It's All Coming Back to Me Now

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For the David Crosby album, see It's All Coming Back To Me Now....

"It's All Coming Back to Me Now"

Single by Pandora's Box
from the album Original Sin
Released	1989
Format	7" single, 12" single, 3" CD single
Genre	Power ballad
Length	8:22 (album version) 6:32 (single edit)
Label	Virgin
Writer(s)	Jim Steinman
Producer(s)	Jim Steinman
Chart positions
#55 (UK Singles Chart)

"It's All Coming Back to Me Now"

Single by Céline Dion
from the album Falling into You
Released	August 1996
Format	CD; CD-maxi; CS; 3"; 7"; 12"
Recorded	The Hit Factory, NYC
Genre	Pop
Length	7:37
Label	Columbia; Epic (U.S.)
Writer(s)	Jim Steinman
Producer(s)	Jim Steinman; Steven Rinkoff; Roy Bittan
Certification	Platinum (United States) Gold (Australia, New Zealand) Silver (United Kingdom)
Chart positions
#1 (Belgium) #2 (U.S., Canada, Ireland, Poland) #3 (United Kingdom) #5 (Netherlands) #8 (Australia, Europe, New Zealand) #10 (Argentina, Denmark) #13 (France) #19 (Sweden) #62 (Germany)
Céline Dion singles chronology
"J'Irai Où Tu Iras" (1996)	"It's All Coming Back To Me Now" (1996)	"The Power of the Dream" (1996)

"It's All Coming Back To Me Now" is a power ballad, written by Jim Steinman in 1983.^[1] Inspired by Wuthering Heights, Steinman attempted to write 'the most passionate, romantic song' he could ever create.^[2] Although it was intended for Bat out of Hell II and given to Meat Loaf in 1986, Steinman and Meat Loaf decided to use "I'd Do Anything for Love (but I Won't Do That)" for the latter album, and save this song for Bat III.^[3]^[4]

The song has had three major releases, all roughly belonging to the soft rock genre: the first version appeared on the concept album Original Sin, recorded by Pandora's Box; it was then recorded by Celine Dion for her album Falling Into You, and her version was a commercial hit, reaching No. 2 in the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 3 in the UK singles chart; and finally by Meat Loaf, as a duet with Norwegian singer Marion Raven, which was released in October 2006 and entered the UK singles chart at No. 6.

A music video was produced for each of the three versions; death is a recurring theme in all of these videos, fitting in with the suggestion in Virgin's press release for Original Sin that 'in Steinman's songs, the dead come to life and the living are doomed to die'.^[5] This is particularly evident when the dead characters seem to be resurrected in the memories of the main vocalist.

1 Inspiration
2 Pandora's Box
3 Céline Dion
4 Meat Loaf and Marion Raven
- 4.1 Chart performance
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Inspiration

Influenced by Emily Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights, Steinman compared the song to 'Heathcliffe digging up Cathy's corpse and dancing with it in the cold moonlight'; however, it is in fact about the 'dark side of love'.^[2]

'It's about obsession, and that can be scary because you're not in control and you don't know where it's going to stop. It says that, at any point in somebody's life, when they loved somebody strongly enough and that person returns, a certain touch, a certain physical gesture can turn them from being defiant and disgusted with this person to being subservient again. And it's not just a pleasurable feeling that comes back, it's the complete terror and loss of control that comes back. And I think that's ultimately a great weapon.'^[2]

The website All Music Guide called the song 'a tormented ballad about romantic loss and regret built on a spooky yet heart-wrenching piano melody'.^[6] The torment is present in the song's opening ('There were nights when the wind was so cold'), from which the singer recovers ('I finished crying in the instant that you left... And I banished every memory you and I had ever made'). However, the defiance in the verses are replaced by the return of the 'subservient' feelings in the chorus ('when you touch me like this, and you hold me like that...'); this juxtaposition continues throughout the song.

'There were those empty threats and hollow lies

'And whenever you tried to hurt me

'I just hurt you even worse and so much deeper.'

Eroticism is implied in the lines 'There were nights of endless pleasure' and 'The flesh and the fantasies: all coming back to me'. The song ends with a passionate, quiet reprise of the chorus.

[edit] Pandora's Box

In the interim, Steinman produced a concept album, Original Sin, with an all-female group called Pandora's Box, and the track-list featured many tracks that would later be recorded by other artists, particularly Meat Loaf. Elaine Caswell was the lead vocalist for "It's All Coming Back To Me Now", and she apparently collapsed five times during its recording.^[5] Caswell has since performed the song as part of The Dream Engine at Joe's Pub in New York City.^[7]

For the track, Roy Bittan performed on the grand piano, with Steinman and Jeff Bova on keyboards. Guitars were by Eddie Martinez, with Steve Buslowe on bass guitar. Todd Rundgren arranged the background vocals, which were performed by Ellen Foley, Gina Taylor and Deliria Wilde.^[8]

The song was released as a single in the UK, but only reached No. 51 in the singles charts, in October 1989.^[9] In its emphatic review of the album, Kerrang! magazine called the song 'excruciatingly operatic'.^[10]

Ken Russell directed the video, which was filmed at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire. Steinman wrote the script, based on Russell's segment in the compilation opera movie Aria.^[11] Elements include leather, snakes, tombstones and cockrings with shrunken heads, and the video featured Caswell as a girl near death - from a motorcycle crash - being ministered to by paramedics, fantasising and being 'sexually aroused by a large python and writhing on a bed that lit up in time with the music, while surrounded by a group of bemused, semi-naked dancers'.^[12] When Steinman's manager saw it, he responded 'It's a porno movie!'^[11] The two day shoot ran over schedule and budget, costing £35,000 an hour. Russell and Steinman even designed a sequence where a motorcyclist would cycle up the steps of a local church-tower, jump out of the turrets at the top, and then explode; alas, the wardens of the church refused permission.^[12]

The 7", 12" and CD singles featured Steven Margoshes's piano solo "Pray Lewd" (containing elements of "It's All Coming Back To Me Now"), Steinman's monologue "I've Been Dreaming Up A Storm Lately", and "Requiem Metal", a sample from Verdi's Requiem Mass, all from the album Original Sin.^[13]

[edit] Céline Dion

Audio sample:

Pandora's Box (1989) (file info) — play in browser (beta)
- This sample features some of the guitar mid-section, along with Elaine Caswell's vocals.
Celine Dion (1996) (file info) — play in browser (beta)
- This extract from near the beginning of the song shows Dion's vocals, Bittan's grand piano, and the use of backing vocals.
Meat Loaf, featuring Marion Raven (2006) (file info) — play in browser (beta)
- This clip features the beginning of the final chorus, displaying Raven's harmonies.
Problems playing the files? See media help.

Steinman subsequently gave the song to Céline Dion for her album Falling into You, which upset Meat Loaf because he was going to use it for a planned album with the working title Bat Out Of Hell III.^[3] Steinman produced the track, with Steven Rinkoff and Roy Bittan as co-producers. Bat Out of Hell and Meat Loaf collaborators Todd Rundgren, Eric Troyer, Rory Dodd, Glen Burtnick and Kasim Sulton provided backing vocals.

Nigel Dick directed the music video for Céline's version, with Simon Archer as cinematographer and Jaromir Svarc as art director. It was shot between 29 June and 3 July 1996 in the summer palace of the Czech Emperor, Ploskovice and Barandov Studios, Prague, Czech Republic; it was later released in July 1996.^[14] Castle Ploskovice in Ploskovice supplied the exterior of the gothic mansion.^[15] There are two versions of this music video; the full version (about 7:44 in length) and the single version (about 5:00 in length). Both of them are included on Dion's 2001 DVD video collection All the Way... A Decade of Song and Video.

The video opens with a man dying in an explosive motorcycle crash, after lightning strikes a tree down in his path. Dion's character is haunted by her lover's image, which she sees through a mirror, and images of them together through picture frames. There are stylistic similarities to Russell Mulcahy's video for Steinman's "Total Eclipse of the Heart", to the extent that Slant Magazine calls Dick's video an update.^[16] Dion is seen running alone through a dark, gothic mansion, with wind blowing through the open windows.

Several versions of the CD single were released in August 1996. They featured the songs "The Power of the Dream", "Le Fils de Superman", "Fly", "To Love You More", and a live version of "Where Does My Heart Beat Now"); a cassette and 7" vinyl version were also released.^[17] Another CD contained several dance remixes, although these attracted negative reviews. While praising its original form, All Music Guide said that 'as a dance song, it misses the mark...the final 'Moran' mix is a little better [than the other dance mixes] because the vocals don't pop up until three and a half minutes into the song'.^[18] A dance version was also released by Natalie Browne in the UK in February 1998.

The single version of "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" single version was included also on Dion's compilation album All the Way... A Decade of Song (1999), while the song itself was a smash hit around the world, reaching #1 in Belgium, No. 2 in the United States, Canada, Ireland and Poland, No. 3 in United Kingdom, No. 5 in the Netherlands, and so on. It sold over 1.1 million copies in the U.S. and was certified platinum, as well as being certified gold in Australia and New Zealand, and silver in the UK. The track reached #1 in some other American charts, such s Hot 100 Airplay, Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks, Top 40 Mainstream or ARC Weekly Top 40. Other U.S. peaks are as follows: Adult Top 40 #2, Adult Top 40 Recurrents #2, Hot 100 Singles Sales #3, Hot Dance Singles Sales #12, Hot Dance Club Play #15, Rhythmic Contemporary #16. In Canada, it also peaked at #1 in the Adult Contemporary chart, and No. 3 in the Contemporary Hit Radio chart.

