Songoftheday 9/20/20 - When I was young I never needed anyone, and making love was just for fun...

 

 

"All By Myself" - Celine Dion

from the album Falling Into You (1996)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 11

 

Today's song of the day comes from Celine Dion, whose Grammy-winning album Falling Into You had already spun off a pair of huge hits with the #1 pop single "Because You Loved Me" followed by the #2 hit "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" in the fall of 1996. The third American single from the record would be a remake of a classic from two decades prior. "All By Myself", written and performed by wall of hair Eric Carmen (well, pilfered from a symphony from classical composer Rachmaninoff), spent two weeks at #2 on the American pop chart in 1976...

Celine, with the help of producer David Foster, took the melody and drama of "All By Myself" to places Eric didn't have the range for, and her showstopping pyrotechnics landed her another huge radio success...

Dion's take on "All By Myself" became the third top ten pop hit from Falling Into You in April of 1997. The song topped Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart for three weeks, while climbing to #12 on their Adult Top-40 format list. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in France (#5), Iceland (#5), Hungary (#5), the UK (#6), her native Canada (#7), Belgium (#7W/#14F), and Ireland (#8). It also made the top-40 in Norway (#15), the Netherlands (#20), New Zealand (#21), Austria (#27), Spain (#31), Switzerland (#36), and Australia (#38). Overseas, a fifth single ("Falling In You" made the top ten in the UK prior) was released with "Call The Man", which just missed the top ten in the UK at #11, while getting to #26 in Belgium. 

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Here's Celine with "All By Myself" on her tour behind the Falling Into You album in 1996...

Next up, Dion wowing them at the Grammy Awards, where she won Album of the Year...

Fast forward to 2008, for a concert in Boston...

Now two years before Celine's version, Australian singer Margaret Urlich released a cover of the song that made the top-40 in New Zealand at #26, and Foster might have gotten inspiration from...

And lastly, Dion in concert in the UK in 2019...

Up tomorrow: Pop star gets twisted directions all the time.