[letsgotoofar]

I'll take this one, since I already blew the lede here ages ago, much to TWG's chagrin, given his penchant for mystery (and maybe not trying to ruin the exclusive he thought would be aired on the podcast at some point):

Steven Van Zandt was working on a rock opera version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame story called Freak, and he had Meat in mind for Quasimodo and Patti for Esmeralda. He wrote tons of it self-referentially with Meat's involvement planned, including a song with a "Stop right there!" gag. It got as far as the demo stage, with the plan to follow up Bat II with the first actual story-based concept album -- remember, way before Hang Cool Teddy Bear -- in Meat's discography (unlike the loosely related but fairly-vague-in-Meat-context Steinman material), which Patti still contends would have been the biggest follow-up since Thriller followed Off the Wall. Unfortunately, Meat wouldn't go for it, in demo form (he's not on them, as far as I know) or as a project. One of the songs was called "Escape From Hell," which may account for the working title for Neighborhood. (My memory of specifics beyond that is murky, but I feel like, from what I remember of what was told to me several years ago, either Van Zandt tried to work in some songs he hadn't written that wound up on Neighborhood to entice Meat to the table [I faintly recall "Amnesty is Granted" was supposed to be part of it, but I may be remembering wrong], or Meat was happy to try to pillage Freak's song stack for what became Neighborhood but not to go all the way.)