Celine Dion: music

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Feb 10, 2015

The Prayer by Celine Dion

This was originally recorded by Celine Dion in 1999 as a duet with Andrea Bocelli. It peaked at #22 on the Adult Contemporary chart before being included as the B-side on Dion's single "Treat Her Like a Lady." Their original version also featured in the 1998 animated movie Quest for Camelot winning the 1999 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. "The Prayer" was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song but lost out to "When You Believe" from The Prince of Egypt.
"The Prayer" was written by David Foster (" After The Love Has Gone , " St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)," " Glory Of Love") and Carole Bayer Sager (" A Groovy Kind Of Love," " Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)," " That's What Friends Are For.")
In 2008, a live version of "The Prayer," sung by Josh Groban and Celine Dion on Dion's February 15 CBS-TV special became Groban's highest charting single, when it entered the Hot 100 at #70. His previous highest ranking had been the #73 peak of his " You Raise Me Up," in April 2004.

Did You Give Enough Love? by Celine Dion

This song was written by Seth Swirsky, who was working as a staff songwriter for Chappell music when he wrote this. On seth.com, he explains: "This song, which I co-wrote with Arnie Roman, was supposed to be Celine's 4th Single from her 2nd Multi-Platinum album. The song had already gone to #1 in Canada and she had just come off of three straight Top Ten hits. At the last minute, Celine recorded the Theme Song for the movie Sleepless in Seattle and this song didn't get as widely exposed as it had a chance to be. The first rule of songwriting (and life): be grateful for what you get, not what you don't! As an aside, I remember Celine called and asked me if I thought she could sing the song one step higher. I got out my guitar and she sang it in different keys until it felt right to both of us. She's a very nice person."

Unfinished Songs by Celine Dion

This Diane Warren penned song accompanied the British-German film Song for Marion. However, when the soundtrack for the movie was released in February 2013, it wasn't included as it was being saved for Dion's Loved Me Back To Life album.
Warren has been working with Dion since the early 1990s and has written over a dozen singles for her, including " Because You Loved Me" and "If You Asked Me To." The songwriter played Dion an early version of the song after one of the singer's Vegas shows in 2011, with the intention of recording it that week during the Canadian's time off. Despite her busy schedule, Dion remained committed to nailing the perfect take in the studio. "Here's what's so impressive about working with Celine, what separates the good from the great," Warren told Billboard magazine. "I went to her show, and it's almost two hours. She's not lip-synching. She's singing songs that aren't easy to sing. Then we went in the studio at 11:30 at night and she stayed until, like, 4 a.m. and would not leave until it was perfect. I kept thinking, 'That's why she's going to be around forever.' A lot of times you work with singers and they're like, 'Aw, I'll finish next time.' She just came from two hours onstage and then really sang her ass off. Not that she needed to - she got it right the first time. There's too few people like that."

That's The Way It Is by Celine Dion

This song is about perseverance. When you're having trouble finding true love, you can't simply give up on it - it's supposed to come to those who truly believe in it. (thanks, Arianna - Largo, FL)
Swedish songwriters Andreas Carlsson, Kristian Lundin and Max Martin wrote this. Martin in particular is know for crafting Pop hits for artists like Britney Spears and The Backstreet Boys.

Think Twice by Celine Dion

This was written by Andy Hill and Pete Sinfield who also wrote together for Bucks Fizz including their 3 UK chart toppers ("Making Your Mind Up," "Land Of Make Believe" and "My Camera Never Lies"). It was produced by Chris Neil, best known for his role in the TV documentary The Big Time, which established Sheena Easton.
This became the first single to top the UK charts on CD sales alone. It took four months to reach #1, and was also #1 all over Europe, including Ireland for 9 weeks. It topped the charts in Belgium, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. It won the Ivor Novello award for Best Song of the Year. (thanks, Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England, for above 2)

Incredible by Celine Dion

This song about an unbelievable love affair is a duet with Ne-Yo. The duo first worked together on Dion's 2007 Taking Chances album, with the R&B singer-songwriter co-writing and co-producing "I Got Nothin' Left." Ne-Yo told Digital Spy: "The first time I worked for her I wrote a song for her, which in itself was surreal… This time around I actually did a duet with her - it's her and me on one song, which was a challenge to say the least! I was trying to figure what I was even doing there - why would they need my voice when they have hers?"

He added, "She wanted to do the song as a duet and I was flattered, but it definitely made me question my vocal ability."
Ne-Yo described the experience of working with the Canadian singer to Access Hollywood as "an honor and pleasure." "Working with Celine Dion is kind of like [being] a kid in a candy store because [I had] that huge and incredible voice for me to do basically whatever I want to do with it," he explained. "[I was] like a kid with a brand new toy."

He continued: "It's an honor and pleasure to sing with Celine Dion, but it's not an easy thing. It's the most irrelevant I've ever felt - the size of her voice. [They didn't even] need me there, she could do the whole song herself. I honestly feel like she was just being nice to me letting me sing on the song!"

