Like the album opener, this song is not entirely new, but this time there is some re-arranging going on. This song is essentially a re-imagining of “Braver than We Are” from Dance of the Vampires (which was itself a re-working and translation of “Draussen Ist Freiheit” from Tanz der Vampire, of course). Don Black, who worked on lyrics for the English-language play, gets credited here as well. I don’t feel comfortable commenting about the Dance of the Vampires version–it’s only visible in surely-illegal and not-great-audio form on a Google-owned video website, so I don’t feel like I can hear it well enough to judge it–but the Tanz der Vampire version is excellent–the title phrase appears in a segment of one of the show’s strongest melodies and really stands out to me as the strongest new moment of the show.

The first movement of the song is only slightly changed from the play. A bright repeating piano phrase, some lightly coloring synth work, and lead guitar playing the “chorus” (to the extent there is one) melody provide the introduction and then the guitar goes away to let in Meat Loaf. Meat Loaf sings a verse and then hands it off to Karla Devito, who is joined by some guitar chords. After two lines, she hands it off to Ellen Foley in the same way. Then all three join together to sing the play track’s title phrase: “We always seem so much braver than we really are/We always dream we seem braver but we never are.”

Suddenly, the second movement marks a real shift in tone. A muted electric guitar and drums back Meat Loaf singing some of the lowest notes of his career. Then we get back to the chorus, again half sung by Devito and Foley.

Following the second chorus, the third movement begins with a piano riff that really sounds like “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” sped up. Guitars join in with Devito’s vocals and we repeat for another verse from Foley. The ladies sing a verse matching the melody of Meat Loaf’s first movement verse and then he starts us through the chorus again, with the vocals rearranged a bit.

Then after the third chorus, we move into the fourth verse with a much more emphatic rhythm and a really good melody. Some light synths and church bell sounds fill in the room between the rhythm and vocals as all three vocalists take turns with similar-sounding verses: first Foley, then Meat Loaf, then Devito, then Meat Loaf, then Meat Loaf with Foley, then Meat Loaf with Devito. This movement doesn’t end with the chorus. And the next two movements are essentially indistinguishable from this one.

As is rather expected for a song from a musical, the transitions between the various “movements” in this song are a bit abrupt and difficult. The second movement in particular just sounds unrelated other than the three voices. However, I have always liked the “Draussen Ist Freiheit” melody, and the “say a prayer” melody in use in the last three movements is also quite strong, sounding something like “The Future Ain’t What It Used to Be” but not matching the earlier song.

Vocals are a mixed bag. Karla Devito definitely sounds best in the higher parts of the song, and sounds better than either Meat Loaf or Ellen Foley does in those parts. Foley, however, still has an attitude and strength to her voice that Devito can’t quite match. Meat Loaf, however, is a mess. He sounds strained to reach the low notes everywhere. He sounds out of breath often. He sounds like he has no control over his widely varying vibrato.

The lyrics are also a mixed bag. There is some interesting Steinman phrasing (The title itself is the best example.), but there are a lot of more straightforward, more conventional lyrics. Don Black is also credited as a writer on this song (And with having written some lyrics for Dance of the Vampires), so those could well be his. But then there is a lot that feels like it’s trying to re-write past Steinman work. No Steinman fan could hear “You see me dancing, the moonlight glancing at my hair/You see me as powerfully strong/But the nightmare’s never so very far/And you think my life is shining like a star/But the tears are never very far” without thinking of “Making Love out of Nothing at All” (“Every time I see you/All the rays of the sun/Are streaming through the waves in your hair/And every star in the sky/Is taking aim at your eyes like a spotlight”) and “Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer than They Are” (“And though the nightmares should be over/Some of the terrors are still intact”).

Steinman described Meat Loaf’s younger voice as a heldentenor, which is a very rare operatic voice largely associated with thick vocal folds and enormous lung power that result in big, booming vocals that sound good throughout their actual range but the ends of their range are, to to speak, more defined than usual–they can’t really stretch the way many other vocalists can. (One note here: I’m taking Steinman’s word for the classification, not claiming to be able to classify it myself.) Heldentenors are notorious for having vocal problems in their early 30s if they lack intensive training (Sound familiar?) and for their voices just dying completely at the end of their careers (again, unless they have a lot of training to avoid it). With that knowledge, hearing the completely self-taught Meat Loaf’s voice end up in tatters shouldn’t be a surprise, but it is still a constant, painful reminder of his age. Devito (age 63) and Foley (65), while they are definitely diminished since the 1970s, still sound pretty good. But Meat Loaf’s voice has gone over the proverbial cliff.

All told, “Going All the Way Is Just the Start” is a difficult song. It’s got some really great parts, but between the weak points, the amount of repetition over its 11 minutes, and Meat Loaf’s poor vocals, it just doesn’t become the great song it feels like it could be. It’s almost emblematic of the entire album that this song provides the all-too-accurate title: it has echoes of past glory but everyone is just too old to make it work anymore.