Meat Loaf: Braver Than We Are All Songs by Jim Steinman (2016)

In 2012, songwriter and producer Jim Steinman was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. His list of achievements include: the third largest selling rock album of all time "Bat out of Hell" performed by Meat Loaf, his own platinum solo album "Bad for Good" which had been planned as the follow up to "Bat", a Meat Loaf duet with Cher called "Dead Ringer for Love", a simultaneous Number 1 and 2 with "Total Eclipse of the Heart" for Bonnie Tyler and "Making Love out of Nothing at all" for Air Supply, movie soundtracks including "Footloose", "Streets of Fire" (stop everything and look up "Tonight is What it Means to be Young" if you haven't already), and "The Shadow". A 1993 Meat Loaf reunion would follow, as well as the monster hit Celine Dion single "It's All Coming Back to me Now" which Andrew Lloyd Webber called the "record of the millennium", the hit rock musical "Tanz der Vampire", and "No Matter What" for Boyzone from his musical "Whistle down the Wind" with Lloyd Webber.

None other than Meat Loaf himself took to the stage to perform several of Jim's classics alongside singer Constantine Maroulis and to induct him into the Hall of Fame. Note: since this is my big opportunity, I always thought they missed a cool trick getting Meat and Bonnie Tyler together to sing "Total Eclipse of the Heart". Why couldn't they have done that? Before you wonder though, what on earth would that have sounded like, have a listen to the English demo of "Total Eclipse" from "Tanz der Vampire" as sung by Steve Barton and Elaine Caswell, and you'll see what I mean. Hopefully... (between this and "Tonight", you're going to have a pretty good time with the YouTube, methinks.)

In 2013, when Jim was given an honorary Doctorate Degree of Humane Letters from his alma mater Amherst College (thanks Dream Pollution, I didn't remember what that was), Meat Loaf had put together a new tour called "The Last at Bat" performing all of the original "Bat" from beginning to end. "Last at Bat" ring any bells, by the by? That was the name (working title, at least) of what was going to be Meat and Jim's "Bat out of Hell III". This would pave the way for the next Meat Loaf album, which had been announced under the title of "Brave and Crazy", and would feature about three or four songs from Jim, but would become the first full Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman album since "Bat out of Hell II". Take a moment to digest that. This is the first album since "Bat II" which contained "I'd do Anything for Love" and "Objects in the Rear View Mirror" to be fully written by Steinman with Meat singing. And I haven't even brought up the cover art yet, which I just did. O.M.G.!!!

What would the new album be like??? The last two albums "Hang Cool Teddy Bear" and "Hell in a Handbasket" had seen a reinvigorated Meat ready to record, release and tour new music, and he wanted to work with Jim again. Jim had been working on two musicals, "Bat out of Hell", which had been in the works basically for the last fifty years, and a new rock version of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Ballet, written and directed by Monty Python's Terry Jones, simply called "Nutz". He had also written several unrecorded songs which had been performed by the group Dream Engine, including "What Part of my Body Hurts the Most?" and "We're Still the Children", songs which many fans wished would be released on a new album, whether with or without Meat's involvement, a sort of musical tie-in perhaps or Jim's "The Last at Bat". Meat had recorded his last album with his band the Neverland Express and its producer would return to the helm once again but what would it sound like? And what would Jim's involvement be? How would this show up in the results?

You can imagine the excitement at this point. What songs would Meat record? Jim had mentioned "Who Needs the Young?" during his induction speech, which was revealed to be his first song, and Meat had wanted it on the original "Bat". For me, "Braver Than We Are", let alone Meat actually recording it with Ellen Foley and Karla DeVito, probably would have been enough at this point!!! We knew about some titles that Meat had mentioned, such as "More" the Sisters of Mercy song co-written by group member Andrew Eldritch with Jim, and one of the new Dream Engine songs "Speaking in Tongues", but what would the whole thing be??? Between this and the cover art, I honestly don't remember which one intrigued me more.

