Here we have the second and final cover from the Original Sin album (I covered the original here.); and, while there are some changes here, it is not incredibly different from its predecessor.

Completely unchanged from the Pandora’s Box version are the lyrics, the structure, and the melody. Meat Loaf obviously replaces Holly Sherwood in the lead but even his delivery is little different from what Sherwood already did.

However, the song immediately gives us an entirely different opening sound, as instead of the driving piano this version opens with a squealing saxophone courtesy of Lenny Pickett. Jimmy Bralower’s drums then join in along with multi-layered background vocals from Todd Rundgren, Kasim Sulton, Max Haskett, Amy Goff, Elaine Goff, and Curtis King, one side saying “Good girls/Go to heaven/Good boys/Go to heaven” while the other says “It ain’t right it ain’t fair.” It’s an almost cacophonous opening in contrast to Roy Bittan’s piano behind the more traditional backing vocals in the original. And then an absolute max volume guitar riff from Eddie Martinez that seems like it’s related to but not quite the same as the piano hook from the original joins in and Jeff Bova mixes in some synths.

After such a booming, jumpy opening, it feels almost strange to go back to a drum-and-piano (the latter of which is even rather quiet in spite of being played by Roy Bittan) backing for Meat Loaf’s vocal. He sings every line almost exactly the same way that Sherwood did in the original, but every space in the melody is now filled with some loud guitar and/or synth lines. Bittan’s piano gets a bit more prominent in the chorus and the overall sound gets a bit closer to the original but still a much harder-rocking version of it.

In the second verse, Meat Loaf does deliver his vocal a bit differently. He softens up in a way that Sherwood never did, giving the two verses noticeably different vocal feels. When he gets to the bridge, Meat Loaf starts off with the same softer delivery as the second verse, but finishes with an angrily harsh version of “real life” that sets the tone for a rather strange call-and-response between Bova’s synthesizers and programming (which seems to include the motorcycle sound from “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”) on one side and Martinez’s guitars on the other that has always sounded rather vicious to me for reasons I cannot explain.

Following the bridge, we go through the chorus again, Meat Loaf a bit more sedate than Sherwood was but otherwise with the same arrangement changes we’ve already seen.

Overall, Meat Loaf’s version of “Good Girls Go to Heaven (Bad Girls go Everywhere)” is a louder, heavier, rockier version of the song. I may like Sherwood’s lead better, but it’s a pretty small difference. I do really like the piano from the Pandora’s Box version, especially toward the end of the song, and the funky guitars work well with it, but Eddie Martinez’s booming rock guitar leads are definitely more my speed. There are also some keyboard moments in the Pandora’s Box version that seem to be trying to mimic a saxophone, so having a real saxophone this time around is an improvement. I kind of miss the silly funky ending, but again that’s a pretty minor point. I probably prefer this version, though it’s very close.

Notes

• Roy Bittan gets an arranger credit in the Pandora’s Box recording (shared with Steinman and “the band”), but doesn’t have the same credit here, so that may be the reason for the piano being so prominent before but not here.
• Interestingly, there is actually no bass credit on this song. Steve Buslowe played bass on the Pandora’s Box recording and eight of the songs on Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell (his other two absences being the music-less “Wasted Youth” and the all-electronic “Back into Hell”) but he has no credit here. I don’t feel like I hear bass in the song, so I think there just isn’t any. That’s an interesting and unusual choice, especially since the Pandora’s Box recording features the bass relatively prominently.
• The chorus is absolutely one of the most quintessentially Jim Steinman lyrics ever. “No one said it had to be real/But it’s gotta be something you can reach out and feel/It ain’t right it ain’t fair/Castles fall in the sand and we fade in the air/And the good girls go to heaven/But the bad girls go everywhere/Somebody told me so/Somebody told me now I know every night in my prayer/I’ll be praying/That the good girls go to heaven/But the bad girls go everywhere.”