Songoftheday 6/1/20 - There were nights when the wind was so cold, that my body froze in bed if I just listened to it right outside the window...
from the album Falling Into You (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (five weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 29
Today's song of the day comes from Canadian vocal powerhouse Celine Dion, who had landed her second #1 pop hit in America in the spring of 1996 with the song "Because You Loved Me". That was the second single overseas, with "Falling Into You" reaching #10 in the UK and top-40 all over Europe before that. For the third release internationally and second in the States, Dion covered an epic rock ballad that was written by Jim Steinman originally for the female rock act Pandora's Box. Inspired by the novel Wuthering Heights, the song sported keyboard work from Bruce Springsteen's E Street pianist Roy Bittan and background vocals arranged by legendary producer Todd Rundgren, the song was released in 1989 and stiffed, peaking at #51 on the British charts...
Even though Steinman's longtime collaborator Meat Loaf had petitioned to get the song, Steinman again chose a female voice to sing the dramatic song through one of the most expressive voices in pop in the 1990s, Celine Dion. With Bittan and Rundgren back to recreate the Pandora's Box version with new singers, the song became quintessentially Celine in its seven minutes plus of high tension. They even did up the music video to be as over the top as Meat Loaf's 90s work...
"It's All Coming Back To Me Now" became the second top ten hit from Falling Into You in the U.S.. spending five weeks in the runner-up position in October of 1996. The song spent five weeks at #1 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, while taking two weeks at #2 on their Adult Top-40 format list. The dance remix transformations of the song helped it rise to #15 on their Dance Club Play tally as well. Internationally, the single topped the Canadian chart for two weeks and for five weeks in Belgium (Flanders). It also reached the top ten in Ireland (#2), the UK (#3), the Netherlands (#5), Iceland (#6), Australia (#8), New Zealand (#8), and Hungary (#9), peaked at #13 in France, and topped at #19 in Sweden.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's the extended video made for the album version of the song...
and here's the club transformation of the "Classic Paradise Mix" from the Love To Infinity team that took the song to #15 on the dance chart...
Next up is Celine on her Falling Into You tour in 1996...
And appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to perform the single with just a piano and backing singers...
Celine pulled out all the stops for her Vegas residency in 2004...
In 2006, Meat Loaf finally got the chance to record "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" as a duet with Norwegian singer Marian Raven (from the duo M2M) for his Bat Out Of Hell III album. The resulting single topped the chart in Norway, and made the top ten in the UK (#6) and Germany (#7)...
Back to Celine in her Taking Chances tour in 2008, where she performed the song in a medley with "Because You Loved Me" and "To Love You More"...
In 2012, the musical show Glee had Rachel Berry (Lea Michele) perform the song in the penultimate Nationals episode. The track just missed the Hot 100 at #101 on the bubbling under list, while hitting the charts at #75 in Canada, #63 in Ireland, and #69 in the UK...
For shits and giggles, here's Broadway star Jeremy Jordan performing the song at a live show in New York in 2015...
On that same vein is the Cape Cod acappella group Hyannis Sound with a comically stellar rendition of the epic song in 2018. I swear this is my FAVORITE live version of the song ever...
Back to Celine with her 2019 Courage world tour...
And finally, in December of 2019 Celine redid "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" for an ad for Instagram...
Up tomorrow: Seattle grunge rockers identify you.
Comments