It’s All Coming Back to Me Now by Celine Dion

The DJ for my wedding asked me to put together a play list and a do not play list for my wedding reception. While there was a wide variety of great music on my play list there was only one thing I wrote on the do not play list:

Celine Dion.

Man I really hate Celine Dion.

Celine Dion is responsible for one of the biggest holes in my cultural literacy. I can’t bring myself to watch Titanic or listen to “My Heart Will Go On” all the way through. How I managed to do this took a lot of effort, but I still hold strong.



I admit that my dislike of her is irrational but I just can’t help it. Everything she does just bugs me: the way that she holds her consonants a little bit too long on her sustained notes, the presumptuous way she talks about her own singing like it’s some deep revelatory expression of her soul, oh Lord and then there’s the way that she talks about her own life like we’re suppose to care.

And seriously, that baby album and book Celine Dion Miracle: A Celebration of New Life. You are happy that you have your first baby. Great, that’s fantastic, make a CD and book about it, but pose your kid with a cabbage leaf on her head? I guess it goes with your whole tomato skirt and cabbage top you are wearing, but really is that your idea of cute? Comparing your kid to vegetable?!? Maybe that was fun in the 1980s with Cabbage Patch Kids but thinking that’s cute now. . . really? Look at that poor kid’s pose, I know little babies are limber and all, but what is her leg turned all the way up to her leg, that doesn’t look right.

Now this blog is not about bashing artists but celebrating music in our popular culture as much as I dislike Celine Dion, man I LOVE “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.” Leave it Jim Steinman, the same composer who brought us “Total Eclipse of The Heart” to convince me of the musical worth of Celine.



Celine Dion has a powerful voice but she often sings her sustained note with a straight tone that lacks any vibrato. There’s drama in the making a high note sound like its high and hard to sing, but it’s not necessarily the most pleasing sound. “It’s All Coming Back To Me” plays at the edge of Celine’s range but doesn’t require her to sustain her high notes for very long which plays to her strengths of enormous range without revealing her lack of control in her higher notes.

Steinman’s works are the musical equivalent of a soap opera and Celine’s musical overacting fits perfectly well in this song when in other songs it songs comical. Frankly she sounds (and looks) preposterous when she does things like sings “You Shook Me All Night Long.”
However in the world of Jim Steinman, she couldn’t fit in any better.



My favorite part of this song is in middle of the second verse when Celine sings, “You were history with the slamming of the door” and the orchestra answers with a drum flourish to represent the door slamming. While this may have sounded silly in any other song, it is awesome in this one. It all makes sense in this melodramatic world that Steinman has created.

The theme in this song about memories coming back to us resonates with feelings of loss and regret that we hold in our lives. This seven and a half minute song has an incredible dramatic arc and I’ll give credit when it’s due, Celine absolutely nails this song and sells it better than any other singer could.

I have no shame to admit that I play this in my car and sing along to this song, and absolutely love it. But even my love for "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" can't make me forgive Celine for her album cover for Taking Chances.


[shudder]

That jacket that you are wearing is a chance your really shouldn’t have taken. This image makes me wish I had the ability to “unsee” things.