[ajf33]

Forgive my ignorance, but did the Pandoras box version of All Coming Back to me (or the album Original sin) not see a release stateside then?

Originally Posted by letsgotoofar

The exact story, no. But I can offer some info from the other side since we've usually only heard Meat's version of events.

Per my (admittedly limited) conversations with Jim over the years, Meat was forever asking what he'd been writing lately, always looking to see if there was another gem tucked away. In response, Jim would send Meat things he was working on. As far as Jim was concerned, whatever he shared was not always explicitly intended for Meat, just an example of exactly what Meat had asked about (i.e., what he'd been writing lately). But Meat, more often than not, interpreted it as a direct submission, and this sometimes led to trouble.

(For example, Meat desperately wanted to do "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" when Jim first played it for him, but Jim wasn't interested; he saw it as more appropriate for a woman. That didn't stop Meat from trying to record it anyway for the album that eventually became Neighbo(u)rhood. Jim successfully sought a legal injunction to prevent him from recording it based on laws about mechanical licensing. Quick-and-dirty explanation: people can cover whatever song they want thanks to mechanical licensing. If it's been released in the U.S., all they have to do is pay the so-called "mechanical" fee to the publisher to record a song. "All Coming Back" had yet to be released Stateside, so it required Jim's permission, which he wasn't giving. That gave him grounds to stop Meat from recording it. Of course, once Celine Dion released it, it was open season ten years later, whether or not Jim was involved in, or wanted it on, the album it was on...)

All that to say: I can believe Jim not being able to work with Meat due to the legal issues, but I can also see Jim playing him "Total Eclipse" and "Making Love" purely as examples of his current material, and Meat thinking that meant they were his.

Back on the thread topic... one undeveloped Meat Loaf idea was teased in the tour program for Midnight at the Lost and Found. Instead of Bad Attitude, Meat was reportedly planning to record a concept album called Innocence, Dreams, Success or Failure which would deal with "stories of people who are born into success or whatever and the places that surround them." He had Tom Dowd in mind to return as producer, and that Jim would write for it, though whether he was to write the whole thing is unclear.