Any Other Way by Celine Dion

In this song, a woman has to end an affair because her man "knew about us all along," even though she thought she had done a good job of keeping it hidden.
This was Celine Dion's first major hit in the United States. Throughout the '80s, she had a series of hits with French lyrics in her native Canada. (thanks, Mike - Santa Barbara, CA, for above 2)

Taking Chances by Celine Dion

This was written by songwriter and American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi and former Eurythmic Dave Stewart. The record label impresario Jimmy Iovine put them together to write for the Pussycat Dolls, but DioGuardi and Stewart quickly realized that the music they were writing was best suited for them to record together. Iovine agreed and signed them to Interscope Records where they recorded an album as Platinum Weird. The album was never released, but with Iovine's help, Stewart and DioGuardi created a fake documentary of the band that ran on VH1 and YouTube, with appearances by Mick Jagger, Elton John, Christina Aguilera, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Stevie Nicks, Ringo Starr and Bob Geldof talking about the influence of Platinum Weird and telling a fabricated story about the duo.
In The Dave Stewart Songbook, Stewart explains that he and DioGuardi wrote this in about 10 minutes one afternoon when movers were bringing furniture into her new Los Angeles home. Writes Stewart: "I could hear some windchimes just outside the open window where I was laying, so I picked up an acoustic guitar and was trying to play the same random pattern the chimes were making. Kara is a genius with melody and multitasking so as she's shouting to the movers she starts singing, 'Don't know much about your life,' much to the confusion of the workers. It was like a scene from a musical as the furniture was piling in, she was singing, 'What do you say to taking chances? What do you you say to jumping off the edge?' We literally were swapping lyrics, melodies and chords in real time while all this chaos was around us. The song was written about ourselves trusting and baring our souls to each other. About committing to making something special even though we knew we were this odd couple who had no other reason to do it other than we loved it."
The line, "So talk to me, like lovers do" came from the Eurythmics song " Here Comes The Rain Again." In our interview with Dave Stewart, he explained why he recycled the lyric: "Yeah, because Taking Chances is the same, me writing with Kara DioGuardi and deciding to enter into something together. So 'I don't know much about your life, don't know much about your world, but I don't want to be alone tonight on this planet they call Earth, right? So what do you say of taking chances?' And it builds up and builds up and gets more determined, which is Kara's personality, who's been through a lot, and she goes, you know, 'I've been beaten down' and all this kind of stuff. And then it flips into, 'So talk to me, talk to me like lovers do.' It's like pulling itself out of that, getting the strength, and actually nodding and tipping my hat to one of my own songs within the song."
After DioGuardi and Stewart recorded the song, they played it for Dion's husband René, who loved it. Dion released it as the title track and first single from her album, which was also the name of her World Tour.
John Shanks, who was producer of Kelly Clarkson's album Breakaway, produced both Dion's version and the Platinum Weird version of this song.
Stewart appears in the video for this song, where he gets a speaking role: that's him at the beginning talking to Dion, and also at the end with the motorcycle stopping in front of him.

Always Be Your Girl by Celine Dion

This was written for Celine Dion by the husband-and-wife songwriting duo of Dana Parish and Andrew Hollander. The couple were inspired by Dion's documentary on the OWN network, in which she which talked about her struggle to conceive (Dion's first son, René-Charles Angelil, was born in 2001 and twins Nelson and Eddy nine years later after her sixth treatment of in-vitro fertilization). "We didn't know she was making a new record," Parish told Billboard magazine. "We were just really inspired by this documentary and her life with her children. So the next day we got together and wrote 'Always Be Your Girl' about what she might say to her kids."
This was the first cut that Dion recorded for Loved Me Back to Life and the song continues to stay close to her heart. She told Billboard magazine: "I have a picture of [Rene Charles] right now in front of me because, for the first time, I let him go to Montreal by himself with his godfather and one bodyguard. I said, 'Listen, I'm going to let you go to Montreal without mama.' And when I think of 'Always Be Your Girl,' that's what I thought about with him, when he's going to leave and when he's going to meet his wife and have his heart break and things like that. I'm always going to be there. 'I'm the first woman of your life, I'm your mother'- that will never change. But it made me tear a little bit inside, in a good way. This song was mainly for him, but of course I will translate it to my twins a little later on. They're far from flying on a plane by themselves."

It's All Coming Back to Me Now by Celine Dion

This song was written by Jim Steinman, who also wrote many hit songs for Meat Loaf and Bonnie Tyler. Steinman has said that the lyrics to the song were inspired by the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

Steinman wrote the song for a version of his play Neverland, which is based on the Peter Pan story. In Steinman's play, the song is sung by a middle-aged Wendy when Peter Pan returns to her after 20 years.
Pandora's Box, an all-girl group assembled by Jim Steinman, originally recorded this song in 1989. Despite a lavish Ken Russell video, the single limped to #51 in the UK, and was never released in America. Steinman claims that he put about $1 million into the Pandora's Box project, explaining that he did so out of priorities. "I care as deeply about this music as other people care about their children," he said.
In 2006 Meat Loaf released his version of the song as duet with Norwegian singer Marion Raven, which he thought would capture the feelings between the man and his dead lover. Meat Loaf claimed, however, that he recorded the song to create a friendship with Steinman which had turned sour in recent years. It appeared on Meat Loaf's album Bat Out Of Hell 3: The Monster Is Loose. (thanks, Isaac - C-Town, OH)
After Jim Steinman penned this, Meat Loaf had hoped to bag the song for himself. "That was my song," Meat Loaf laughingly told Billboard magazine in 2006. "I wanted to record it, and Jim said, 'Let's wait,' and so I took him at his word. The next thing you know, Celine Dion is recording it."

