It's All Coming Back to Me Now
Céline Dion- All the Way...A Decade of Song
Original Release Date: 11/12/1999
My listen date: 12/25/1999 (Christmas gift)
Memories: There was one song I was obsessed with and I skipped a lot of songs to get to it…but I can’t remember exactly which one it was. I received this album as a Christmas gift in 1999 when I got my first boom box. I remember sitting there reading all the liner notes and lyrics while I listened so I made sure each word was right. This CD (and another one you’ll see next) really started my whole musical journey. Unfortunately, I think I quickly outgrew this album and never really went back to Céline so I don’t have that many memories connected to these songs.
I remember holding my little stack of CDs when I unwrapped them all. My dad was very particular about recording every Christmas morning on his VHS camcorder. We weren’t allowed to start opening presents until he had the tripod set up, and then of course we had to alternate who was opening because the camera could only be on one person at a time since my brother and I each got our own separate pile in different parts of the room. My spot used to be in front of the couch, and I would lay out all my stuff in a line along the couch as I opened it. I don’t think I knew it then, but these CDs would become my pride and joy as I got older.
As I listen back now I just can’t believe how dramatic these songs are. Can you even imagine little eight year old me running around the house belting these lyrics? I clearly had no idea what I was saying. But maybe that’s why I was so into them- it’s fun to be super dramatic and put all you have into the singing. As a kid I wouldn’t have been able to connect with the lyrics, so it had to be the musicality and feeling of the song that got me hooked. Obviously I had no idea how great and powerful Céline’s voice is.
First listen thoughts:
The Power of Love- This chorus seems somewhat familiar.
If You Asked Me To- This chorus is also resonating with something.
Beauty and the Beast- She did a Beauty and the Beast cover WTF?!
Because You Loved Me- I pretty much know 60% of the lyrics, so we got this. Gleefully singing to the dogs at this point.
It’s All Coming Back to Me Now- At some point I’ve belted this out in Maddy’s car for sure. It’s all coming back to me now…just like this album.
Love Can Move Mountains- Oh we’re speeding it up now…but I have no recollection of this song at all.
To Love You More- Also no recollection…did I just listen to the first 5 songs on repeat?
My Heart Will Go On- Now we’re getting deep…these songs are seriously so long though wow.
I’m Your Angel (duet with R. Kelly)- This is awkward…am I even allowed to listen to this anymore? It’s really pretty painful to listen to anyways, it just doesn’t sound very good or soothing.
That’s The Way It Is- Okay this was my absolute jam, I 100% skipped those other songs to get here. And. That’s. The. Way. It. Is.
If Walls Could Talk- Definitely never made it past #10- I remember hearing the beginning of this song and just going back. But oh my goodness that almost turned into a rock song around 3:30, definitely was not expecting that.
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face- I just can’t get past this grammar…the First Time Ever I saw? What about the first time I ever saw? It just sounds like you have to try too hard to say it right.
All The Way- This one if showing on Spotify but is grayed out and I can’t click it…not really sure what’s up with that. It was also hard to find on Youtube…why wouldn’t they want this to be available? Do you have to buy the physical album? This angers me. I guess because it’s with Frank Sinatra it was the big exclusive song?
Then You Look at Me- I know I have definitely never heard this song in my life.
I Want You to Need Me- This one either. But I’m feeling this one- it would have been my jam in school if I had known about it. I was one of those people that stared in the background at my crush so this was my anthem for sure.
Live (for the One I Love)- Closing out on a positive note…nice.
So this album is made up of nine hits and seven new songs. SEVEN. I guess if anybody can fill a greatest hits album with new songs, it’s Céline. I guess technically this wasn’t called a greatest hits album, so it works. It makes sense that the ones I really recall are the hits and the others are all the new songs that everybody ignored while they listened to her collection. First Time Ever I Saw Your Face is a cover so I suppose I forgive her for that. Power ballads as I expected, I can’t say anything was super surprising. Apparently that song with R Kelly was extremely successful and was included on both her album and his. I personally still don’t get that, but I guess different times. When this album came out Frank Sinatra had just passed the year before, so it was probably way more of a big deal at the time that a song with him was included, and why they probably chose it as the title track. It was already his song and they just remixed it with Céline’s vocals.
Full listens: 4
How does it stack up to my memories?
It took awhile but we found my fav of all time. I really didn’t have memories of the other songs from when I was a kid. Most of the memories are as a teenager and belting these songs with friends because Céline is obviously a legend at this point. So I guess it met expectations.
Now rating: 6
Obviously she’s a legend and her voice is freaking amazing. After listen one I thought I was going to be done with this, but surprisingly (or not) the songs have been stuck in my head and I’ve been going back to the well known ones to belt them out. I still can’t get over the drama in these songs. And the video for “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” like, wow. D-R-A-M-A. But I have to give it a lower score because there are many songs that I would rather skip.
History:
So obviously, since I first received this album when I was eight I didn’t know that much about Céline Dion and had no way to do any further research about her. This is the only Céline album that ever shows up in my music library (spoiler alert) so I never learned anything more about her, other than she’s obviously a legend and had a residency in Vegas. I vaguely knew she was from Canada and had married her manager when she was pretty young. But that’s it. I didn’t even know where she was in her career when this album came out, so I learned a lot with this research. Of course I started by reading her Wikipedia page and HOLY CRAP this lady has done it all. She was releasing French language albums in between all her English ones- she released her 27th studio album in 2019, guys! She’s also had the highest grossing Vegas concert residency of all time and one of the highest grossing concert tours of all time! So yeah, she’s pretty legit and a pretty good place to have started my musical journey.
You may just want to read her whole Wikipedia page. I don’t even know how to summarize all this craziness. She was the youngest of FOURTEEN children. Fourteen. Her name comes from the song “Céline” by French singer Hugues Aufray, and of course her parents had a small piano bar they all used to sing at. Her brother sent a tape of her singing a song she wrote to a random manager he saw written on the back of somebody else’s album- and voila, the 12-year-old was on her way. She earned lots of awards and popularity in France, and ended up winning Eurovision in 1988 while representing Switzerland (I researched Eurovision and how it works for hours and still haven’t figured out how she was chosen to represent Switzerland). But she wanted to go bigger and become a huge star like Michael Jackson, so her manager sent her off to learn English. Her big breakthrough happened with the Beauty and the Beast duet- it nabbed her her first Grammy Award when she was 23.
And here’s where I actually remembered something- that same manager she started with when she was 12 became her lover when she was in her 20s. He was 26 years old than her, so they thought the public would be super sketched out, which is obviously the correct reaction. But for some reason their fans actually loved it and and they were happily married until he passed away in 2016. I guess all the crazy love she sang about was really true!
The rest of her Wikipedia page is just an endless list of albums and concerts, and it’s quite honestly insane. I can’t believe how much this woman has accomplished. I always knew she was somewhat of a legend, but I never realized to what degree.
Prior to this greatest hits album we’re listening to today, Céline had released 10 French and 6 English albums. So she was definitely ready to release a compilation like this, which makes it a little more confusing as to why she mixed in those lame new songs.
I watched a fun Barbara Walters interview from right before this album came out that goes over her life and everything up to that point. Even though she’s crazy successful she seems so down to earth and all the crazy career stuff doesn’t even phase her. Fun fact that further proves how crazy talented she is: in addition to English and French, she’s also sung in Spanish, Italian, German, Latin, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese. Seriously.
Final Thoughts: So blessed and grateful to be starting this musical journey with Céline and I’m excited to keep going!