Okay. As promised, and in memory of the legend that is Jim Steinman (RIP ), have a thread about:

1) his lost Batman musical
2) how the New Testament was written in the Bible
3) How 2) allows you to find bits 1) on Spotify

/1 https://twitter.com/garius/status/1384759125066801152

Okay, Jim Steinman first: Musical god. No question. But ALSO someone who thought musicals were... well... God.

He loved 'em.

Bat out of Hell was meant to be one before it was an album (and would eventually come full circle).

He also wrote Whistle Down the Wind with Lloyd Webber.

Remember that bloody awful Boyzone song that was EVERYWHERE, if you were around in 1998?

Blame Jim partly for that. He kept that little sin quiet.

Moving swiftly on, in 1997 Steinman wrote the music for Dance of the Vampires, which was a SMASH HIT in Europe.

At the same time, people like Disney were starting to have big hits in the US with stuff like Lion King, the Musical.

Warner Bros noticed this.

Warner Bros acquired the US rights to Vampires, and obviously got Steinman involved in the US rework process.

Then SOMEONE at WB clearly had a lightbulb moment:

"Hey? We're busy running the Batman franchise into the ground. Why don't we get Jim to do a musical about THAT too?!"

The Batman musical quickly turns into a massive trainwreck. Vampires bombs, other Disney musicals don't match Lion King.

WB bring in Tim Burton to write (promising him the chance to undo the horror of their later sequels), but the moment is lost.

After production delays, WB can Batman. They instead do Le Stat, the Interview With a Vampire musical with Elton John (which ALSO bombs).

Burton, pissed, starts pretending it never happened. So do Warner Bros.

But not Jim Steinman.

Because Jim had ALREADY written chunks if it

ENTER YOUR BIBLE STUDIES LESSON.

So you know how the New Testament WASN'T written by God via a dictaphone, right? Even if he WAS whispering truths in people's ears, it was written by HUMANS.

Humans in a rush to publish. Humans who weren't there.

So they cheated.

Well, not cheated, but did what all writers do. Used other sources. Some oral, but ALSO other people's books.

For AGES everyone thought the other Synoptic gospel writers (Matt, Luke & Ringo*) just copied whole chunks of Mark. Word for word.

Enter Q**

*Not Ringo

**Not that one

Short version: About 1900, German scholars pointed out that there are bits of Mark which Luke would have loved (they big up gentiles) and bits of Mark that Luke would have loved (bigging up prophecy), but which DON'T appear.

So if they were copying Mark why DON'T they copy that?

Revelation:

Turns out EVERYONE was copying an earlier text we don't have, and which maybe they all only had partial copies of. Mystery solved.

The Germans called this Q ("Quelle" or "Source").

Why does this matter for Jim and Batman?

YOU CAN APPLY THIS TO MEATLOAF SONGS

Because Jim DIDN'T throw his Batman musical away. Why would he? He wrote it. He liked it.

He tweaked some of the songs he liked most to hide the source and gave them to Meatloaf.

Which is how Seize the Dark Knight, becomes "Seize the Night" on Bat III

If you've ever wondered WTAF "In the Land of the Pig, the Butcher is King" is about on Bat III, it makes a whole lot more SENSE when you imagine the Joker singing it about why he hates the people of Gotham.

Basically, Jim's Batman stuff turns up elsewhere

I could write more, but this is a long thread and I suspect you've got the point. So I'll leave you with a few final gems.

First: once people spotted all this Jim UTTERLY AND HAPPILY fessed up to it.

And that's why we now know what songs he had written/planned:

He also talked openly about a whole bunch of them, and how they related to the plot in various interviews. A lot of which has been faithfully captured over at the Jim Steinman fan wiki:

e.g. here: https://jimsteinman.fandom.com/wiki/The_Catwoman%27s_Song

BUT I'VE SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST.

Because, many, many moons ago (like TWENTY YEARS AGO) Steinman actually posted the demo tapes for a lot of the Batman songs on his personal website.

I know this because I have migrated my bookmarks for years across machines.

<- Nerd

So here you go. In honour of Jim Steinman's memory, here are links to the demo tapes for a WHOLE CHUNK of his lost Batman musical. Have a listen.

Cry to Heaven: https://jimsteinman.com/audio/CryToHeaven.mp3

OG version of 'Land of the Pig':

https://jimsteinman.com/audio/landofthepig-256.mp3

All the Love I can Get (to be sung by Catwoman):

https://jimsteinman.com/audio/catwoman.mp3

Still the Children We Once Were:

https://jimsteinman.com/audio/stillthechildren-256.mp3

Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys (to be sung by The Joker):

https://jimsteinman.com/audio/02WonderfulToys.mp3

The Song of Gotham City:

https://jimsteinman.com/audio/(Vespers)AngelsAriseGraveyardShift.mp3

Not Allowed To Love:

https://jimsteinman.com/audio/Not-Allowed-original.mp3

Anyway. Hope you've enjoyed this little insight into some of Jim Steinman's lesser known work. And how unrecorded music never really dies. It just reappears elsewhere.

One day, if you're lucky, I'll tell you about Jim Steinman's Vietnam musical.

RIP JIM.

A musical legend.

As usual, if you've enjoyed this thread, you can buy me a coffee over here:

But please don't feel you have to! I wrote this one to share my memories (and love) of Jim Steinman's work. I wish more people realised what a musical iceberg he was. https://ko-fi.com/garius 

ADDENDUM RE TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART:

1) Steinman wrote a badass song about Vampires
2) Meatloaf/Bonnie: "make this NOT about vampires u big nerd"
3) Jim then got asked to do Dance of Vampires
4) Jim: "THIS SONG IS NOW ABOUT VAMPIRES AGAIN BITCHES!!"

MOAR ADDENDUM:

Okay, one more treat from the "shit Jim Steinman posted to his website one time that I instantly clicked 'save as' on" folder on my computer.

Here's him doing the opening from 'A Hot Summer Night'

Yup. Sisters of Mercy were another beneficiary of Jim Steinman's lost Batman musical. I just didn't have time to cover it in the thread! https://twitter.com/SDGlyph/status/1384797565795901448