“Two Out of Three Ain't Bad” by Meat Loaf

Bat Out of Hell was nearly finished in 1977 when Jim Steinman wrote "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad", the last song to make the album. Mimi Kennedy, a cast member of his musical Rhinegold, had needled him to try writing something simple for once, just as an oldies station was playing Elvis's "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You", and Steinman did the math.

What came out is a power ballad of rueful arithmetic, and Meat Loaf sings it like a man trying to be gracious while his heart caves in. Todd Rundgren produced, engineered and mixed it, arranged it with Steinman, played guitar and sang backup with Rory Dodd, while Roy Bittan's piano, Roger Powell's synthesizer, Kasim Sulton's bass and Willie Wilcox's drums swell around him. It rode the Billboard Hot 100 for 23 weeks, peaked at 11, went gold and then platinum, and became one of his signature songs.

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