Imagine a world in which Bonnie Tyler was not the virtuoso performer on the Royal Caribbean Total Eclipse Cruise . Imagine if , instead , as the moon crossed in front of the sun in thepath of totalityon August 21 , 2017 , the performer belt out the 1983 smash for sail ship stargazers was Meat Loaf ?
It could have been . Because yes , asAtlas Obscurainforms us , the song was originally written for the bestselling rocking chair ( andactor ) ofBat Out of Hellfame , not the husky - voiced Welsh singer . Meat Loaf had worked on his 1977 recordBat Out of Hellwith Jim Steinman , the composer and manufacturer who would go on to work with the like of Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand ( queerly enough , he also composed Hulk Hogan ’s root word song on an album release by the WWE ) . “ Total Eclipse of the Heart ” was mean for Meat Loaf ’s follow - up album toBat Out of Hell .
But Meat Loaf ’s fruitful collaborationism with Steinman was about to stop . In the wake of his bestselling record , the creative person was going through arough patch , mentally , financially , and in full term of his singing power . And the composer was n’t about to stick around . As Steinman would tellCD Reviewmagazine in 1989 ( an clause he has since posted on his personal internet site ) , " Basically I only finish working with him because he lost his voice as far as I was concerned . It was his voice I was friends with really . ” Harsh , Jim , rough .
Steinman commence working with Bonnie Tyler in 1982 , and in 1983 , she turn her fifth album , quicker Than the velocity of Night , including “ Total Eclipse of the Heart . ” It sold6 millioncopies .
Tyler and Steinman both gainsay that the song was written specifically for Meat Loaf . “ Meat Loaf was plain very pestered that Jim gave that to me , ” she toldThe Irish Timesin 2014 . “ But Jim sound out he did n’t write it for Meat Loaf , that he only finished it after meet me . ”
There is n’t a whole lot of bad profligate between the two Singer , though . In 1989 , they released a joint compilation album : Heaven and Hell .
[ h / tAtlas Obscura ]
