First of all, only in 1981, I believe, can a song like today's make headway in Top 40 radio, as we've discussed on multiple occasions on our journey how transitional the year was and that there was no dominant form of music jamming up the charts.
So, if "Stars on 45", Juice Newton, The Police, and the return of The Moody Blues to the Top 40 work, why not a song from an unknown commodity that feels like a "pop opera anthem"?
Then, on top of that, we spend that year jamming to the song, preferring, as usual, the long-album version with the great pseudo-acapella reprise to the end.....only to find out Jim Steinman didn't actually sing the song!
Who did? How about fellow Canadian Rory Dodd, who we would later hear as the "Turn Around, Bright Eyes" guy on Bonnie Tyler's 1983 hit, "Total Eclipse Of The Heart".
You also know Dodd from his work in commercials for, of all things, a great game of our youth, "Hungry Hungry Hippos"!
Only in 1981. Here's Rory, posing as Jim singing a pop opera (that would be covered by Meat Loaf a decade later).....
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