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, who had collaborated with Steinman on most of his hit songs, had wanted to record the song for years, but Steinman refused, saying he saw it as a "woman's song". Steinman won a court case, which prevented 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.
Alternatively, Meat Loaf has said the song was intended for Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell and given to the singer in 1986, but 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 Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose. Steinman at one point offered it to Bonnie Tyler, who was recording her album Hide Your Heart with producer Desmond Child. Confident that it would be a hit, she asked her record company to include it in the album; they declined, citing the cost of using Jim Steinman to produce it.
The song has had three major releases. The first version appeared on the concept album Original Sin, recorded by Pandora's Box. It was recorded by Celine Dion for her album Falling into You, and her version was a commercial hit, reaching No. 1 in the Canadian Singles Chart, No. 2 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart in late 1996. 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 on the UK Singles charts.
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".
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):
In another interview, Steinman expands on his comments about the song being about the 'dark side of love'.
The website AllMusic called the song 'a tormented ballad about romantic loss and regret built on a spooky yet heart-wrenching piano melody'.
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 wrote that "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.
In 1989, Steinman produced the concept album Original Sin, with an all-female group named Pandora's Box. The album featured many tracks which would 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.
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.
The 7-inch, 12-inch, and CD singles featured Steven Margoshes's piano solo "Pray Lewd" (incorporating 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.
Ken Russell directed the video, which was filmed at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire. Journalist Mick Wall observes that Russell's reputation for "mixing sex, fantasy, religion and death ... was the kind of director Jim Steinman had wished for in his various dream states." Steinman wrote the script, based on Russell's "Nessun Dorma" segment in the compilation opera movie Aria. Scholar Joseph Lanza describes the video:
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!' 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 two-day shoot ran over schedule and budget, costing £35,000 an hour; Steinman himself paid for the overtime.
Upon its release, Music & Media described "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" as "passionate, full-blown pop/rock " which has "dramatic build-ups" and is "reminiscent" of T'Pau. Mark Matthews of the Hartlepool Mail praised Caswell's "strong vocal" but felt the track is "very laboured" and "sounds like it could have been taken from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical". Dave Jennings of Melody Maker was negative in his review, calling it "simply pompous and empty, like Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart', but with a shrill, mechanical session singer draped on top".
In a review of Original Sin, Neil Jeffries of Kerrang! called the song "excruciatingly operatic". Donald A. Guarisco, writing for AllMusic, considered the "tormented ballad about romantic loss and regret" to be "built on a spooky yet heart-wrenching piano melody".
Like the album, the Pandora's Box version of "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" was not a commercial success, which Steinman took as a "personal insult". He said "these songs are my children. I want them to do well, and if they don't, I don't just give up on them."
"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.
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, "[The song] is 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." 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 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".
British magazine Music Week rated it four out of five, picking it as Single of the Week. The reviewer added, "You don't need to be a musical genius to spot this melodramatic builder as a Jim Steinman number and, while the overblown style isn't to everyone's taste, this should be huge." Stephen Holden from The New York Times wrote, "The melodrama peaks with two overblown Jim Steinman productions: 'It's All Coming Back to Me Now', a romantic flashback replete with thunderclaps... " People magazine stated that literally, it "blasts off the CD with a booming piano chord followed by seven minutes of Wagnerian melodrama, Dion's crystalline soprano swelling and trembling with operatic abandon worthy of the Ring cycle's immolation scene." Richmond Times-Dispatch picked it as one of the best tracks on the Falling into You album. Sun-Sentinel noted it as "lyrically and musically beautiful" and said that "this nearly eight-minute ballad sets the pace for this album with Dion's emotional singing." Christopher Smith from TalkAboutPopMusic called it "the biggest spectacle" of the album, and "a complete album in itself".
Some other reviews were less enthusiastic. After labelling Celine "a Madonna-meets-Meat Loaf vocal freak", The Vancouver Sun described the song as "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, coincidentally, said that it "sounds like a Meat Loaf reject".
British director Nigel Dick directed the music video for Dion's version, with Simon Archer as cinematographer and Jaromir Svarc as art director. It was shot between 29 June and 3 July 1996 in Castle Ploskovice, the summer palace of the Austrian Emperors, with additional interior shots done at Barandov Studios, both located in Prague, Czech Republic; it was later released in July 1996. Although Castle Ploskovice served as the exterior, the most notable areas featured in the music video are its entrance hall, ballroom, and the arched walkways. There are two versions of this music video; the full version (about 7:44 in length) and the single version (about 6:00 in length). Both of them are included on Dion's 2001 DVD video collection All the Way... A Decade of Song & Video.
The video opens with a man being thrown off his motorcycle, after lightning strikes a tree down in his path - eventually killing him in the process. 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. On 10 January 2020, the music video reached 100 million views on YouTube.
Smooth Radio listed "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" at number 19 on their list of the "Greatest Power Ballads of All Time". Pitchfork listed the song as one of "The 250 Best Songs of the 1990s", saying, "Dion, the most successful balladeer of the ’90s, summons all the power in her soul and lungs to commune with the dead, the theatrically proggy arrangement crescendoing behind her."
While Steinman was "ecstatic" that the song has been a hit for Celine Dion, Meat Loaf was "furious" claiming that it has been written for Bat out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, and was promised to him for a future Bat III project. However, Steinman claims that he thought that only a woman should sing it. In contrast, Meat Loaf said that, in his mind, the song was always meant to be a duet. Meat Loaf attempted legal action "to prove that he had some level of dominion of the song", and was furious for many years afterwards when Steinman won the case.
The song was recorded as a duet by Meat Loaf and Marion Raven for the 2006 album Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, 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. 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".
Meat Loaf said that he was in tears when he first heard the song, which he stated is "the only time that's happened". He has also said that the song could refer to 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.
P. R. Brown directed this video, which premiered on VH1 Classic on 8 August 2006. 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. Meat Loaf becomes angry with Raven because the ghost of Raven's former lover appears at a masquerade ball they are attending (some reviewers have compared this to the Stanley Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut).
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 Raven whispering 'And if we...', followed by four piano notes.
The track was available to download from iTunes in the United Kingdom 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-inch vinyl featuring "Whore", a rock duet with Patti Russo; it was also released as a DVD single. The album version was made available on Meat Loaf and Marion Raven's respective MySpace sites in August, with the single version being played during some of their promotional interviews, such as that on BBC Radio 2. The cover art is by Julie Bell, who is also the artist for the album Bat out Of Hell III.
The single entered the UK Singles Chart at No. 6 on 22 October 2006, giving Meat Loaf his highest position in the UK chart since "I'd Lie for You (And That's the Truth)" reached No. 2 in 1995, and was the last UK Top 40 hit in his lifetime. The song also reached No. 1 in Raven's native Norway, as well as No. 7 in Germany. Critical reaction was generally positive, with The Guardian writing that the song is "ostensibly a reflection on love, but imbued with the delicacy of aircraft carriers colliding at sea".
Marion Raven joined Meat Loaf for his 2007 tour of Europe. She was the supporting act, promoting her album Set Me Free. Meat Loaf introduced her again on stage at the latter stages of the concerts to duet on "It's All Coming Back to Me Now". A performance was recorded and released on DVD as 3 Bats Live.