The listing as published on Amazon certainly fired things up. "Who Needs the Young?" yes, I love this, "Going all the Way is Just the Start" which was the new title for "Braver Than We Are" (I prefer the old), "Speaking in Tongues", "Loving You's a Dirty Job (But Somebody's Gotta Do It)", Meat had recorded this underrated single Jim had written for Bonnie Tyler in the 80s, "Souvenirs", one of the songs unearthed by superfan Ben Miller from the New York Public Library in 2010, which came from the "More Than You Deserve" demos, "Only When I Feel", wait, what??? Would Meat be recording the original full length version of the song??? This was huge!!! "More", which we knew about already, and which I thought would be a good match for Meat, especially live, "Godz", another song which had been taken from the MTYD Demos, "Skull of Your Country", the origins of "Total Eclipse", and "Train of Love", a Dream Engine demo from 1972 which had been recorded along with a Bette Midler version of "Heaven Can Wait".

My reaction was a bit, well, mixed. Really, these are the songs you're going to be releasing? How many more chances were they going to get? And they're not releasing "What Part of my Body"? The answer: this was "Braver Than We Are" after all, not "Bat out of Hell: The Last at Bat", the real Bat III, or "Conclusions and Climaxes", or the best album since "Bat II" completely on the same level, or even another "Bat" itself. It was quite simply "Braver". This is what Meat said in the press and on social media and the forums, and when the album finally hit, you were either going to love it or hate it, just like you did with "Bat", if not more extreme this time around, because they were going wilder than they ever had before.

So let's have a look at the songs then.... STOP RIGHT THERE!!! We haven't mentioned the cover art yet. Meat had revealed to none other than little old me on his social media page that it was going to be like a nod to the crop duster scene in the classic suspense film "North by Northwest" (bloody awesome movie), and I was more excited than ever. When I had heard that he was going to put it up somewhere on one of his pre-album tours, I kept checking the forums all of the time to see if anyone had caught a glimpse of it, just waiting to catch a peak at the new art. It's *ALWAYS* exciting for me!!!! And really, if we look back at all of these albums, it's not hard to see why. Finally, it was revealed... Meat and Jim themselves in the middle of nowhere, near the end of the line I'm sure, facing off against the four motorcyclists of the apocalypse, all speeding toward them on suspiciously familiar looking bikes. Yes!!! It's the bikes from "Bat", "Dead Ringer" and "Bat II". Amazing!!!!!!! And it's also a tribute to "North by Northwest". Oh, there's another one for YouTube. On your motorbikes then!!!

I walked into the local music store, and there the album was tucked away with the other Meat Loaf albums, (it was a long way from 1993 when people were rushing into Brashs to buy their Bat II tapes!!), and I eagerly brought it home. Thanks to a leak of most of the album on iTunes, I had actually heard most of it already, but I hadn't heard it on CD with all of the quality that implies. I brought it home and well, let's begin...

"Who Needs the Young?"---oh my!!! It feels like "South Park" with Meat Loaf as a grumpy old man, and they're all at a big carnival and Cartman's throwing popcorn on the carousel. This is ballistic!!! It's so different, so crazy from every other opening Meat has ever done, it more than sets the tone for the rest of the album. This is going to be a wild adventure.

"Going all the Way is Just the Start (A Song in 6 Movements)"---what would a Meat/Jim album be without a really long song title? Firstly, the record company released this as a four minute edit which is what everyone first heard, which was such a shame. (I think the edits could have been more imaginative too: say, the first four minutes of the song, and then the next four... and finally it all comes together, like a bit of a triptych painting.) The album version... I would have been happy with this one song alone, let alone an album. This is Meat and Jim going over the top one more time, and the return of Ellen and Karla is like the ultimate payoff for fans everywhere, the rock and roll version of an iconic character return from one of your favourite TV shows. I just love it.

