After a seeming reunion on the last song, Raven bursts into tears seemingly inexplicably. Strat is, understandably, caught off guard. And then she explains that she is certain that they can’t be together because she will age. He will stay 18 even when she is in her thirties and forties (And I do hope that it’s an intentional joke that she can’t fathom being legitimately old. That’s an 18-year-old for you.), and she’s convinced it won’t work. He says, “I don’t care how old you are. You’ll always be 18 to me and you’ll always be beautiful. It won’t matter. I love you.”

Apparently that’s all the reassurance she needed. She takes his hand as the song begins.

The familiar fast piano opening of “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” begins, albeit without the screaming guitars or motorcycle sounds from the Meat Loaf recording. Andrew Polec begins his lead vocal alone, joined by an ensemble for the last couple of lines before the same point where the guitar and drums join in in Meat Loaf’s version. Polec has everything you want in a Steinman voice, but he is so chained to the Meat Loaf delivery that it’s almost impossible to differentiate it.

The set turns into Falco Square. Sloane and Raven embrace, with Zahara, Jagwire, and the Lost looking on. Polec and Bennington sing a call-and-response version of the next section of the song, on top of a musical background that is almost identical to the Meat Loaf recording. There are horns added, playing the same thing as the guitars, but that’s really all. And the rest of the song continues in the same vein. Bennington sounds a bit shout-y in this section, but Polec still sounds excellent.

Jagwire then takes the lead through the next section, and Dom Hartley-Harris still has, while not the best, the most interesting voice of the male singers. His bluesy, raspier take really stands out. I think you could argue that it just doesn’t fit in this song, really, but I think it still does.

And then, as the chorus begins, Falco suddenly appears, sporting an Iron Maiden t-shirt and a jeans, on his old motorcycle, and pulls Sloane up onto his bike. It would appear that he has gotten in touch with his younger self. And this scene suggests that he has made peace with both Strat and Raven’s relationship and the Lost in general.

Strat takes the lead through the chorus and then it becomes a mix of trading lines among all six members of the couples as well as Ledoux, Blake, and Liebeswoosh. The presence of the three other Lost members on the lead seems kind of odd story-wise, but it adds to the feeling of a finale. Everyone sounds at least fine, but Sharon Sexton and Danielle Steers are, again, the standouts for me.

The duet section is split into the three couples. First we get Raven and Strat, and the slightly softer delivery at this point seems to work better for Bennington–she sounds better here than in the rest of this song. Zahara and Jagwire come up next. Then Sloane and Falco. Then Sloane starts the next one and Raven finishes it and Falco and Strat respond together, which is actually a pretty great musical depiction of their newfound alliance–these two would never have harmonized before this moment. And finally it goes back to Raven and Strat, and Bennington delivers a beautifully tender version of “After a while you’ll forget everything/It was a brief interlude/And a midsummer night’s fling/And you’ll see that it’s time to move on.” She and Polec work back and forth through the soft ending.

The melancholic mood of the song’s ending, while it has always been one of my favorite parts of the song, feels rather at odds with the triumphant, joyous song preceding it. It pains me to say it, but I think it would fit the show better if it ended before the “After a while you’ll forget everything” sequence. As it is, we have a sort of The Graduate ending, but where that was an important point of The Graduate, it feels really out of place here. It feels like this scene is meant as the riding off into the sunset of our three now-happy couples. Strat’s grown up enough to commit to Raven. Falco’s gotten in touch with his younger self. And they’re both here together in front of the Lost, on full display as (Since this scene feels like a wedding.) newly-minted family, seemingly ending the Falco-Lost feud and finding a new way forward. Also, more specifically, it makes zero sense for Raven to say, “I know the territory/I’ve been around.” Her entire character is that she knows nothing. She’s been locked in her room like Rapunzel for the last 18 years, not “around” anything. The song is suggesting that the two partners are bringing different, unmatched expectations to the moment, and that she is smart enough to know that his is all a front for being nothing more than a horny teenager at heart. That doesn’t fit this couple from everything else we’ve seen.

A proper musical summation of Jim Steinman’s career would definitely end with “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That).” Yes, “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was a bigger hit. But there are a few reasons “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” is a better encapsulation of him. It’s closer to his usual sound with its rock guitars, layers upon layers of instruments, and 12-minute length. Its most famous recording was sung by Meat Loaf, his most prominent collaborator. It has the layers of relationship complication that were such a staple to so many of his songs. And it was seemingly one of the last “pop songs” he wrote–the handful of songs we get after that are written for Batman: The Musical, Cry-Baby: The Musical, or Tanz der Vampire, and he only wrote lyrics for Whistle Down the Wind. I commented that he only wrote four new songs for Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell and those four songs account for over 38 minutes of run time, but the more I look back at it the more I think that he really wrote everything he had left at that point, and so, this song really was his sort of final statement. We know that the last song he wrote for that album was actually “Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are,” but I still think it’s clearly unfinished. This is rightly his signature song.

However, it feels forced into this position here. It’s a kick-ass version of the song and I hate to suggest anything needs changing, but it just doesn’t fit the conclusion of this story.

Jim Steinman would pass away of Kidney Failure on April 21, 2021. Meat Loaf followed on January 20, 2022, with no cause of death released. Meat Loaf had toured (including after claiming he was retiring from it) but not recorded anything since Braver than We Are. Steinman had not worked, at least as far as anyone seems to know.

Someone must have blessed us when he gave us those songs.

Ranking the versions

1. Meat Loaf-Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell
2. Meat Loaf feat. Imelda May Orchestral Version
   • This version is a fantastic change-up. It really is recorded with an orchestra–there are no rock drums, guitars, or anything. Both Meat Loaf and May sound great. This version is available on the “bonus track version” of Braver than We Are, but was clearly recorded much earlier–Meat Loaf sounds absolutely at his vocal peak in this one.
3. Jim Steinman’s Bat out of Hell: The Musical
4. Xandria-Fire & Ashes
   • This version is great. Really the only thing that holds it back from matching the original is that it’s following the radio edit.
5. Andrew Polec-The Bat Unplugged EP
   • It’s also a shortened version, but it’s also acoustic, so it really is different. Polec sounds more original and really delivers quite a good version.
6. Tyce-Hero
   • Backwards from what Tyce does with a lot of his arrangements, this one is a smaller, gentler version of the song. I just wish his delivery would follow suit. He doesn’t sound bad in his softer moments, but his shouting is hard to take.