If Covid killed Meat Loaf why is he an anti-vax poster boy?
GROWING up as a boy, I knew every lyric of Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell album. My father would play it over and over on a continuous loop in the tape deck of his lumbering light blue Volvo 240 – a far cry from the mean machines Jim Steinman had envisioned when he penned the hit LP.
Now, more than 40 years on, I can still murder all the album’s hits without the need for a copy of
Smash Hits for the lyrics.
But last week, to use one of Meat Loaf’s song titles, heaven could no longer wait for the iconic rock star who died after Covid reportedly took hold.
His demise was quick. Sources said the star had been due to attend a business dinner early last week for a show he was working on based on his classic hit, I’d Do Anything for Love. But he cancelled because he was seriously ill with Covid-19, with his condition soon becoming critical.
The singer had been outspoken about coronavirus, specifically railing against vaccine mandates.
In May, he posted a clip of Eric Clapton and Van Morrison’s anti-lockdown song, Stand & Deliver writing, “Listen and Learn”.
It was not clear if he had been vaccinated, but what was clear was that he, in his own words, was “scared to death” of Covid.
It didn’t, however, stop his arguing against mandates and Government advice over how best to keep safe.
When someone told him it appeared people were being controlled, Meat Loaf responded: “Not me. If I die, I die, but I’m not going to be controlled.”
It was reckless given the clear dangers he faced due to his ill health over the years.
Now, because of his stance over coronavirus, his songs have become the soundtrack to anti-vaccine crowds.
Only this weekend, thousands gathered in Washington D.C. – a city that mandates vaccines – for a ‘Defeat the Mandates’ protest.
The protesters hijacked Meat Loaf’s ballads, making him their poster boy for why no one should listen to the science that clearly shows shots save lives.
One of those at the rally was Robert F. Kennedy.
“Americans want democracy back, and this rally is a demand by Americans to get their democracy back,” said the nephew of John F Kennedy.
He then shamelessly suggested things are worse for people today than they were for Anne Frank, the teenager who died in a Nazi concentration camp.
”Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps to Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” he said.
Making reckless comparisons to the Holocaust, the murder of six million Jews, for a political agenda is unforgivable.
It’s ironic America’s anti-vax movement has now adopted Meat Loaf’s hit I’d do anything for love as their Covid anthem.
They’d do anything for love – but wearing a mask. Of course, they won’t do that.
THIS week, as many as 8,500 US troops were put on heightened alert for a possible deployment to Eastern Europe as Russian troops mass on Ukraine’s border.
It’s the latest step by America to prepare for a potential Russian invasion that officials have warned could be imminent.
The threat to unleash Europe’s biggest invasion since the end of the Second World War is an aggressive attack on freedom and democracy by Vladimir Putin.
Engaging with him may not lead to long term peace but exploring every avenue to avoid bloodshed is streets ahead of fighting an invasion.
It was reckless given the clear dangers he faced due to his ill health over the years...