My Love by Celine Dion

This semi-autobiographic song was written for Celine Dion by Linda Perry. The former member of 4 Non Blondes also produced the track. Perry has also written and produced hits for a number of other artists, including Pink and Christina Aguilera.
A live recording of this song was included on Celine's 2008 compilation album My Love: Essential Collection. It was taken from the Stockholm leg of the French/Canadian singer's Taking Chances Tour.

You And I by Celine Dion

A Canadian advertising executive named Jacques Duval came up with the line "You and I were meant to fly," and thought it would make a great song for his client, Air Canada, to use in a campaign. Unfortunately, Air Canada looked like it was nearing bankruptcy and in no position to start a new promotion. Duval is good friends with Celine Dion and her manager/husband Rene Angelil. He brought the idea to Angelil, who suggested contacting the Canadina songwriter Aldo Nova, who had a hit in 1981 with "Fantasy" and cowrote Dion's 2002 track "A New Day Has Come." Nova put the song together and Dion recorded it for A New Day... Live in Las Vegas as one of 2 studio tracks on the 2004 album. Later that year, Air Canada's financial condition had improved and Duval convinced them to use it for a new ad campaign, which they did.
This is not the first song originally written for an ad campaign. In 1971, The New Seekers released " I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing" for a Coke commercial.
In 2007, Hillary Clinton began using this as her presidential campaign song after her staff selected it from a contest where users could make suggestions. Apparently, this very Canadian song didn't inspire a patriotic vibe, and Clinton began using songs like " American Girl" and " 9 to 5."

The Colour of My Love by Celine Dion

David Foster originally wrote this for his wedding to Linda Thompson-Jenner. Warren Wiebe sang this at both his wedding and at Celine's. It was co-written with Arthur Janov, author of The Primal Scream: Primal Therapy, The Cure For Neurosis. At one point Foster and Janov were going to use it in a musical which Warren Wiebe did the demos for, but it never got produced. Perhaps because Foster wanted a better voice, he got Celine to sing it and Warren sang a great version at Celine's wedding in 1994.
Warren Wiebe was also the guy who did the demo for and appeared in the Desert Storm single " Voices That Care." He never achieved stardom, and he took his own life tragically in 1998 at the age of 45. While he was not well known among the public, Wiebe was revered in the music community, where he was considered one of the great West Coast session vocalists along with Michael McDonald, Bill Champlin and Joseph Williams.
Celine Dion's version of this song became a popular favorite. The singer is using colors to show her love for the man she's going to marry. (thanks, Sara - Silver Spring, MD, for all above)

Because You Loved Me by Celine Dion

This was released as the first single in North America and Japan and the second single in other parts of the world from Canadian singer Celine Dion's album Falling Into You.
The song was written by Diane Warren and produced by David Foster for the movie Up Close & Personal. It was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award and won a Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
Diane Warren explained in the book Chicken Soup For the Soul: The Story Behind The Song how she honors her father in this song. Said Warren: "I saw the film with the director, Jon Avnet, on a Friday. I thought, 'What would I want to hear at the end of the movie?' Jon played me a tape of a gospel singer to give me a sense of what he was looking for – something really soulful.
I went into my office on Saturday, the following day, and the chorus came quickly. Michelle Pfeiffer's character is thanking Robert Redford's character for believing in her. The song became personal at the same time that it was telling the story of the film. Once I began, it became a way of thanking my dad for everything he did for me and the support he has always given me. He believed in me and my music from the time I was a little girl. When I was 15, he took me around to music publishers. Not only did he support my goals, he supported me financially while I was struggling in the beginning.
I had to wait for months to see if my song would be chosen to use in the film or if they would select one of the other four submissions. Thank goodness I had just started therapy! It got me through it."
The song was an international hit spending six weeks at #1 on Billboard's Hot 100. It also topped the charts in Australia (3 weeks) and Canada (1 week). The single also set a then record on the US Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks, where it remained at #1 for 19 weeks. Warren commented in The Story Behind The Song: "This was the song that brought me to another level. The song was better than I was at the time."
The track has been covered by various artists including Johnny Mathis (1998), Michael Ball (1998), Jane McDonald (2001) and Clay Aiken (2006). Said Warren: "There have been so many versions from gospel to dance, Spanish versions and recordings all over the world. I am super proud of that song."
This is a very popular wedding song. One high-profile couple that used it as their first dance is Vince Gill and Amy Grant, who married in Nashville in 2000.

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Feb 10, 2015