There’s nothing quite like a good intro to a song. Some of course start without one really, either with a vocal very quickly after the music starts or indeed starting on a vocal, or with just a few notes on piano, guitar or even a few drumbeats before the singing starts. And I have nothing whatsoever against such songs. But I prefer to be pulled into the song by way of a really good instrumental intro. “Hotel California”. “Sweet child of mine”. “Wish you were here”. “Stairway to Heaven”. Some great songs down the decades have been characterised by their distinctive and powerful or moving intros, so much so that you can tell the song from the musical interlude that opens it.
That’s what this section will feature then: songs with really good introductions. The first I want to look at is a real classic, and once you hear the pounding piano and growling guitar you know you’re in for a treat. It’s a long intro too, over two minutes of the almost ten the song runs for.
Bat out of Hell --- Meat Loaf --- From the album of the same name, 1977
This album was my first experience of Meat Loaf’s music, and indeed I think my first introduction to hard rock. I’ve spoken before of how my mate and I used to drool over the cover art as we looked at the album in our local record store on the way home from town, but both agreed we would never listen to such music. This without of course knowing what the music inside was like. So when I eventually took the chance and bought the album --- on vinyl, this would have been about 1978 I think and I would have had my first pay packet from my part-time after-school job --- I cautiously let the needle drop onto the grooves and waited with bated breath.
A guitar power chord punched me in the face, almost knocking me over, quickly followed by what sounded like the very Devil himself on piano, his fingers running up and down the keyboard with what seemed to me supernatural speed. The drums crashed in and I was on my way. In those first few seconds I was perhaps not reborn but I certainly saw the error of my ways in slagging off music I had never heard, and a whole new vista was suddenly open to my somewhat disbelieving ears, which up until then had had to accept whatever was on the radio as I had no record player up to now. My first real album, as I think I’ve said before, was one by ELO, then Genesis followed by Supertramp, but this was the first real hard rock melting into heavy metal I had heard, though later of course I would buy “The number of the Beast” and everything would change again. But for now, this was the revelation, and it was glorious!
Like I said, it opens with the loudest, brashest guitar chord I had ever heard, repeated a few times before Roy Bittan comes in on the piano, taking the tune as Max Weinberg pounds away at the drumkit like a man possessed, perhaps grateful to be released from the often more pedestrian drumming he’s had to be content with when playing with Springsteen. The excitement builds to fever pitch as Todd Rundgren fires off an amazing solo on the guitar, everything coming together in a stunning crescendo before it heads into the main melody and then drops back to just piano before Meat Loaf comes in with the vocal.
As an intro I believe it’s hard to beat this. It’s almost more what you would expect to hear in the midsection or even closing of a song (indeed, there is another extended instrumental workout halfway through) and it really sets you up for what’s coming. The vocal, when it does come in, is hard and passionate but somehow giving the sense of taking a breath, which after all that musical histrionics you definitely feel you need!
Of course it’s an excellent song, and a long one, and did much to elevate Meat Loaf --- and Steinman --- to rock god status. But when it gets right down to it, it’s the intro that sends shivers down your spine and makes your heart well, to slightly paraphrase the final line of the song, want to break out of your body and fly away, like a bat out of Hell!