60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Celine Dion—“My Heart Will Go On”

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

Rob explores legendary Canadian vocalist Celine Dion’s blockbuster hit “My Heart Will Go On” by discussing her illustrious career, the sheer force she brings to every song, and the unapologetic attitude with which she approaches her music. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Leslie Gray Streeter Producers: Isaac Lee and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, this is Rob. Very quick note that we will not have an episode next week, Wednesday, November 10th, 2021, but we will return on the 17th and rumble on from there. Just one week off. We'll see you in a couple weeks. Okay, thanks. Quick show of hands. How many of you lovely people out there basically learned about sex and love in the eternal gender divide betwixt sex and love from this woman? It is the late 70s, early 80s, and you're stuffed into the back seat, possibly the infant's car seat, of your father's Camero, or your father's Thunderbird, or your father's wood-paneled station wagon. Let's make it the station wagon. Your father is compensating for the embarrassment of driving a wood-paneled station wagon by blasting meatloafs paradise by the dashboard light at incredible volume.

Do you love me? Will you love me forever? Do you need me? Will you never leave me? Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life? Will you take me away? Will you make me away? Do you let me?

Meet Space Loaf, two words. Born Marvin Leaday in Dallas in 1947, Reborn as an operatic rock and roll superstar with the release of his 1977 breakthrough album, Bad Out of Hell. Heard of it. 43 million copies of Bad. out of hell sold worldwide that's a low estimate not a recent estimate that is one copy of

about out of hell for every man woman and child living in algeria you got to work up to blasting this album in your camero or thunderbird or station wagon maybe you start with steely dan my old school or traffic to the low spark of high-heeled boys or steve miller bans the joker those are three favorites of my dad's i just texted my dad he said in the early eighties he had a fiat in terrible shape. The brakes didn't work well, but we didn't have the money to fix them. It was blue. I remembered that.

It was blue with a lot of rust, blue and rust. Then he asked me why I was asking. Actually, let me back up. Allow me to recap for you the full plot of the meatloaf song Paradise by the Dashboard Light. Yes, the plot. This song has a whole-ass plot. Dune, the novel, has less plot than Perilof. Paradise by the dashboard light.

The song, Meelof and his lady friend are driving. Actually, now they're parked by the lake. They are canoodling. They are smooching. They are trading freckles. They're barely 17 and barely dressed, et cetera. Three minutes and 16 seconds into this song. This song is not even close to half over yet.

Three minutes and change. Into this pop song, Meatloaf offers us his read on the situation. Classy, dig the harmonies. There then transpires a 60-second white funk breakdown slash radio play-by-play of a baseball game narrated by real-life New York Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto. This baseball interlude is a metaphor for what Meatloaf believes to be the imminent onset of coitus, first base, second, base, third base, etc. Perhaps this is obvious to you. but Phil Rizzuto would maintain until his death in 2007.

RIP, Phil would insist he had no idea that his true purpose on this song was to provide amorous subtext. Meatloaf thinks Phil knew the truth, and so do I. And then she appears. The lady friend in question, she is not a prop. She is not a conquest. She is a whole ass, rounded character. Her name is Ellen Foley. Singer-actress did hair on?

on Broadway, did one season of Nightcourt? She was in Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy. She was credited as street scum, plus five solo albums, the last of which came out in August 2021. Ellen's lived quite a life and she's still living it. But this right here, Paradise by the Dashboard Light, is Ellen's finest role, Meatloaf's Defiant Lady Friend. Legally, I don't think I can play anymore of this song for you,

but you know the song. They argue, Ellen does the will you love me for ever. Meatloaf says, let me sleep on it, but let's do it in the meantime. Ellen insists Meatloaf, after several minutes of this argument, relents, and declares his undying love for her until the end of time. And then the song skips over the coitus, thank goodness, and goes straight to Meatloaf, regretting his decision and praying for the end of time. Can I tell you something?

Can I admit something? I didn't understand the plot of this song at all when I was 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. years old, didn't get the sex stuff at all, sitting in the back of dad's busted fiat. Me and Phil Rizzuto, oblivious. I thought Paradise by the dashboard light was a song about people driving while listening to a baseball game who got into an argument about whether they should drive farther. I thought Paradise was an external place, six flags, maybe, or the zoo. That's what I thought. This is my second most embarrassing childhood misinterpretation of a classic rock song. I got it eventually.