The song, however, attracted mixed reviews. The Calgary Sun stated: '{The song} is undoubtedly the highlight of her English-language recording career. Dion's over-the-top vocals soar and swoop around Steinman's epic, ostentatious arrangement. Not surprisingly, everything else that follows...pales in comparison.' The Toronto Eye Weekly said Steinman's 'fatal absence from the last Meat Loaf record is finally justified here', and The Miami Herald said 'Dion knocks a couple out of the ballpark... [the song] features seven minutes of Wagnerian bombast, thunderclap piano chords and emoting that would wither an opera diva. Sure, it's over-the-top but it's passionate and musical.'

Some other reviews were less enthusiastic. After labelling Dion 'a Madonna-meets-Meat Loaf vocal freak', The Vancouver Sun called the song 'intensely self-indulgent, pompously self-important and mediocre beyond belief, the song just never ends'. The Ottawa Sun called it 'turgid', while The Toronto Sun, ironically, said that it 'sounds like a Meat Loaf reject'.^[19]

[edit] Meat Loaf and Marion Raven

""It's All Coming Back To Me Now""

Single by Meat Loaf featuring Marion Raven
from the album 'Bat out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose'
Released	16 October 2006
Format	CD, DVD, 7"
Genre	Power ballad
Length	6:07 (album version) 4:31 (single edit)
Label	Mercury
Writer(s)	Jim Steinman
Producer(s)	Desmond Child
Chart positions
#1 (Norway) #6 (UK Singles Chart) #26 (Dutch Top 40)
Meat Loaf chronology
"Man of Steel"	"It's All Coming Back to Me Now"	"Blind as a Bat"
Marion Raven chronology
"Here I Am"	"It's All Coming Back to Me Now"	"Heads Will Roll"

In interviews, Meat Loaf has said that, in his mind, the song was always meant to be a duet.^[20]^[4]

Before the listings for the album 'Bat out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose were made public, Meat Loaf performed the song in the 2006 season finale of American Idol, with Katharine McPhee. It was recorded as a duet by Meat Loaf and Marion Raven for the album itself, and produced by Desmond Child. Raven had been working on her solo album with Child, and was chosen because the timbre of her voice starkly contrasts to Meat Loaf's.^[21] In promotional interviews, Meat Loaf said that 'I believe that the version that Marion Raven and myself did on this album is the definitive version.'^[4]

Meat Loaf can be quoted as saying that he cried when he first heard the song, which 'is the only time that's happened'.^[22] He has also said that the song could be a duet between Steinman and himself, with an array of emotions coming back every time they work together. Referring to lines like 'when I kiss you like that', he said that although 'I love Jim Steinman', he wouldn't French kiss him!"^[23]

'To me it wasn't a song about romance, it was about me and Jim Steinman. We'd had a load of problems with managers in the early '80s and all of a sudden after five years we started to communicate. After I'd been to his house, he sent me the song, and it was "It's All Coming Back To Me Now". Not the line 'When you kiss me like that', but the emotional connection. It doesn't have to be literal.^[22]'

Meat Loaf's character mourning that of Marion Raven, in the 2006 video directed by P. R. Brown.

P. R. Brown directed this video,^[24] which premiered on VH1 Classic on 8 August 2006.^[25] There are similarities between the video for Meat Loaf's version of the song, and that the video for that of Celine Dion, with Meat Loaf being haunted by the memory of his lover. It is structured differently, however, with the story being told through flashback. Shots when Raven's character is alive have a distinct yellow tint, with a darker, blue tint for those after her death. Whereas the motorcyclist dies before the first verse in the Dion version, Raven's crash and resulting death is not shown until the final chorus. She flees from a masquerade ball (some reviewers have compared this to the Stanley Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut^[26]) in a car, which she crashes when swerving to avoid a man standing in the road.

This version of the song replaces the word 'nights' with 'lights', in the line 'There were nights of endless pleasure'. The ending of the single version is different, concluding with an additional 'We forgive and forget and it's all coming back to me now'. The album version, following those recorded by Pandora's Box and Celine Dion, ends with the female voice whispering 'And if we...', followed by four piano notes.

The track was available to download from iTunes in the UK in August 2006, two months before its UK release on 16 October. The CD single includes the song "Black Betty", with the limited edition 7" featuring "Whore"; it was also released as a DVD single.^[1] The album version was made available on Meat Loaf and Marion Raven's respective MySpace sites in August,^[27] with the single version being played during some of their promotional interviews, such as that on BBC Radio 2.^[3] The cover art is by Julie Bell, who is also the artist for the album Bat out Of Hell III.^[28]

The single entered the UK charts at No. 6 on 22 October 2006, giving Meat Loaf his highest position in the UK charts since "I'd Lie For You (And That's The Truth)" reached No. 2 in 1995. Critical reaction was generally positive, with The Guardian saying that the song is 'ostensibly a reflection on love, but imbued with the delicacy of aircraft carriers colliding at sea'.^[29]