In the season three episode of Sex and the City called “Running With Scissors,” Carrie declares, “When Charles Dickens wrote, ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,’ I believe he must have been having an affair with his married ex-boyfriend.” With regard to imbuing personalized meaning onto an iconic phrase that has been saturated within the culture, Meat Loaf’s “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” is right up there at the top of the list. For it has so many interpretations depending on who you are as a person and your own specific “dealbreakers.” Unfortunately, Meat Loaf debunked all myths by explaining that what he wouldn’t do is the line at the beginning of every verse, e.g. “I’ll never stop dreaming of you every night of my life, no way.” So yeah, that’s what he won’t do: stop dreaming of the “Beauty” he loves. It’s not exactly that much of a sacrifice (minus the self-torture element), but there it is.
Nonetheless, because of the dubious structure in how he chose to phrase what he wouldn’t do for love, it left the masses—especially in the 90s when the song became a monster hit—scratching their heads about what, exactly, he wouldn’t do. Of course, this inevitably led to “ha ha” interpretations like, you know, he wouldn’t do oral or anal (whether giving or receiving it with a strap-on). Songwriter Jim Steinman was the one who pointed out to Meat Loaf that listeners weren’t going to understand what he was referring to when he said, “But I won’t do that.” Which, again, alludes to giving up on the object of his affection or ever ceasing to think of her (yes, it’s all very romantic, yet kind of negates the whole, “If you love something, set it free” concept). In this regard, the ironclad, undebatable meaning of the song ultimately highlights that love cannot conquer all. Because it’s a concept that intentionally seeks to “conquer” another person—pin them down and “make them” “yours” (which all goes back to how capitalism and “love” are intertwined).
Meat Loaf, overestimating the population as “cunning linguists,” was quickly proven wrong about his faith in the public, just as Steinman warned. And his twelve-minute rock opera somehow became among the most arcane pieces of music in modern pop culture history. At a VH1 Storytellers concert in 1998, Meat Loaf finally had to break it down for the audience like some kind of English teacher as he instructed them on how the “that” refers to “the line before every chorus. In other words, you can insert your own line.” And, to be honest, that’s essentially what people have been doing ever since the song came out by “inserting” (a.k.a. projecting) their own meaning onto it the way Carrie did with Dickens. And perhaps that’s what truly demarcates “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” as a masterpiece based on its ability to be everything to everyone (a songwriting concept that Taylor Swift has mastered as well, albeit with far more specificity).
For example, one person might see the “true” meaning behind the song as being about how Meat Loaf doesn’t want to be with a woman who already has children. Because maybe he hates kids and doesn’t want to deal with them, or take on the unasked-for responsibility of being a parent when all he desired was the single entity of the mother in question. Alas, he made the mistake of getting in too deep before he realized just how unavoidable the spawns were if he wanted to have this woman in his life (sort of like Woody Allen). Falling in love when he ought to have known better and comprehending too late that he would do anything for love, but he won’t pretend to give a shit about someone else’s kids, especially when he was happily child-free to begin with.
Okay, so Meat Loaf did have kids (one of which was a stepdaughter he happily embraced and legally adopted as his own), but this isn’t really about Meat Loaf, as you might guess. This is about what the song could mean to someone. Particularly a child-hater who ended up falling for a parent obsessed with their child. Because all parents are way too into their child, especially to someone who willfully opted out of the parenthood game and just wants to have a good time without nodding along about how special and great and unique So-and-So is when the parent really only feels that way because it’s their child.
And that’s when you pull out not one, but two classic and applicable lines from the 90s: “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that” and then, “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.” But sure, if you must still interpret the song as being about Meat Loaf’s lack of willingness to perform oral sex, go ahead. Because again, this song means everything to everyone. Whatever you want it to be, that’s what it is—and that is the great legacy of Meat Loaf. Not, however, calling Donald Trump “intelligent.”