"Speaking in Tongues"---originally, this was a funny little two verse song, until Jim came up with the section in the middle, with his immortal line "Erection of the Heart". This is the last new Jim song that's been released, and it's very special. It not only seems to sum up Meat and Jim's collaboration, but Jim's whole output as a songwriter as well. Amazing. Stacy Michelle does a cool vocal as well, on both this and the following.

"Loving You's a Dirty Job (But Somebody's Gotta Do It)"---again, I'll try not to compare these songs to the original versions, but I think this stands equally with Bonnie and Todd. Meat and Stacy have done a neat job.

"Souvenirs"---the intro makes me feel like I've suddenly landed into a Billy Joel album from the 70s, and I *fkn* love that!!! Yes, you can hear the music that became "Left in the Dark", and those are the two lines from "Two out of Three Ain't Bad", but Steinman fans were well and truly familiar with that parlour game at this point, so I'll try not to linger on that too long. Again, I think this is equal to Jim's demo. I can imagine it would have been stunning live.

"Only When I Feel"---ah, this is it! But right as you're waiting for the "If it ain't broke, break it" part to come in, it never does, and we slide into the song "More" instead. You can see why I might have been annoyed with this, but actually I really like it. Meat's vocals depict a character in pain, and all of this album is supposed to be the character of a 19 year old person searching for themselves. To me, I never got that, and more on that later.

"More"---firstly, I've always ADORED the chorus for this, "And I need all the love I can get", and this version does NOT disappoint. It's so cool to hear Meat finally take it on. You can see it as a new "Lemon" or "Break it" in a concert.

"Godz"---this is where this album starts to annoy me, no matter how much I try to view everything in the context of what Meat and Jim are trying to do. Why, because I wish they had just gone for broke and recorded the whole original seven minute song. Why is it a two minute edit? Why do we have edits of Steinman songs on an *ALBUM*? And I say this especially because it's such a killer song. Even when Meat says you're supposed to listen to the album as one big piece, this could still have been seven minutes long, but wait. I'm not supposed to be comparing. Obviously on its own, I think it's great.

"Skull of your Country"---see above, but I love what Cian Coey and Meat do with this song, and the updated lines like "There are drones on fire screaming". Terrific!

"Train of Love"---Rickey Medlocke joins the band for this rocking great send off!!! I've heard people over the years say they don't get why this was the final song, which might have been something like "Speaking in Tongues" instead, but I love it. I wouldn't have it any other way. "I don't even know where I am..." the character is suddenly caught out in the middle of nowhere, exposed to the elements, and coming face to face with... the four motorcyclists of the apocalypse!

So there you have it. Now I mentioned before, "all of this album is supposed to be the character of a 19 year old person searching for themselves." I never got that because what I heard was a 70 year old man being confronted with his mortality, maybe even Meat and/or Jim themselves. This, to me, was the final thread that sewed all of this album together for me, and from that point of view, especially as I continue getting older myself and going through the changes that all of that entails, I think this is an extraordinarily moving listen. Yes, Meat's voice, to put it in Jim's words, "just isn't what it was", but I don't care, because all of this was a character in a film, almost Dickensian in fact, someone like Miss Havisham in "Great Expectations" (which I've never even read, but people all over the world who've never read it know that that is a great character!). If anything bothered me here, it was the mix of the album, at least on my copy. I don't feel I can blast it, and when it comes to Meat Loaf and Jim, I need to blast these albums, so that can be a problem, certainly. I hope they can address this at some point.

Was there anything else? Yes, all the releases that were put out at the time, with different bonus tracks... was that necessary?? Couldn't they have released the album and then done a special box set with all of the bonus tracks included? Why did people have to go around buying up different copies of the album just so they could get more bonuses? But let's not finish this on a sour note, because sadly this Meat Loaf journey is coming to an end... well, at least for the time being anyway. Meat as of now is planning to record five more songs, including "What Part of my Body Hurts the Most?" for a "Bat" related release which will also include the original demos from "Bat" itself. How's that for a closer hey?

As ever, thank you for reading,

Ryan.