To mark the first anniversary of the death of one Marvin Lee Aday - a.k.a. Meat Loaf - I've put together an album that answers the question of how a purely Jim Steinman composed Bat Out of Hell III would've sounded like. This was inspired from two reconstructions of this attempt; one was by a Vimeo user known as The Archivist who remixed some songs to see what it would sound like, and the other was by the team behind the Cobain Continues Redone timeline who have also based a wiki around it. My approach combines ideas from both attempts, and hopefully it gives the Bat Out of Hell trilogy a proper close.
Disc 1 (57:55)
1. Paradise Lost - 1:31 (fan remix)
2. Seize the Night - 9:46 (The Monster is Loose)
3. Bad for Good - 7:33 (The Monster is Loose)
4. Who Needs the Young? - 5:27 (Braver Than We Are)
5. More - 6:07 (Braver Than We Are)
6. Making Love Out of Nothing at All - 5:25 (fan cover)
7. In the Land of the Pig, The Butcher is King - 5:38 (The Monster is Loose)
8. What Part of My Body Hurts the Most? - 5:19 (fan cover)
9. Only When I Feel/If It Ain’t Broke, Break It - 6:46 (Braver Than We Are/The Monster is Loose)
10. Train of Love - 4:23 (Braver Than We Are)
Disc 2 (59:37)
11. Godz - 3:34 (Braver Than We Are)
12. Skull of Your Country - 3:35 (Braver Than We Are)
13. The Future Ain’t What It Used to Be - 7:54 (The Monster is Loose)
14. Souvenirs - 8:17 (Braver Than We Are)
15. Loving You is a Dirty Job (But Somebody’s Gotta Do It) - 6:09 (Braver Than We Are)
16. Speaking in Tongues - 4:24 (Braver Than We Are)
17. Is Nothing Sacred Anymore? - 5:49 (The Very Best of Meat Loaf; edit)
18. It’s All Coming Back to Me Now - 6:05 (The Monster is Loose)19. Going All the Way is Just the Start - 11:28 (Braver Than We Are)
20. Cry to Heaven - 2:22 (The Monster is Loose)
The majority of the songs are sourced from the official Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose, as well as 2016's Braver Than We Are. Of course, there's the inevitable issue with Meat Loaf's voice, having strained his voice for so many years, largely due to the fact that he'd never learned to properly sing. Fortunately for us, everything on the latter album was written before 2006, with three songs having their origins tracing all the way back to 1969 when Jim Steinman worked on The Dream Engine. Those being "Who Needs the Young?", "In the Land of the Pig, The Butcher is King" (which was later reworked for the unproduced Batman: The Musical) and "Skull of Your Country" (previously titled "Come in the Night"). Goodness knows why it took Meat Loaf 47 years to finally record them.
Moving forward a little bit, "Going All the Way is Just the Start" - originally titled "Braver Than We Are" - was first worked on in 1972 for Little Friend from Front Street and is one of two tracks co-written with Don Black. "Train of Love" was also demoed back in 1972, but I'm not sure what it was originally intended for. "Godz" and "Souvenirs" were both written for More Than You Deserve - originally The Vietnam Project - in 1973.
"Seize the Night" (originally called "The Storm") and "Bad for Good" both originated from Jim Steinman's 1981 album Bad for Good. Interestingly, four other songs from that album were recorded by Meat Loaf for Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell, and one other song each ended up on 1984's Bad Attitude and 1995's Welcome to the Neighborhood. On the other end of things, a song never recorded by Meat Loaf, "Making Love Out of Nothing at All", was intended for him, but due to political reasons in the music industry, it was given to Air Supply in 1983. The fan cover I provided a link to shows what it might have sounded like.
"Loving You is a Dirty Job (But Somebody's Gotta Do It)" was first recorded by Bonnie Tyler for Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire in 1986, originally a duet with Todd Rundgren, who also worked with Meat Loaf. Bonnie also recorded "Total Eclipse of the Heart", another song Jim Steinman wanted Meat Loaf to record, but again, did not happen. "The Future Ain't What It Used to Be" and "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" both originated from Original Sin by Pandora's Box in 1989, and is another album containing tracks eventually recorded for Bat Out of Hell II.
"More" was co-written with Andrew Eldritch and recorded by The Sisters of Mercy for 1990's Vision Thing. "Is Nothing Sacred Anymore?" was originally intended to appear on Meat Loaf's Welcome to the Neighborhood and is another co-write with Don Black, but it came out as a non-album single in 1999, having been released on The Very Best of Meat Loaf the year prior. It might be a bit of a cop-out to include a song that had been recorded years prior, but hey, we're working with what's available. "Cry to Heaven" is another track that was intended for Batman: The Musical; I don't know the exact date it was written, but it's believed to be at some point between 1998 and 2002.
The final few songs on this reconstruction are possibly the most recent (presuming a release date of around 2004-2006). Meat Loaf performed "Only When I Feel" and "If It Ain't Broke, Break It" as part of a medley during his "Hair of a Dog" tour in 2005, suggesting that they would've been included. "What Part of My Body Hurts the Most" and "Speaking in Tongues" were both performed by The Dream Engine in 2006, although they could've been written earlier than that; the former is another convincing fan cover. "Paradise Lost" was first revealed in 2007, but I don't know when it was first written.
Overall, running at 117 minutes - nearly two hours! - is Bat Out of Hell III: Braver Than We Are really what Meat Loaf could've recorded had he not kept quarrelling with Jim Steinman? (I mean, they kind of were like a married couple; Meat Loaf even said "I love Jim Steinman, but I wouldn't French kiss him!") Well, it's uncertain as to what the original track listing might have been, but we do know that the seven Jim Steinman penned tracks would've made the cut. Including every song out of the original Braver Than We Are as well as a non-album track and some fan remixes may be a bit excessive, but to that, I say when it comes to Meat Loaf, you don't just go big; you go Jim Steinman. Besides, Bat Out of Hell II was almost half an hour longer than the original Bat Out of Hell, so it's only right that Bat Out of Hell III be bigger than that by at least forty minutes. Listening to all three albums back to back would take nearly four hours. That's a lot of Meat Loaf to consume in one sitting!
