Steinman wrote this song way back in the days of The Dream Engine, calling it “Come in the Night.” This was the first song of the musical, and so in a way it is how Steinman began his career, even though he wrote “Who Needs the Young” earlier.

The song opens with a piano melody, some lead guitar, and some “ooh/ahh” background vocals. Then Meat Loaf starts singing, and while his voice is awfully weak again, it feels like this trip through Steinman’s back catalogue might have finally unearthed something that’s both good and not a repeat of something already more famous.

And then, things get a bit too familiar. A female voice, Cian Coey, suddenly intones, “Turn around” in a familiar haunting tone and melody. Meat Loaf sings, “There’s a black day dawning,” exactly as expected, and it’s clear that this is the embryonic beginning of “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” The iconic “Turn around, bright eyes” call-and-response continues through the rest of the song.

The arrangement is noticeably different than Bonnie Tyler’s original, with plenty of strong but surprisingly country-tinged guitar leads plenty of electric rhythm guitar, lots of choir vocals, and only a bit of rhythm piano. The closest thing to synthesizers are some clearly electronically-enhanced backing vocals that sound like they were recorded in 1986.

Also differentiating it from “Total Eclipse of the Heart” are the vocals, though there is an interesting parallel. For as much as I never liked Bonnie Tyler’s voice, 1983 Tyler definitely out-sings 2016 Meat Loaf. I suspect part of the reason for the increased used of backing vocals is to cover up that it sounds like Meat Loaf can’t hold a note for even a couple of beats. Like in the original, the counterpoint vocal is great. If anything, Coey actually shows off more than Rory Dodd ever did, building up to some truly powerful, booming responses to Meat Loaf’s ever-weakening voice as the song builds.

Remember when I said that I wondered why Meat Loaf hadn’t tried covering “Total Eclipse of the Heart?” It kind of wasn’t true, because he did record “Skull of Your Country.” Luckily for him, that “Every now and then/Turn around” call and response is fantastic, even in this early form (that doesn’t actually say “Every now and then”), and the re-arrangement is fantastic. Coey and guitarists Paul Crook and Randy Flowers save this song from being a poor rehashing of Steinman’s most famous song. But they still only turn it into a decent (and short–this song clocks in at 3:34, nearly cutting the 6:58 of the original in half) rehashing of Steinman’s most famous song.

Notes

• The lyrics aren’t particularly bad, but again they are just straightforward and simple. They’re not Steinman-like lyrics. By the time of Bat out of Hell, or even “Happy Ending,” he had developed a ton as a lyricist compared to this point.
• I hate to sound like a broken record about Meat Loaf’s voice, but it’s unfortunately a repeated issue on this album.