Dr. Buttersworth Investigates One of Rock & Roll’s Most Unnecessary Mysteries
Greetings, readers. Dr. Buttersworth here.
From time to time, your good doctor is called upon to investigate mysteries extending beyond the usual boundaries of biblical conjunction scholarship. I do not seek these assignments. They find me.
Today we turn our attention to one of the great unresolved questions of late twentieth-century Western civilization:
What, precisely, would Meat Loaf not do for love?
The question arises, of course, from Mr. Loaf’s monumental 1993 recording, I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That), written by Jim Steinman. The song was an enormous international hit, reaching number one in numerous countries and earning Meat Loaf a Grammy Award. Yet apparently millions of people finished listening to its nearly eight-minute album version with one question still burning in their minds.
What is THAT?
It ranks alongside other great mysteries of classic rock. What exactly is 25 or 6 to 4? Who was Carly Simon singing about in You’re So Vain? And why did someone leave the cake out in the rain?
Scholars continue their work.
But unlike those mysteries, the Meat Loaf question has an answer. In fact, Meat Loaf himself spent years explaining it. During a VH1 Storytellers appearance, he reportedly resorted to a blackboard and pointer to demonstrate the grammatical structure of the song.
A blackboard.
And a pointer.
Readers, when a rock star must diagram his lyrics for the listening public, civilization may have reached a critical juncture.
The But Explains Everything
As a professional student of the conjunction but, I immediately recognized the problem.
People were concentrating on that when they should have been paying attention to but.
Throughout the song, the singer makes a series of extravagant declarations about what he is willing to do for love. Along the way, however, he also identifies particular things he will not do. Then comes the famous refrain: he would do anything for love, but he will not do that.
What is that?
The thing he just said he wouldn’t do.
This changes throughout the song. The antecedent changes; the grammatical structure does not. By the closing exchange with the female vocalist, the pattern becomes especially obvious: she voices fears about what he might eventually do in the relationship, and he responds that he won’t.
Mystery solved.
Apparently the answer has been sitting in plain sight—or, more accurately, plain hearing—for more than thirty years.
Meat Loaf himself expressed some bewilderment that listeners found this confusing. Jim Steinman, on the other hand, apparently suspected that they would.
I reluctantly award this round to Mr. Steinman.
An Important Scholarly Digression Concerning Mr. Loaf’s Name
At this point my research uncovered a matter requiring disclosure.
There are several accounts of how Marvin Lee Aday came to be called Meat Loaf. Some versions trace part of the nickname to childhood and another part to a football incident. Details vary, and your good doctor will not irresponsibly adjudicate disputed Meat Loaf historiography in these pages.
I will simply report that at least one version of the story involves football, the young Mr. Aday’s considerable size and a reference to his posterior.
Yes.
I have somehow managed to discover a possible big butt while researching the man responsible for one of popular music’s most famous big buts.
I need a moment.
There are times when scholarship ceases to feel like work and begins to feel like destiny.
Read Around the But
There is, however, an actual lesson buried beneath all this—and remarkably, it applies to why I appear here every Monday.
A conjunction connects things.
That sounds painfully obvious, but we frequently forget it when reading Scripture. We find an interesting phrase, lift it from its surroundings, and begin asking what it means. Sometimes we construct elaborate theological explanations for words whose meaning becomes considerably clearer if we simply read the sentence before them.
This is especially true of but.
When you encounter one of our beloved three-letter conjunctions in Scripture, don’t merely ask what comes after it. Look backward.
What came before the but?
What idea is being contrasted? What expectation is being overturned? What condition has just been described? What changes because the writer has now said but?
Consider:
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace…”
Wait.
That isn’t what Paul wrote.
He spends the opening chapters of Romans building a devastating case about the human condition. Then, in Romans 3:21:
“But now…”
Those two words matter because of everything that came before them.
Or consider Ephesians 2. Paul describes humanity as dead in transgressions, following destructive desires and deserving judgment.
Then:
“But because of his great love for us, God…”
The but only becomes magnificent when you understand what stands on the other side of it.
That is why your good doctor continues tirelessly in this work despite the obvious personal sacrifices involved. Buts are pivots. They turn sentences. They contrast ideas. And sometimes they mark the precise location where hopelessness gives way to grace.
Mystery Solved
So what have we learned?
First, Meat Loaf really would do an impressive number of things for love.
Second, he was quite specific about the things he would not do.
Third, millions of listeners apparently ignored those specifics and spent three decades asking him to explain himself.
And fourth, when you encounter a confusing but, whether in a rock anthem or Romans, begin with the revolutionary interpretive technique known as:
Read what comes before it.
Sometimes the great mystery isn’t particularly mysterious.
Sometimes the answer has been sitting there all along.
Immediately before the but.
Until next Monday, I remain faithfully yours in conjunctional scholarship, Dr. B.
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