I think there are three ways to grow older within your career as a successful entertainer. If you are deeply troubled and still writing new material and still free-basing at 65, you can be Marianne Faithfull. If you have a good head on your shoulders and are still writing new material and America still loves you the same as the day you put your butt on the a record sleeve, you can be Bruce Springsteen. And if you have a good head on your shoulders but know your best stuff was behind you about 30-odd years ago and you know it and you’re cool with it and you just want to tour the world forever playing the most amazing over-the-top Wagnerian rock that makes you sound like you are in a one man, lite-metal version of “Les Miserables,” you can be Meatloaf. Oh, Michael/Marvin Lee Aday, you are the only fat guy I would ever make love to, even though you look like a dead guy they fished out of the river in the video below. You look much better now! The calm existence of middle age agrees with you, Meat. Come a little closer with that white handkerchief, you big white jumpsuit of a man. I won’t bite. You took the words right out of my mouth:
