The story behind It's All Coming Back to Me Now.
A song about love after death - in a worryingly literal sense - that started as an opera, hurt Meat Loaf's feelings and landed in the hands of a nineties diva.
Today I bring you a story that includes snakes, leather-clad dudes and a dash of necrophilia, because who knew one of the biggest hits of the nineties could be so dark? This is the story of a song that was destined for an opera, yet lived many lives before it became number one in several countries, selling over 3 millions copies to this day. I’m talking about It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.
Jim Steinman, the writer behind well-known hits such as Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart, Meat Loaf's I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That), and more, wrote It’s All Coming Back to Me Now. He was inspired by Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights. And this is where it gets really dark in Steinman’s head, as he pictured “Heathcliff digging up Cathy's corpse and dancing with it in the cold moonlight”.
It’s All Coming Back To Me Now is about an obsessive love, loss, death, and lusting about someone beyond the grave, and a side of erotica. It’s no surprise how often it has been described as “operatic”, and if you are into seventies rock, you’d think it had written with Meat Loaf in mind.
"I was trying to write a song about dead things coming to life. I was trying to write a song about being enslaved and obsessed by love, not just enchanted and happy with it.” - Jim Steinmann
In the 70s, vampire-loving, gothic-inclined Steinman had formed a music partnership with Michael Lee Aday, a.k.a. Meat Loaf, who had played the lead role in More Than You Deserve, a 1973 musical composed and co-written by Steinman. Another rock musical that Steinman had been working on for years, eventually became Meat Loaf’s hugely successful debut album, Bat Out of Hell (1977). By the time, It’s All Coming Back To Me Now began its life, the partnership with Meat Loaf had faltered.
In 1989, Steinman produced an album for an all-female group named Pandora's Box and gave them And It’s All Coming Back to Me Now. Elaine Caswell, the woman chosen as lead vocalist for the song, apparently collapsed five times during its recording.
Watching the Pandora video makes me wonder why people got so enranged about things that Madonna did in the 90s when, in the eighties, this bunch where doing seriously dodgy things - questionably passing as erotica, more soft porn - yet, was nobody paying attention?
For this version, the idea of death kicks off with - I think - the introduction of a motorcyle accident at the start, where our protagonist - is she the lead singer? - crashes, conveniently, at a graveyard. You can watch the video below, or alternatively, read my break-down. Whatever you do, brace yourself, it’s a bit of a ride.
For some reason, we have left the graveyard and find the main protagonist on a rock/pagan altar, somewhere between life and dead - though she is clearly unconscious - with some guys who boringly, yet repeatedly, rub her breasts and thighs. Is she still dead? Ah yes, she is still dead. Then the rubbing turns into kissing, the girl’s arm drops lifelessly… yet everyone keeps at it and, we have an orgy! Whoever got the idea of resurrection by sexual arousal should have asked around because this is so, so weird to watch.
When it comes to the styling of the video, I get that the look they were going for was probably 80s hard rock, and the women look very much like what you’d expect, if a female rock band landed face-first into a pile of leather goods. However, the guys definitely have a fetish vibe, wearing assless chaps that make them look like extras in a Frankie Goes To Hollywood video. I’m a tad confused. Then there is choreography that goes from pagan dancing, to interpretative dance. A high priestess gets involved, with a series of potions… and more kissing. It’s all so very camp. We’re back in the graveyard, there are some nurses who clearly got dressed at Ann Summers, and a doctor who is incredibly beautiful, administering CPR but not really. They take our girl away in their ambulance. And when we start to wonder whether she will make it there are white horses that add to our confusion and more flames, because fire is a thing.
Camp music video aside, Pandora’s Box version is very good, and proves how well this song sounds when sang by a woman. Which leads us to its next incarnation.
Can we talk about Celine now?
Not quite, because before one of the biggest voices in music history got her lovely Canadian hands on this banger, Meat Loaf came close to recording it, but it wasn’t meant to be.
In 2006 Meat Loaf told Billboard magazine that he’d wanted to record the song for his Steinman-produced album Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell (1994), which featured I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That). Apparently, Steinman had promised Meat Loaf he could use the song for the next Bat album. However, Meat Loaf ended up feeling blindsided when Steinman gave the song to Celine Dion.
Meat Loaf eventually got to record the song, which he had always envisioned as a duet, for this 2006 album Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, the final installment of his trilogy. He had to fight Steinman in the courts - who had been ill for a while - to be able to record the song and several others Steinman had produced.
Celine’s version.
If Meat Loaf were alive, he’d remind me that, in his humble opinion, his take of the song was the ultimate version. Yet that would be a huge disservice to the woman whose vocals gave this song the operatic quality it deserved. A woman who had the pipes to perform it live over and over, make it sound like a whisper where it needs to cool down, and light it up during the song’s many, many highs (baby, baby, baby). In MY humble opinion, Celine’s take is enough too resurrect a few dead bodies.
Just press play to hear it for yourself, and return to a time where power-ballads were hot. I’m just going to grab a hair brush.
Celine Dion had the pipes, and the presence on camera, to turn this song into a huge hit, which she did. While this version is very similar in its production to that of Pandora’s Box, it comes in two forms: a full-length one that appears on Celine’s Falling into You (1996) seven minutes and thirty-seven seconds long, and the radio edit, that goes on for five minutes and thirty-one seconds.
Nigel Dick directed the music video, shot in the summer of 1996 in Castle Ploskovice, a summer palace belonging to Austrian royalty. The interior shots were filmed at Barandov Studios, in Prague. It was released in July 1996.
Celine Dion’s version received global critical acclaim and topped charts worldwide. A year later she would release My Heart Will Go On, and the rest is pop history.
For today’s playlist I bring you the gift of relaxation, because I am going away for a few days to do just that, chill. This playlist is great if you are having a stressful work day, or need some soothing, yet great, tunes in the background, featuring Glodfrapp, Beck, Air, Lorde and more . Spotify is not letting me do anything today, so please access the playlist here:
Until next time x