Ellen Foley said the enduring popularity of “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” which she sang with Meat Loaf in 1977, is “kind of incredible.”
“Stop Right There!” Three words of warning — and three words that Ellen Foley credits with launching her career in music. It was Foley who belted out the words to Meat Loaf about halfway through their 8½-minute duet “Paradise By the Dashboard Light,” the epic seduction song on his mega-selling 1977 “Bat Out of Hell” album. Foley is now looking back on the singular experience of making the memorable song as she recalls Meat Loaf and a “beautiful, feisty, joyful friendship” that began in her early 20s. Meat Loaf, born Marvin Lee Aday, died on Thursday at 74. He was the most unlikely of rock superstars, Foley says. “I mean, that’s the wild thing,” she said in an interview Friday, when asked to explain the source of his fame. “Who would have thought that at the end of the ‘70s, this 300-pound-plus guy would be a star? But that’s what it was. He was a character, you know, larger than life.” But, she says, he came at the right time. “People were ready for this. People were ready to come out of the laid-back Fleetwood Mac ‘70s. And he had an extraordinary voice. I don’t know if he ever took a voice lesson — I think he came out pretty fully formed. First time I ever saw him walk into a rehearsal hall, he was Meat Loaf.
