It's All Coming Back to Me Now

"It's All Coming Back to Me Now" is a dramatic exploration of obsessive, all-consuming love and the indelible mark it leaves. Penned by the legendary Jim Steinman, the song delves into the idea that certain powerful emotions and connections can never truly be vanquished, only buried. The narrative centers on a protagonist who believed she had moved on from a tumultuous and passionate relationship, only to find that a single touch from her former lover resurrects every feeling and memory with overwhelming force.

Steinman himself described the song's theme as being 'about being enslaved and obsessed by love, not just enchanted and happy with it.' It’s about the 'dark side of love' and the frightening loss of control that accompanies it. When the past lover returns, it’s not just pleasurable feelings that resurface, but also the 'complete terror and loss of control.' The song captures the moment a person transforms from defiant and independent back to being subservient to the object of their obsession.

The inspiration for this Gothic romance theme was Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights. Steinman envisioned a morbidly passionate scene, not in the book, where Heathcliff exhumes Catherine's corpse to dance with it in the moonlight, seeing this as the ultimate expression of operatic passion. The song, therefore, is not just a simple love song but a theatrical, 'Wagnerian' epic about love's power to resurrect dead emotions and memories, highlighting its dangerous and irresistible nature.

The song unfolds from the perspective of a woman who has endured a painful past relationship. She recounts nights so cold they seemed to freeze her very being and days where the sun was so harsh it turned her tears to dust, convincing her she would never cry again. She claims to have completely erased the memory of a former lover after a final, dramatic departure, symbolized by the slamming of a door. She made herself strong, vowing never to waste another moment thinking of him.

However, this self-imposed emotional fortress crumbles instantly upon his return. The simple act of his touch and embrace triggers an overwhelming flood of memories. It's not just the good times that resurface—the moments of gold and flashes of light, the nights of 'endless pleasure' that felt more intense than anything permitted—but the entire, complex tapestry of their connection. The physical intimacy, a kiss or a whisper, acts as a key, unlocking a love she believed was long dead and buried.

The narrator acknowledges the darker aspects of their history. There were 'empty threats and hollow lies,' and a toxic dynamic where any attempt by him to inflict pain was met with a deeper, more vicious retaliation from her. They shared moments of profound loneliness even when together, counting the opportunities they lost forever. Despite this history of mutual destruction and the strength she built in his absence, his physical presence renders her powerless. She admits it's hard to resist, and the feelings of subservience and obsession, along with the associated terror and loss of control, come rushing back as if no time has passed at all.

The creation of "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" is a storied saga involving multiple artists over several years. The song was written by Jim Steinman, who was famously inspired by Emily Brontë's 1847 Gothic novel, Wuthering Heights. He aimed to write the 'most passionate, romantic song' he could, focusing on themes of obsession and the resurrection of dead things.

The song was first recorded and released in 1989 by Pandora's Box, a female group Steinman assembled. The lead vocal was performed by Elaine Caswell. This original version appeared on the album Original Sin, which was a commercial flop despite Steinman's pride in the project.

Steinman's longtime collaborator, Meat Loaf, desperately wanted to record the song for years. He claims it was intended for Bat Out of Hell II but was saved for a future album. However, Steinman felt strongly that it was a 'woman's song' and refused to let him record it, leading to a legal dispute that Steinman won. Meat Loaf was furious when Céline Dion was given the song.

Céline Dion recorded her version for her 1996 album, Falling into You. Dion fell in love with the song and insisted it be the opening track. Steinman produced the track, which featured backing vocals from his frequent collaborators Todd Rundgren, Rory Dodd, and Kasim Sulton. Dion's version became a massive international hit, peaking at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. and number 3 in the UK. Years later, in 2006, Meat Loaf finally recorded the song as a duet with Norwegian singer Marion Raven for his album Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose.

The song's structure is more aligned with a dramatic monologue or operatic aria than a conventional pop song, and its rhyme and rhythm serve this theatrical purpose. The rhyme scheme is not strictly consistent but often follows patterns within sections, such as AABB or ABCB, to give the verses a lyrical, ballad-like quality. For example, in the first verse, 'cold' and 'window' don't rhyme, but the internal structure feels poetic. In the chorus, the rhymes are more direct and impactful, as in the perfect rhyme of 'this' and 'kiss' or the near rhyme of 'that' and 'back'.

The rhythm of the lyrics is conversational yet dramatic, mirroring the flow of surging memories. The phrasing is often expansive, with long lines that build tension before resolving in the more rhythmically straightforward chorus. Musically, the song is a power ballad with a slow tempo that allows space for the emotional weight of the lyrics and vocals. The rhythm is driven by the piano and powerful, often thunderous, drum fills that punctuate key emotional moments, mimicking the crashing waves of memory or the storm outside. The interplay between the free-flowing lyrical rhythm of the verses and the driving, emphatic rhythm of the choruses creates the song's signature dynamic shifts from quiet recollection to explosive emotional release.

