After two strong original tracks, Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell makes its first foray into Steinman’s back catalogue with a cover of the epilogue from Bad for Good. I reviewed the original a while ago, so this one will focus on what’s different in this version v. Steinman’s 12 years prior.

As I suggested in discussing “Life Is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back,” on this album, I feel like “Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through” serves as something of a positive side of the coin to that song’s negative. Does rock and roll celebrate arrested development and misdirected rebellion? Sure. But does it give the lonely and disaffected an escape from the tensions and problems of everyday life? Yes. I feel like the two songs are placed next to each other for that reason, giving us a more full picture of rock and roll’s place as both a negative and a positive force.

In this rendition, there are not a ton of changes. There are more and louder guitars throughout essentially the entire song, the saxophone solo is considerably shorter, and the piano is less prominent. The horn and string sections from the original are completely excised, but their place is essentially filled with some extra guitars, extra backing vocals, and some keyboards.

With the obvious exception of replacing Rory Dodd’s vocal with Meat Loaf’s, this could really pass for a remix of the original recording. Half of the musicians are even reprising their role from that original recording: Rory Todd, Todd Rundgren, and Kasim Sulton are back on backing vocals; Roy Bittan is back on piano; and Steve Buslowe is back on bass. Tim Pierce handles all of the guitars here (Which does make me wonder if he was specifically playing solos, since this song doesn’t have one.), and those guitars are the biggest musical change from the original, making for a richer, fuller version of the original’s sound.

Back in 1981, this song seems to have been something of a bone of contention between Meat Loaf and Steinman, but it definitely seems to have been one of the songs Meat Loaf couldn’t get through while Steinman was still in-studio. That makes sense, since his attempts at more restrained moments are often his weakest on Dead Ringer and it seems unlikely that this song would ever have been a good fit for a full-throated, bombastic Meat Loaf lead. Even on Bat out of Hell, the restrained vocals are definitely not Meat Loaf’s strongest moments. But here, he has a level of control and warmth he may not have been able to reach earlier in his career. It doesn’t give him a ton to do, but he does showcase a side that I think it was fair to question until this point.

With the more prominent guitars replacing horns and strings and the piano taking more of a backseat, I would say this song really doesn’t sound like a Todd Rundgren song in this version. While I’m tempted to say that this version is definitively superior, I really do like the strings and the more percussive piano in the original, and Rory Dodd’s vocal is just so clean and straightforward that it lets that shimmering melody work even better than it does on Meat Loaf’s recording. They’re two fantastic recordings of a truly great song, and I am glad to have both.