Steinman seemingly suffered more health problems after Bat out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, and so even though at some point he and Meat Loaf patched things up, they didn’t actually work together again.

In 2016, with his voice ragged and his career having descended from major rock star to cheap Fox News contributor, Meat Loaf released another album bearing the words “Songs by Jim Steinman,” words so important to his fans that he had included them (appending “and Desmond Child” to the end) on his non-Steinman attempt at Bat out of Hell. Steinman had at least some discussion with Meat Loaf on this one and approved of it, so it’s nothing like the acrimonious Bat III, but Steinman also wasn’t in the studio at all, and neither was his common surrogate Steven Rinkoff. Steinman was credited as a “creative consultant” and for arrangement. Rinkoff was credited only for “additional engineering.” Instead, the album was produced by longtime Neverland Express (Meat Loaf’s backing band) member Paul Crook.

Almost all of the longtime Bat out of Hell participants are absent. Kasim Sulton, Rory Dodd, Todd Rundgren, and Roy Bittan aren’t here. Even more recent regulars like Kenny Aronoff are gone. Really, the only people left from Bat out of Hell are Meat Loaf and Ellen Foley. The only other long-term recognizable name is Karla Devito, and she was not actually on Bat out of Hell or Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell. Some of that is caused by what sounds like a smaller recording budget, with the Neverland Express actually playing everything itself and only Foley and Devito appearing as guest stars anywhere, which is quite at-odds with what Meat Loaf had been doing ever since Bat II, with his albums so laden with guest stars that it’s rather shocking how little attention they received.

But it’s clear from the outset that Steinman looms large on this album, as it opens with the first official release of the first song Steinman ever wrote. “Who Needs the Young” began life in The Dream Engine back in 1969 and has repeatedly made appearances, with few changes, in his musical projects ever since, but this is the first time it’s appeared on record. One might ask why a song Steinman so clearly has so so much affection for has not been recorded between 1969 and 2016, but I do think there is a straightforward answer to that: it’s just not a pop song. Meat Loaf did not change that.

The song opens promisingly enough, with a swaggering version of a ’50s style rock and roll riff that then gives way to a “girl group” doo-wop sequence with “dum dum” backing vocals behind wailing saxophone and on top of a very straightforward rock and roll drum/bass/piano rhythm. But then the backing vocals drop off and the saxophone joins with some synth horns to make a hideous walking rhythm trading off with bass and drums. Finally, Meat Loaf’s voice joins in, barely even following a melody in some sort of 1930s jazz sound that reminds me of the worst of Broadway. The only change is a section halfway through where the melody gets much faster for a call-and-response between Meat Loaf and the backing vocals until Meat Loaf shouts at the end of each section and a downward drum-and-guitar riff sets up for the next, and then a short guitar solo before repeating the first part of the song again.

The lyrics are the rant of a youth-hating villain (the character who is eventually Falco in Bat out of Hell: The Musical) who is asking, “Who needs the young?” rhetorically but then complaining about his own age. It’s campy and really not interesting. There is no sign here of the Jim Steinman we would come to know.

Meat Loaf doesn’t sound terrible in this song, but it also requires nothing of him. He’s almost tuneless, but so is the song. He only hits about three notes, but that’s all the song asks. There are still some times that he sounds out of breath, but I think those are probably intentional, since the song is something of a character rant. As the album continues, we will hear that his voice is severely limited at this point, but the 69-year-old doesn’t open the album too badly.

I don’t like this song at all, but it’s also just clearly not for me. It’s not a pop song (in the most general sense of music meant to be consumed by the public outside of a theatrical setting) at all, and there’s just nothing rock about its arrangement here.