Left in the dark (from his solo album, Bad for Good) is quite an unusual Jim Steinman song. Steinman is a sworn worshipper of forceful attitudes and an ironist who always gets, at least, the laughter on his side. But for the narrator in Left in the dark it is not that easy to act heroic and there is definitely nothing to laugh about. He is a man being cheated at by his wife and the song is his message to her at the very moment when she returns home from her lover. The music is quit - more in the genre of opera than of rock, actually - and Steinman's singing expresses so much weakness and honesty that it becomes almost embarrassing. Nevertheless, Left in the dark retains the peculiar originality of its creator. It is not only well written and touching but also unconventional and everything but the usual jalousie twaddle. The song places the adultery in Steiman's very own framework of interpretation and even contains some key formulations of his general outlook.
The following verses outline the situation and expresses the more predictable aspects of the narrator's mental state:
The feelings expressed so far are all pretty conventional reactions - except, maybe, for the narrator's quick acknowledgement of the fact, that his wife must have had some kind of good reason for doing what she did. But at this point you would probably expect the song to continue with a blend of reproaches and self-pity, maybe even with a self-righteous cliché as the one Springsteen delivered in an unusually weak moment: "You just ain't gonna get what you want with one foot in bed and one foot out" (All or nothin' At All from 'Human Touch'). Well, real life often defies the idea of making final demands in love affairs, and so does Jim Steinman. The narrator in Left in the dark expresses a confidence and a conciliatory spirit that you don't find in any repertoire of clichés:
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