It's All Coming Back to Me Now is an epic ballad of nearly eight minutes. Behind its romantic grandeur lies one of the most extraordinary stories in the music industry: a visionary composer, a furious rocker, and a singer who won the day.
Jim Steinman and Wuthering Heights
Jim Steinman, the theatrical genius behind Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell, wrote It's All Coming Back to Me Now in the late 1980s. He described it as "the most passionate and epic song ever written," inspired by Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Love beyond death, sensory memory, impossible desire.
In 1989, he gave the track to Pandora's Box, a project he produced himself. It was a commercial failure: the single only reached number 51 in the UK and went unnoticed elsewhere.
Celine takes it on
In 1996, Celine Dion recorded her version for the Falling into You album. The arrangement is monumental: full orchestra, backing vocals, a dramatic progression that climaxes in the final three minutes. The single reached number 2 in the United States and the top 5 in many countries.
Meat Loaf's fury
Meat Loaf was furious. He publicly claimed that Jim Steinman had promised him the song for Bat Out of Hell III. A legal battle ensued that pitted Steinman against his former collaborator for years. Steinman eventually won and declared that the song "was meant to be sung by a woman."
The track has accumulated over 402 million streams on Spotify. In concert, it's a moment of pure musical theatre, and exactly the kind of song built for a 45,000-seat venue like Paris La Defense Arena.