Tale Of 'heart's' Voyage To The Top Fate Of Dion Smash Wasn't Always Certain

NEW YORK--With her No. 1 debut on the Hot 100 this issue, it may seem like 550 Music pop songbird Celine Dion can walk on chart water. But "My Heart Will Go On," already one of the biggest radio smashes in history, hardly met its heroic reception without a fork or two along the road to glory.
The journey began last summer as "Titanic" composer James Horner was nearing completion of the film's score. He decided that for the end credits, he needed something that stood apart from the orchestral arrangements throughout the flick. Horner wrote a song with vocals--a move forbidden by "Titanic" director James Cameron.
"I decided that the only thing that could culminate this film was something that [brings together] all the emotions," he says. "I wanted to write a song that would allow a contemporary legitimacy, so that it wouldn't be just a period piece."
Calling on friend Will Jennings to write the lyrics, Horner completed the song in an inspired flash. But then the big question: who to sing it? "I needed an opera singer more than a pop singer to bring off all the emotional qualities I wanted," Horner says. "For me, the only person that could do that was Celine. It was casting more than it was trying to find a superstar to sing it."
With that in mind, he requested a meeting with Dion and husband/manager Renƒ Angelil in Las Vegas, where she was performing. Horner had known the couple for five years and grabbed the moment with ease.
"He came into the room where there was a piano and said he wanted to play a song for us that James Cameron did not even know about," Dion recalls. "He said to me, 'If you love it, it would be wonderful for you to give it a try.' "
Horner made his way through "My Heart Will Go On" ("I'm a terrible singer," he says). Afterward, says Dion, "Renƒ and I looked at each other, then said, 'Yes, we love it.' Now, the second step is to see the movie."
A private screening was arranged, and, Dion admits, she got more than she bargained for. "I was expecting to see this big tragedy of the Titanic, with the boat sinking and a lot of people and panic, which I'd of course heard about and read," she says.
"But I had no idea about this huge love story that, to me, was even stronger than everything else. The time went so fast, and we broke down into tears more than one time, and it took our hearts. Love was stronger in the movie than anything else."
Dion and Angelil were so impressed by the project, in fact, that Dion offered to record the demo that would be used to pitch Cameron. Five weeks later, in New York, Horner, Dion, and Angelil met in the studio with a handful of Sony executives, among them Sony Music Entertainment president/COO Tommy Mottola.
"She started singing the song," Horner says, "and it was just electrifying. By the end of it, we were all emotionally shook up. She started crying while singing it two-thirds of the way through the song, and then everybody in the room was crying. She was singing it like her life depended on it."
The song, recorded in a single take, was put on a DAT, which Horner put in his pocket--and then left there for five weeks--waiting for just the right moment to play it for Cameron. "I knew he'd either love it or hate it," says Horner, "and I was waiting for an especially good mood. We met every two days, and on one occasion he was really excited about a special effect that had just been completed. I was sweating, but I played it."
And the reaction: "He couldn't believe it. He said, 'Aren't those your themes? This is Celine Dion. How did you do this?' He did love it," Horner says.
With the song quickly designated as the love theme for "Titanic" and time flying by, the demo version was employed to accompany the movie's credits and to be included on the soundtrack.
A second, more commercial version was recorded when Dion was in the studio working on her current blockbuster album, "Let's Talk About Love." That is the single and preferred radio version, produced by Walter Afanasieff and Horner.
With the movie now heralded by critics and record-breaking audiences alike, it's easy to say that the decision to run with the song was a no-brainer. But at the time 550 Music's and Dion's troops were selecting tracks for her album, there were rumblings that maybe it would be savvy to take some time off from movie projects.
Granted, her Oscar-winning duet with Peabo Bryson, "Beauty And The Beast," was arguably Dion's breakthrough hit around much of the world. "Because You Loved Me," from 1996's "Up Close And Personal," launched Dion mania in the U.S., becoming her first cross-format smash and, so far, her biggest hit, with six weeks atop the Hot 100.
But, says 550 Music/Epic Records president Polly Anthony, "there was some concern from inside Celine's camp and inside ours: How many movie songs is she going to do? Is this wise? Not everyone was on board with them doing this one."
Dion and Angelil, in turn, "put their foot down and said, 'We're going to do this song,' " Anthony says.
Dion responds, "I think people are afraid when you sing for a movie and then you sing for another and another, but so far it's been successful. The main reason I've done it is because I love the songs, and I've loved the movies. This was no different. I felt good about singing it, and I believed in it."
Anthony willingly concedes. "She and Renƒ have an uncanny ability to make the right choices. Every one they make takes her to the next level."
With all its tracks recorded over a hurried period of six weeks, "Let's Talk About Love" was prepared for release Nov. 17, 1997. A month before it hit the streets, the first single, her duet with Barbra Streisand, "Tell Him," was sent to radio to foster the first sweep of media buzz for the project.
The partnership seemed like a can't-miss proposition. First, the two had already stirred a faux media scandal when Dion sang Streisand's "I Finally Found Someone" at the Oscars last March, and Streisand allegedly snubbed her with an ill-timed trip to the restroom. Second, it seemed natural enough for folks to be interested in the pairing of Dion and her lifelong icon on a ballad written to showcase their comparable vocal prowess.
Folks may have been interested, but not radio. Programmers in influential markets claimed that the power ballad belonged only on AC stations (it topped out at No. 5 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart). Some called it an ego record for Dion. Despite a satisfying press blitz, the song failed to take off at top 40, and plans for a commercial single were scrapped. (Internationally, it was a smash.)
None of this affected the album, however. It burst onto The Billboard 200 at No. 2 on Dec. 6, just behind Garth Brooks' hotly anticipated "Sevens." It took its place at No. 1 on that chart Jan. 17, only to be succeeded by Horner's "Titanic" score. Except for last issue, when the album dipped to No. 3, it has been at No. 2 since.
Even with obvious consumer fervor for Dion, "My Heart Will Go On," surprisingly, did not hit at radio out of the box. In its first week in Billboard, Dec. 20, the song debuted on Hot 100 Airplay at No. 65. Over successive weeks before the release of the movie Dec. 19, the theme added an uncomfortably few new stations, most of which were spinning the song only five to 10 times a week.
And then the movie hit. For four consecutive weeks, the song more than doubled its exposure on radio nationwide. On Hot 100 Airplay, it exploded like popcorn, catapulting from its lazy first few weeks to No. 39, then 18 to 4 to No. 1, where it has remained since.
With 550 Music's commercial single release Feb. 10, "My Heart Will Go On" has at last become eligible to chart on the Hot 100, where, perhaps not surprisingly, it comes in at No. 1, backed by sales of 360,000 units. The number easily lands the song at No. 1 on the Hot 100 Singles Sales chart as well.
Despite those obstacles that tempted destiny, the next fateful question is a pleasant one for 550 Music: How long will the song hold its place on top 40 before the next move can be made on the project?
"This song is going to stay and stay and stay," says Anthony. "Our biggest problem is going to be getting it off the air. It's going to take a crowbar."