Jim Steinman's signature 'Wagnerian Rock' style is the defining stylistic technique of the song, blending operatic grandeur with rock and roll bombast. Musically, this is achieved through its epic structure, which eschews a standard verse-chorus format in favor of a dynamic, through-composed piece with dramatic shifts in intensity. The arrangement features a powerful piano melody, crashing percussion, sweeping strings, and layered, choir-like backing vocals, all building to powerful crescendos that mirror the lyrical and emotional journey. The song's length, nearly eight minutes in its album version, is itself a stylistic choice, allowing for this expansive, theatrical development.

Céline Dion's vocal performance is a key technique, showcasing her vast dynamic range. She moves from hushed, vulnerable whispers in the verses to full-throated, soaring belts in the choruses, conveying both the fragility of her rediscovered feelings and their overwhelming power. This dynamic vocal delivery is crucial to realizing the song's melodramatic potential.

Lyrically, the song employs a first-person narrative that draws the listener directly into the protagonist's intense emotional state. The use of hyperbole is rampant, with phrases like 'my body froze in bed' and 'nights of endless pleasure.' The lyrics also utilize antithesis, contrasting moments of gold with hollow lies, and pleasure with deep, retaliatory pain ('whenever you try to hurt me / I just hurt you even worse and so much deeper'), which paints a picture of a complex, volatile relationship.

Céline Dion's version of "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" became a monumental success and one of her signature songs, cementing her status as a global superstar in the 1990s. Released from the diamond-selling album Falling Into You, the single was a major chart hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, No. 1 in Canada, and No. 3 in the UK. The song's epic music video, directed by Nigel Dick in a palace in Prague, became iconic on VH1 and MTV, its gothic romance, motorcycle crash, and dramatic visuals perfectly complementing the song's over-the-top nature.

The song is a quintessential power ballad of its era and is often cited as a prime example of Jim Steinman's 'Wagnerian rock' style. Its legacy is so tied to Dion that many are unaware it was a cover. Besides the original by Pandora's Box and the later version by Meat Loaf, the song has been covered by numerous other artists. It has been featured in films like Like Father and television shows such as Riverdale, ensuring its continued presence in pop culture. The song was also notably used in a 2018 Applebee's commercial, which some fans viewed as a humorous or even sacrilegious use of the epic ballad.

The song is rich with gothic and romantic symbolism, primarily drawing from its core inspiration, Wuthering Heights. The central metaphor is the resurrection of a past love, treated almost literally as something rising from the dead. The lyrics state, "It was dead long ago but it's all coming back to me," equating the extinguished love affair to a corpse being reanimated. Steinman's conceptual image of Heathcliff dancing with Catherine's corpse embodies this—a love so obsessive it transcends death and natural law.

The weather itself is a powerful symbol. The 'cold wind' that 'froze my body in bed' and the 'cruel sun' that 'turned the tears to dust' represent the desolate, emotionally barren period after the breakup. These elements create a gothic atmosphere of isolation and suffering.

The motorcycle, a recurring motif in Steinman's work, is used both literally in the music video and metaphorically. Steinman called the song an 'erotic motorcycle,' suggesting a vehicle of dangerous, thrilling, and ultimately destructive passion that transports the characters. The crash in the video symbolizes the abrupt and tragic end of the relationship, leaving the protagonist haunted by its ghost.

Finally, the act of touching and kissing is the primary catalyst, the symbolic key that unlocks the floodgates of memory. It represents the idea that physical intimacy can bypass all rational defenses and psychological walls, plunging the narrator back into a state of emotional 'subservience' and 'terror.'

The most significant recurring phrase, which acts as the song's title and central hook, is "It's all coming back to me now." This phrase is the cathartic release point of each chorus, hammering home the song's central theme. Its repetition, often with increasing vocal intensity, signifies the unstoppable and overwhelming flood of memories. Variations like 'it's all coming back' build anticipation for the full declaration.

The parallel structure in the chorus, "When I touch you like this / And I hold you like that," and its variations ("If you touch me like this / And if I kiss you like that"), is a crucial lyrical motif. It anchors the song's narrative by identifying the specific, physical catalyst for the emotional deluge. The repetition of this cause-and-effect structure emphasizes the protagonist's powerlessness against the physical connection.

A darker recurring motif is the duality of pleasure and pain. This is evident in lines that juxtapose 'moments of gold' and 'flashes of light' with 'empty threats and hollow lies' and the cycle of hurting each other. This recurring theme prevents the song from being a simple nostalgic ballad, instead framing it as the return of a beautiful but toxic and destructive obsession.

Musically, the primary motif is the powerful piano introduction, a series of dramatic chords that immediately establishes the song's epic and somber tone. This piano figure recurs throughout the song, grounding the piece and heralding the return of the main theme.