The Meat is Expired (Long Live the Meat)

The paradox and performance of Meat Loaf’s brand of rock star masculinity

Meat Loaf (Michael Lee Aday) was actually a vegan, which is a perfect summation of his art and public persona.

What you saw wasn’t necessarily what you got. His artistry and his persona were at odds with so many things about him, least of all his looks and his style of music. His politics, despite the company he kept and his artistic temperament, were disappointingly right-wing.

His role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (and the original stage show it was based on), the musical theater inspirations of his music, and his performances of exaggerated masculinity and almost parodic bravado make his politics both paradoxical and somehow sensical at the same time.

Still, if we’re all allowed at least one anti-vaxxer Republican artist to praise without guilt, Meat Loaf is mine.

Meat’s most famous song, “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” is a ten-minute rock ballad and karaoke staple told from the point-of-view of a middle-aged man remembering the night his teenage self promised a date literally anything to get some backseat pussy… even if it means committing to lifelong connubial misery with her.