The Stirring Jim Steinman Lyric That Meat Loaf Finally Sang a Dozen Years After the Fact

Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman tended to do their best work together. Alas, the singer and the songwriter sometimes struggled to get their timing straight, which led to long stretches when they weren’t recording as a unit.

For example, Steinman wrote “Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through” as a potential hit for Meat back in the early 80s. It took more than a decade before Meat was able to record his own version of the inspiring song.

Delayed “Dreams”

After the massive success of Bat Out Of Hell, the 1977 Meat Loaf album that was crafted by Jim Steinman, demand was high for the pair to do it again. But a series of events conspired to keep the follow-up from happening the way it was meant to be.

The main issue is that Meat Loaf completely lost his voice in those sessions. Perhaps it was all those nights on tour belting out the Bat Out Of Hell songs. Or maybe it was something psychological. In any case, Steinman took the songs he had written for the next Meat Loaf album and recorded them himself.

Those songs included “Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through”. On Steinman’s 1981 album Bad For Good, he handed off the lead vocals for the track to Rory Dodd. That version squeaked into the Top 40.

In 1993, Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman were finally able to get on the same page at the same time to put together Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell. That was the perfect time for Meat to finally sink his teeth into “Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through”. Steinman even wrote an extra verse to the song to sweeten the deal.

Behind the Lyrics of “Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through”

“Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through” testifies to the sneaky potency of music, rock and roll music specifically. The narrator is talking to someone who’s running away from their problems. “You want to shut out the night,” he says. “You want to shut down the sun/You want to shut away the pieces of a broken heart.”

The narrator believes that there has always been a solution to all their problems playing on the radio. “Every golden nugget coming like a gift of the gods,” he explains. “Someone must have blessed us when he gave us those songs.” And his companion needs all the help she can get. “You’ve been through a lot of pain in the dirt,” he commiserates. “And I know you’ve got the scars to prove it.”

But he urges her to “keep on believing,” to hold on until the next record plays. “The beat is yours forever,” he promises. “The beat is always true/And when you really, really need it the most/That’s when rock and roll dreams come through.” Note how Steinman subverts our expectations, substituting “through” for “true,” which would have been the clichéd way to go.

The extra verse delivers one of those trademark Steinman metaphors that are gloriously over the top. He imagines the Edenic moment when rock and roll manifested itself from nothingness. “And the angels had guitars even before they had wings,” Meat Loaf sings. “If you hold on to a chorus, you can get through the night.”

As if to prove his point, Meat Loaf then tears into the chorus right after that line. Steinman’s grandiose promises in “Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through” only seemed fulfillable once Meat was able to give proper voice to them.

(Photo By Rick Diamond/Getty Images)

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