What is it That Meat Loaf Wouldn’t Do in the Song “But I Won’t Do That”
For years, music fans around the world have wondered what the line in the Meat Loaf song “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” really means. Now we know.
Turns out Meat Loaf – who died last week at age 74 – had cleared this up many times, but nobody was paying much attention. The epic rock opera ballad was written by Jim Steinman have confounded fans for years and years.
What is it that he won’t do for love? Meat Loaf told Yahoo: “It’s the line before every chorus.”
Those are the lines “But I’ll never forget the way you feel right now,” “But I’ll never forgive myself if we don’t go all the way tonight,” “But I’ll never do it better than I do it with you” and “But I’ll never stop dreaming of you every night of my life.”
“When we were recording it, Jim brings up the thing, he says, ‘People aren’t gonna know what that is,’” said Meat Loaf. “I said, ‘Of course they are. How can they not know?’ He goes, ‘They’re not gonna.’”
“The problem lies because … you forget what the line was before you get to ‘I won’t do that.’”
He was super clear about the two particular things he won’t do: After the woman in the song, Lorraine Crosby, says “Then you’ll see that it’s time to move on,” he sings “I won’t do that.” And after she sings “Sooner or later you’ll be screwing around,” he responds “I won’t do that.”
