“Paradise by the Dashboard Light” by Meat Loaf

"Paradise by the Dashboard Light" is the sprawling centerpiece of Meat Loaf's 1977 album Bat Out of Hell, a Jim Steinman epic that turns a duet into full-blown rock and roll theater. Meat Loaf and Ellen Foley trade lead vocals like two stars going for broke under the spotlights, and it runs far longer than anyone had a right to expect from a single. Classic rock stations have never let it go, and it has even been hailed as the greatest rock duet of them all.

Todd Rundgren produced, engineered and mixed it, played guitar and arranged it with Steinman, and he stacked the deck: Roy Bittan on piano, Max Weinberg on drums, Kasim Sulton on bass, Roger Powell on synthesizer, Edgar Winter on saxophone, and Rory Dodd singing backup alongside Meat Loaf and Rundgren himself. Steinman chips in keyboards and extra vocals, and Phil Rizzuto supplies a spoken part. The result is pure bombast, greasy rock and roll pumped up to Wagnerian size.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.