Song of the day for January 20, 2024
Today’s song is It’s All Coming Back To Me Now by Meatloaf featuring Marion Raven.
It was on this day in 2022, the Grammy Award-winning singer and actor, Meat Loaf, died at age 74. Born Marvin Lee Aday, the operatic vocalist was famous for his bombastic performances. His monstrously popular Bat Out Of Hell trilogy, which was released over the course of 29 years, collectively sold more than 100 million copies worldwide, while his 1977 debut, Bat Out of Hell remained on the charts for an astonishing nine years. As an actor, Meat Loaf rose to fame with a show-stopping performance in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and appeared in more than 50 films and TV shows during his life.
“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 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.
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. 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 cost reasons for 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. 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 on the UK Singles charts.
A music video was produced for each of the three versions; death is a recurring theme in all 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.”