It's All Coming Back To Me Now

"It's All Coming Back to Me Now" is a power ballad written by Jim Steinman. According to Steinman, the song was inspired by ''Wuthering Heights'', and was an attempt to write "the most passionate, romantic song" he could ever create. ''The Sunday Times'' posits that "Steinman protects his songs as if they were his children". Meat Loaf had wanted to record the song for years, but Steinman saw it as a "woman's song". Steinman won a court movement preventing Meat Loaf from recording it. Girl group Pandora's Box went on to record it, and it was subsequently made famous through a cover by Celine Dion, which upset Meat Loaf because he was going to use it for a planned album with the working title ''Bat Out of Hell III''. Alternately, Meat Loaf has said the song was intended for '' Bat Out of Hell II'' and given to the singer in 1986, but that they both decided to use "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" for ''Bat II'', and save this song for '' Bat III''.

The song has had three major releases. 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 U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart. Meat Loaf eventually recorded it as a duet with Norwegian singer Marion Raven for ''Bat III'' and released it as a single in 2006. This version reached No. 1 in Norway and No. 2 in Scotland.

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 Records' press release for ''Original Sin'' that "in Steinman's songs, the dead come to life and the living are doomed to die".

Inspiration

Influenced by Emily Brontë's novel ''Wuthering Heights'', Steinman compared the song to 'Heathcliff digging up Cathy's corpse and dancing with it in the cold moonlight', a scene which does not exist in the novel. In this conceptualization, which Steinman imagines having been censored from the book, the strength of Heathcliff's obsession enables a dance with a corpse on the beach despite the West Yorkshire moors being landlocked (and therefore more than the laws of nature would allow):

This isn't the ''Wuthering Heights'' of Kate Bush—that little fanciful ''Wuthering Heights''. The scene they always cut out is the scene when Heathcliff digs up Catherine's body and dances in the moonlight and on the beach with it. I think you can't get much more operatic or passionate than that. 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. It was about the dark side of love; about the ability to be resurrected by it... I just tried to put everything I could into it, and I'm real proud of it.

In another interview, Steinman expands on his comments about the song being about the 'dark side of love'.

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.

The website AllMusic called the song 'a tormented ballad about romantic loss and regret built on a spooky yet heart-wrenching piano melody'. 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. Critics have also identified Wagner, of whom Steinman was an admirer, as an inspiration. Specifying this song, ''The Sunday Times'' said "the theme of Wagner's opera ''Tristan and Isolde'', with its extreme passions and obsessive love, informs all his best work".

A 2007 article in the ''Toronto Star'' claims that the song was written as Steinman's "tryout" as lyricist for Andrew Lloyd Webber's ''Sunset Boulevard''.

Pandora's Box version

In 1989, Steinman produced a concept album, '' Original Sin'', with an all-female group called Pandora's Box. The album 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", who apparently collapsed five times during its recording. Caswell has since performed the song as part of The Dream Engine at Joe's Pub in New York City.

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 and Jimmy Bralower on drums. Todd Rundgren arranged the background vocals, which were performed by Ellen Foley, Gina Taylor, and Deliria Wilde. The song was released as a single in the United Kingdom on 2 October 1989 and reached No. 51 in the UK Singles Chart. In its review of the album, ''Kerrang!'' magazine called the song 'excruciatingly operatic'.

Ken Russell directed the video, which was filmed at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire. Steinman wrote the script, based on Russell's "Nessun Dorma" segment in the compilation opera movie ''Aria''. Scholar Joseph Lanza describes the video:

a woman's near-death experience rom a motorcycle crashis set amid operatic excesses and black leather. In a simulated city engulfed by an apocalyptic blaze, British vocalist Elaine Caswell sings and participates in a ritual to celebrate the song's "nights of sacred pleasure"... he soundstageis stocked with gravestones, motorcycles, python and dancers (allegedly from the London production of '' Cats''), strapped in chaps, studded bras, and spiked codpieces.

The girl, near death, is being ministered to by paramedics, fantasizing 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'. When Steinman's manager saw it, he responded 'It's a porno movie!' 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.

The 7-inch, 12-inch, 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''.

Charts

Celine Dion version

"It's All Coming Back to Me Now" is the first track on Canadian singer Celine Dion's fourth English-language studio album, '' Falling into You'' (1996). Jim Steinman produced the track, with Steven Rinkoff and Roy Bittan credited 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. This version utilized a modified version of the original Pandora's Box track with Caswell's vocals and certain instrumental passages removed. It peaked at number two on Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks, becoming the thirty-fourth biggest number two Hot 100 hit of all time. The full-length version of the song is the version that appears on ''Falling into You'' and is seven minutes and thirty-seven seconds long. A radio edit of the song was made, which appears on all editions of Dion's first English-language greatest hits album, '' All the Way... A Decade of Song'' (1999), and lasts for five minutes and thirty-one seconds.

According to ''The Sunday Times'', Andrew Lloyd Webber told Steinman he thought this song was "the greatest love song ever written," and on hearing Dion's version reportedly said: "This will be the record of the millennium". In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Elaine Caswell said that she expressed shock upon hearing Dion's version, often leaving a scene when the song came out in places such as laundromats in tears. Caswell later met Dion when she joined her to record a cover of "River Deep – Mountain High". The singer revealed that she had listened to Caswell's vocals in the original version and hoped she could match her voice.

The song was also included in Dion's 2008 greatest hits compilation '' My Love: Essential Collection''. Live performances can be found on the '' A New Day... Live in Las Vegas'' and '' Taking Chances World Tour: The Concert'' albums. Dion performed this song during her Falling Into You: Around the World tour 1996/1997, Let's Talk About Love World Tour 1998/1999, Taking Chances World Tour 2008/2009, two Las Vegas residencies, A new Day... and Celine, Tournée Européenne 2013, Summer Tour 2016, 2017 European tour and her 2018 tour. She performed the song during her British Summer Time concert in London's Hyde Park on 5 July 2019, and also opened her 2019-2020 Courage World Tour show with the song.

Critical reception

Dion's version received widespread critical acclaim. AllMusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine marked it as a standout along with " Falling into You", and praised it, "Celine shines on mock epics like Jim Steinman's 'It's All Coming Back to Me Now.'" Larry Flick from '' Billboard'' asked, "Is there a pop diva hotter than Dion right now?" He added, "Lesser talents might have been gobbled up by his melodramatic arrangements, but Dion rises to the occasion with a performance that soars above the instrumentation with deliciously theatrical flair." A reviewer from the ''Calgary Sun'' stated, " he songis undoubtedly the highlight of her English-language recording career. Celine's over-the-top vocals soar and swoop around Steinman's epic, ostentatious arrangement. Not surprisingly, everything else that follows... pales in comparison". Pip Ellwood-Hughes from Entertainment Focus called it "one of the finest songs the singer has ever recorded. It shows the power of her voice as well as the subtle emotion she can display in the quieter moments. The song is nothing short of a rock opera and Dion is the perfect person to sing it." Toronto's '' Eye Weekly'' said Steinman's "fatal absence from the last Meat Loaf record is finally justified here."All of these quotations from reviews are borrowed from Dave Sholin from the '' Gavin Report'' felt that Steinman's "dramatic writing style melds perfectly with her powerful vocal, giving this production an incredibly passionate quality". ''The Miami Herald

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