this girl two years ago. She was artistic, shy, beautiful short, had long dark hair. She was the nicest person I've ever known. And she already had a boyfriend. A year ago I decided that I wasn't in love with her anymore. Then we met in a party. I talked a lot with her, it was nice but I didn't think I was falling in love with her anymore. Then I put a record on: It's All Coming Back to Me Now. She said to me: "I guess this was your choice". She smiled at me and started to sing along. When I heard those words and saw that smile, it all came back to me. I was in love with her again.
   (Actually the song that was played in that party wasn't It's All Coming Back to Me Now, It was Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. But in some way I think it should have been It's All Coming Back to Me Now. And when I went home, I was singing this song.)

In love in Austria
Whistle Down the Wind and No Matter What by Steinman / Lloyd Webber, and L'anamour by Serge Gainsbourg

 In January 1999 I spent one week in a town called Spittal an der Drau in the Western Austria (For those of you who aren't good in geography: Austria is in Europe and has nothing to do with Australia). The reason why I was there was that I took part in the Journalists Worldchampionships in skiing (just ask if you want to know how on earth I suddenly became a journalist and a worldclass sportsman). I'm not going to say much about the championships or the town of Spittal though I had a great time there. as I was in Austria, you probably think that I went to see Tanz der Vampire. Unfortunately I couldn't because I was so far from Vienna.
   I was very much in love with one girl. In the plane I was thinking of her. I was singing the song L'anamour by Serge Gainsbourg, it's a beautiful song about love and traveling alone. Everytime when I was alone in the hotel I listened to the albums Songs from Whistle Down the Wind by Steinman and Andrew Lloyd Webber, and De Gainsbourg a Gainsbarre by Gainsbourg and dreamed of my love. Unfortunately this happened too little. I often need time to be alone, and I didn't have it much.

   I went back to Spittal an der Drau, to a get-together. I was wearing a Meat Loaf t-shirt, and some people said nice things about Meat Loaf, somebody had been a fan since Bat Out of Hell. There was a band which was quite good even though their English was extremely bad. They sang British and American hits and local schlagers. I thought the nicest surprise was that they sung the Roy Orbison/Jeff Lynne song California Blue. But when I was just about to leave, I heard the familiar intro: No Matter What! I sang along and almost wept for joy. I felt that I didn't want to go home. I wanted to be in Austria with my love. I wanted to hear that band play No Matter What every day. When we went to the hotel by bus, I was still singing No Matter What aloud.
   Early in the next morning we left. I was hoping that I'd meet my love when I'm back in Finland, and ask her to be my girlfriend. By this day she's not become my girlfriend. I doubt she will. But when I think of my time in Austria, it almost feels like she had been there with me.

About a girl or God?
For Crying Out Loud

I remember reading people’s comments  about this song. Most of them said things like “It’s about this guy who loves this girl” etc. I don’t thinks this song is that simple. It’s a love song but is it about a girl or God? Both words “baby” and “Lord” are used. It is about saving somebody’s soul but also people can save each other’s souls sometimes. Some of the lyrics are a bit harsh and sexual, that kind of lyrics aren’t usually used in religious songs - or in love songs either. Would somebody have an erection when he’s thinking about God? Why not. Many people who conseder themselves as Christians, would probably think this is a completely un-Christian song. I consider myself as a Christian, and this song makes perfect sense to me. For me it’s about a girl and God. A goddess maybe.

Uneasy Listening

I usually have to listen to Steinman’s songs quite a few times before I really start to like them. (I’m talking about music, the lyrics are a completely different matter.) I heard Tanz der Vampire (which is composed by Steinman)  and Whistle Down the Wind (which is mostly composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber) around the same times. I loved Whistle the moment I heard it but I was a bit dissappointed with Tanz. Now I still like Whistle but I think Tanz is the best musical I’ve heard, the cast album isn’t far from being the best album I’ve heard. I also wasn’t crazy about Neverland when I first heard it, and I’m still not completely sure of what to think of a few songs in the Dream Engine. I used to think I’ll Kill You If You Don’t Come Back was a quite boring song, now it’s one of my favorites. I also didn’t like such songs as Nowhere Fast, Is Nothing Sacred and even Total Eclipse of the Heart. Now I love them all.

Random and completely useless trivia

* Steinman has written more songs in major than minor key. All songs on Bat Out of Hell are in major key. Steinman’s saddest song It Just Won’t Quit is in major key. Peel Out is an example of a Steinman song that is in minor key. The verses of Original Sin and Good Girls are in major key but the choruses are in minor.
* Steinman sleeps in the daytime and is awake in the nighttime. That can be easily heard in his songs because the word “night” is in a lot of them, including 6 of the 7 songs on Bat Out of Hell
* The newest released song with words and music by Steinman is Objects. Since then he has co-written songs with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Michael Kuntze and Don Black.
* The longest released Steinman song is I’d Do Anything for Love, 11’55. Tanzsaal is a few seconds longer but I wouldn’t count it as just one song. If you don’t count spoken monologues (The Invocation, 0’21), instrumentals (Back into Hell, 2’44) things like Noch mehr Bücher (0’53), cover versions, remakes and single edits, Steinman’s shortest released song is All Revved Up, 4’19. If you don’t count even that one (because remake of an unreleased song from Neverland), the shortest song is Dead Ringer for Love, 4’21. If you don’t count it (because Jim wasn’t involved in recording it), the shortest song is Lost Boys, 4’37. If you don’t count it because...

All text and images © Robert Storm except where otherwise noted. (Pandora in the buttons painted by John William Waterhouse). Ask my permission if you want to use something.