Ellen Foley - We Belong to the Night

Many years ago, I was in a used CD store (remember those?) when I happened across a compilation album titled “Meatloaf and Friends.” This was at the height of my Meatloaf obsession. I played the two “Bat out of Hell” albums all the time and I loved every track on both albums, so the idea of getting to know more Meatloaf, and his friends, really appealed to me. It was around this time that I learned just how important Jim Steinman was to the careers of many musicians.

One of the female performers on this compilation album was Ellen Foley. I knew that name, because she was credited on the first “Bat out of Hell” album. Even though Foley is the female vocalist for the epic duo performance on “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” more people are familiar with Karla DeVito as she performed the song live with the band, and the music video included footage of a live performance with lip synced over the studio recording. To further clarify the previous sentence, the official music video of “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” in the studio recorded version with Ellen Foley’s voice but the visuals have Karla DeVito affectively lip-syncing Foley. Remember when I said lip syncing would come up again in my last review, well here is one more appearance of it; this is what passes as a segue on this blog.

So, I already love Foley. She is the woman that helped bring “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” into existence, that alone is enough for my love and appreciation. But building on this was her solo work. For many years afterward I only knew three of Foley’s solo songs “We Belong to the Night,” “Night Out” and “What’s the Matter Baby,” the three songs of her’s that appeared on “Meatloaf and Friends.”

For many years, decades at this point, I always assumed that Jim Steinman wrote all of Foley’s solo songs, but when I finally got around to listening to Foley’s debut album “Night Out” in full, I was surprised to see Steinman’s name absent from the writers section. Steinman was just always writing everything for everyone, so I assumed Foley, whom he had worked with, would not be an exception. Furthermore, the Steinman spirit of over the top theatrical epic pop rock, was represented in “Night Out,” it seemed like a the sort of songs that Steinman would write.

You know what this means? Ellen Foley’s songs, virtue of not having been written by Jim Steinman, are the only songs on the compilation album “Meat Loaf and Friends” not written by Steinman. So, in an extremely specific way, in an extremely specific example, Foley stands out.

“Night Out” came in 1979, two years after Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell,” which in pop music terms is plenty of time for people to forget that we is the voice on “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” which is not helped by the fact that everyone had gotten used to seeing DeVito in the music video and seen and heard DeVito live on that track. Nonetheless the album did well, it reached the top of the charts in the Netherlands, and did respectable elsewhere, notably Australia and the United Kingdom. I like weird stats like that, the Dutch loved “Night Out,” in 1979, that’s cool.

The respectable popularity of “Night Out” would not sustain itself over time and future albums by Ellen Foley would not be as popular, causing her solo musical career to begin to fizzle out in the mid and late eighties. Foley would continue to work in musical theatre productions, which I assume she was really good at, because Foley has an amazing singing voice

There was a brief time however when Ellen Foley was a recognized and reasonably popular solo act. In that time, I suspect her biggest hit was “We Belong to the Night.” Following the tale of “Meatloaf and Friends” it follows that “We Belong to the Night” was the first song of Foley’s I ever heard, and it has remained my favorite of hers ever since. The message of rejecting the conventional embrace of the day in exchange for the thrill and action of the night, is very much a Steinman like song topic. What I like uppermost is Foley herself, her voice is great, she bellows out this track, we have talent and passion roaring out of her and I enjoy it every time I hear it.

Speaking of passion here is another lip sync video, this time coming to us from Countdown 1979.

I tried to look it up, I think it was an Australian yearend countdown of all the biggest hit songs in Australia for that year. Now, I know it is a lip sync, but there is the possibility that the video came from a live performance. I particularly like this video because I really love watching just how much Foley gets into it. Her eyes are wide with intensity. Her mouth opens as far as it can so when she hits and holds those notes, she is giving it her all. Her body language is fully engaged and glowing with emotion. It is a passionate performance, even if it was filmed deliberately for this video. Even though there is an issue with the audio, and the video is graining from its age, this is my favorite video of “We Belong to the Night.” It is a great song, but the moment when I saw this countdown video, I began to appreciate “We Belong to the Night” and Ellen Foley just a little bit more. I just love that passion she exhibits.

It saddens me that most people do not remember Ellen Foley’s contribution to “Bat Out of Hell.” It saddens me more so that virtually no one remembers her short but solid solo career. What saddens me deepest is the reality that Ellen Foley might be best remembered for her brief appearance on the show “Night Court,” which is nothing shy of tragic. I beseech everyone to connect some dots, remember how good “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is? The woman in the studio version is obviously amazing and hey, her solo work was pretty damn good too. I hope the world remembers that. Ellen Foley deserves at least that much.

- King of Braves