“Your music kept me alive”

“Your music kept me alive!”

So why the tears? The short and quirky answer would be: Meat Loaf; whilst watching a biographical documentary on his career. If you’re a fan of classic rock, I’d definitely recommend it!

Towards the end of the program, he meets a fan after performing a concert. This middle-aged lady breaks into tears when she meets the legend. Upon reassurance from Meat, she tearfully tells him that his music kept her alive.

I’m sure that I will not be the only person to say that this scene hits way too close to home. This may well be the first time that I have properly cried since I was about twelve years old! Back then, I fell out with all my friends at school. So of course, I burst into tears when mum asked, “how was your day?”

I have wanted to cry since then. Heavens knows, I have felt the need to cry many, many times. But something inside me always stopped the tears from coming. This time it was very different and caught me completely by surprise.

A huge swelling force rose its way up from my guts and into my chest. I felt like my rib cage would burst open with emotion; the only relief being to let out a huge sob. A sob which continued into floods of tears as, not only the true impact of the scene hit me, but as I came to terms with my own demons.

I was crying from despair; yet also from relief. Despair, because I have felt like, ‘I cannot go on like this’ too many times lately. Relief, because I’m not the only one; other people have been there and have made it to the other side. Relief because I am finally crying and it feels good. Perhaps years of upsets, tensions, worries, guilts, losses, deceits, stresses, irritations, frustrations and anger came pouring out from that metaphorical bottle.

Watching that scene with Meat Loaf and his fan was truly heartwarming. It is only a split second, but you can see that his natural reaction almost causes the superstar to break emotionally too. However, Meat remains professional and cleverly uses humour as a tool of empathy: “Well, I think it’s kept me alive too!”

His own story can be viewed from a fairly tragic angle; and hopefully a different perspective to the predictable storyline of Rockstar biopics that seem to be always begging for an Oscar lately.