RIP Meat Loaf aka Marvin Lee Aday (1947-2022).
Back in the mid-1990s I once spent a very pleasant afternoon at Virgin Records’ lovely canalside offices in Notting Hill talking to a large, friendly fellow called Marvin Lee Aday.
We got on like a house on fire and he regaled me with entertaining anecdotes about his life as a pop superstar called Meat Loaf, giving me plenty to write about – and him plenty of publicity for his latest album.
As we parted, he shook my hand firmly and checked that I would be coming to his album launch that very evening. I believed equally firmly that would be friends, if not for life then at least the next time we met.
Roughly three hours later I attended the launch of that album, in a place called The Pirate Castle straddling that same canal, but upstream by Camden Lock, with complimentary drinks.
At one point I ventured across the bridge and was confronted by a familiar figure walking across from the other direction. As we met in the middle, I grinned broadly at him and said: “Hello stranger! Good to see you again!” or something similar.
The big man nodded and, barely breaking stride as he swept past me, replied: “Pleased to meet you.”
In the interests of balance, I should stress that the next time I met Mr Loaf, a couple of years later, he shook my hand equally warmly and inquired: “Have we met before?” When I answered in the affirmative, he nodded and replied: “I thought so.”
I was impressed for literally seconds until I realised that if I had said no he could have replied, equally convincingly, “I thought not.”