As is tradition, Meat Loaf ends his pseudo-Bat out of Hell with a soft ballad. (“For Crying out Loud” is rather big and booming to be called a “soft” anything, but, for narrative’s sake, we’ll just go with that for now.) While some sources list this song as having been slated for Batman: The Musical, it seems like most of the more authoritative Steinman resources are saying that it was written for a musical version of Cry-Baby (John Waters, USA 1990) that did end up coming out but without any contribution from Steinman.

The song opens with clean electric guitar picking from Dan Warner and Graham Philips providing a wordless run-through of the melody, with some wordless backing vocals behind them. Meat Loaf then takes the lead vocal over just the guitar through one verse. Following that verse, we get an instrumental passage where an Irish flute from Eric Rigler takes the melody on top of the same backing vocals, some very soft percussion from Lee Levin and Kenny Aaronoff, plucked harp from Stephanie Bennett, and some synthesizer from Doug Emery. The flute then drops away for Meat Loaf to sing another verse (with 75% the same words). Finally, we fade out as Meat Loaf intones, “Go ahead and try like hell” in a more bombastic fashion like it’s a glory note to finish the song.

It’s a very small, very short song (Seriously, not even just for Steinman–it’s 2:25!) trying a sort of Irish sound. It has a nice enough melody and really just plays that four times with some variation about what’s playing. The instrumental bridge, with harp, backing vocals, and the Irish flute, is truly lovely and sounds unlike anything else from either Steinman or Meat Loaf. It doesn’t really build into anything huge, but the softer, subtler build of the song actually works quite well.

However, the part that lets the song down is Meat Loaf’s vocal. Early in his career, he would sometimes have difficulty softening up his voice, overdoing his vibrato and just sounding shaky and at-best questionably on-key, and for the first time in years, it seems like that problem is back here. However, even at the end, when he gives a big final note delivery, he sounds shaky–what should be a glory note along the lines of the finale of “Bat out of Hell” instead sounds a bit like going out with a whimper, which is sadly appropriate.

“Cry to Heaven” never got another recording, which is a shame considering the strength of its melody and its unique sound within the Steinman catalogue. Meat Loaf, in 2006, just doesn’t seem to have been the right person to deliver it. I have no doubt that he would have been great on it a decade earlier, but this is one of the places where we see his age catching up to him.

And with that final cry for help, Meat Loaf ends his attempt to try Bat out of Hell without Steinman. The two would reconcile over the next few years.

Meat Loaf released two forgettable-at-best and completely Steinman-free albums before their reconciliation in 2010’s Hang Cool Teddy Bear (Maybe the worst album title of all time. Spinal Tap would be embarrassed.) and 2011’s Hell in a Handbasket (Because if you can’t say Bat out of Hell, you may as well just get Hell in the title.). Neither got much attention and both really just attempted the same approach as this one but with a dwindling budget and Meat Loaf’s voice failing.

Eventually, Meat Loaf would release one more album of Steinman material in 2016 while Steinman held on to the name Bat out of Hell for his 2017 magnum opus (and culmination of his life’s work, really) Jim Steinman’s Bat out of Hell: The Musical.