Why We Almost Never Heard Celine Dion's Iconic Titanic Song
Unless you well and truly hate music (which we admit is possible), there is no way you could have lived over the last two decades without hearing a song by Celine Dion. Dion is a giant in the music industry, and her signature vocal style may be why Titanic's ballad, "My Heart Will Go On," is so iconic. But she admits she wasn't crazy about the song from the start.
On a recent Watch What Happens Live appearance (via Today), Dion told host Andy Cohen it was the "one song that I didn't want to record, and I'm glad that they did not listen to me." She continued, explaining, "I don't know. It didn't appeal to me. I was probably very tired that day. And my husband said, 'Let's hold on,' to the writers; he said, 'Let's try to make it a little demo.' So I sang the song once and they built the orchestra around it. So the demo is the actual recording but after that, I've sang it at least three gazillion times."
But if Dion is one of the original members of the "I wasn't a fan of 'My Heart Will Go On'" club, there are others out there that feel the same way.
Not everyone loves My Heart Will Go On
There must be something initially off-putting about the song because legendary music producer David Foster admits that he passed on the opportunity to produce it. He told Today, "I said, 'I don't like the song. I don't want to do it.' I passed on it. Yeah. I don't know why. It's just (didn't have that thing) for me." Foster admits he "couldn't have made a bigger mistake" since the single sold over 18 million copies worldwide and won multiple prestigious awards.
But don't worry, David Foster, it's still not on everyone's list of favorites. Brides has "My Heart Will Go On" on its "do not play" list for weddings (though, to be fair, that has more to do with what the song is about than what it sounds like).
PopSugar says it took also some convincing for producer/director James Cameron to pick the song up for the movie, because he wanted a score instead of a ballad, reportedly saying, "Would you put a song at the end of Schindler's List?"
And even one of the main stars of Titanic, Kate Winslet, wasn't a fan. Celine Dion once revealed that someone told her, "You know that Kate Winslet said every time she hears the song, she wants to throw up?" Titanic's producer, Jon Landau later clarified that Winslet's reaction had less to do with the song and more to do with what it represented, explaining, "...it was the idea that when she would walk into a restaurant, they would start to play it. She couldn't get away from it."
Well, yeah... that would drive us nuts, too.