Céline Dion originally didn't want to record hit song My Heart Will Go On
It apparently took a little coaxing to get Céline Dion to get on board with the soundtrack to the 1997 film Titanic.
On a chat with Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live, Dion admitted that she wasn’t initially a fan of My Heart Will Go On.
“It is true,” she confirmed to Cohen, 51, and his audience members, after being asked about her original thoughts on the song, adding that she’s “glad they didn’t listen to me” and recorded the song anyway.
“It didn’t appeal to me. I was probably very tired that day — very tired,” Dion continued. “My husband [the late René Angélil] said, ‘Let’s hold on.’ He talked to the writer and he said, ‘Let’s try to make it, like, a little demo.'”
“I sang the song once and they built the orchestra around it. I never re-sang it for the recording. So the demo is the actual recording,” she recalled, joking, “But after that, I’ve sang it about three gazillion times.”
The song debuted at Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on February 28th, 1998 and propelled the soundtrack of the film to a 16-week run at the top spot. The album sold more than 15 million copies worldwide and won Best Original Song at the 1998 Academy Awards and won a Grammy Award for Record of The Year.
However, Dion has since come around to the song and says that it now “means a lot to me”.
“This song means a lot to me, and it has played such a huge role in my career,” she said in a statement prior to the ceremony that year. “I’m so grateful to the late James Horner, and to Will Jennings, for writing it and creating the opportunity for me to be part of Titanic — an amazing film whose legacy will continue for generations to come.”