I learned my lesson. And the lesson I learned broadly, subliminally, but not that subliminally, is that girls want love and boys want sex without having to concede love. That's the first concrete lesson pop music taught me. I suspect that framework has stuck with me as a pop music listener, professional and otherwise, ever since. Bummer ending to that song, though, and a bummer ending to Meatloaf's career. By 1993, the listening public no longer had any interest in pompous sitcom episode length, absurdist power ballads with whole ass sentences for song titles,

sung by a quavering Rocky Horror Picture Show alumnus who looked like a WWF heel. Meatloaf was over. Of course, I'm just kidding. Yes, indeed. That is, I would do anything for love, parentheses, but I won't do that. from 1993's blockbuster album Bad Out of Hell 2 back into hell that's

bad out of hell Roman numeral 2 colon back into hell unbelievable 14 million copies of Bad Out of Hell 2 sold worldwide you want me to look that up

too fine that is one copy of bad out of hell too for every man, woman and child living in Zimbabwe also the album version of I Would Do Anything for Love, but I won't do that, is exactly 12 minutes long. Pick eight random minor threat songs and play them back to back to back, and most likely you will be

finished before meatloaf is finished. But I implore you to listen to the 12-minute album version of I would do anything for love. And when you do, I want you to remember that I told you, hear me now and believe me later that this part of the song specifically is fucking rad as hell. Holy shit. I almost drove my minivan off a cliff on my way back from the outlet mall yesterday when that chorus hit. True story, what these two songs have in common, besides Meatloaf and my undying affection, is that they were written by Jim Steinman. Jim Steinman is a songwriter of such stature and grandeur that he is more or less double-billed.

with Meatloaf as the star of both Bad Out of Hell, which Todd Rundgren produced, and Bad Out of Hell too, which Jim Steinman produced himself. If you have no idea what Jim Steinman looks like, just picture an inconceivably awesome dude

who spent every last second of his 73 years. He died in April 2021, RIP, popping a wheelie on a motorcycle. I want you to picture a 73-year-long, uninterrupted motorcycle wheelie. just war flames protruding from the motorcycle. Jim Steinman wrote some of the most bonkers, classic rock mega anthems imaginable.

Jim Steinman wrote grown-ass man symphonies to God. Jim Steinman's songs aren't movies, their extended universes, their franchises, their theme parks. Jim Steinman wrote every song like it was a new book of the Bible. Jim wrote Total Eclipse of the Heart and holding out for a hero for Bonnie Tom. He wrote Making Love Out of Nothing at All for Air Supply. Barry Manilow sang a Jim Steinman song. Barbara Streisand sang a Jim Steinman song. But see, one does not simply sing a Jim Steinman song.

One must ring a Jim Steinman song from the earth, much as King Arthur pulled the fabled sword from the stone. One must wield a Jim Steinman song, much as Captain America wielded Thor's hammer at the end of Avengers' endgame. Actually, let's let Meatloaf say it. Rolling Stone interviewed Meatloaf after Jim Steinman died. Two separate phone calls. At the end of the first call, Meatloaf, quote, broke down and sobbed uncontrollably over the loss of his friend. Oh, my God, he moaned. I haven't cried until now. It just hit me. Oh, my God, it's horrible. End quote. But he also said this. What Barbara Streisand and Barry Manilow didn't understand is that you can't just have a great voice and sing a Jim Steinman song. You have to become a Jim Steinman song. You have to be the song.

You don't sing the song. You are the song. End quote. Let me tell you about this woman. Celine Dion, let me tell you about this woman. Let me tell you about how she became the song, how she became the songs. Every song she's ever sung. But this song, second most of all.

This is It's All Coming Back to Me Now from her 1996 album, Falling Into You, which has sold 32 million copies worldwide. Malaysia or Angola or Peru. It's All Coming Back to Me Now is written by Jim Steinman, and you can tell, but you can also tell that it's her song now. You can tell that the song is her now. This song peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, beat out by the Macarena, tough break. Meatloaf wanted to record, it's all coming back to me now for years, but Jim wanted a woman to do it.

Also a tough break. There was apparently a court case over it, one of several legal battles betwixt these two dudes. They worked it out. Meatloaf would, in fact, cover the song eventually on Bad Out of Hell Roman numeral 3, Colin the Monster is Loose, but the less said about that, the better. And anyway, he sang it like he knew it was really Celine's song. He sang it like he knew the song was really her. Join me, friends, in my minivan.

We're going back to the outlet mall. I had to pick up my kids' Halloween costumes. We're driving back off the cliff. Celine Dion sings her songs like they owe her money. She sings her songs like she's a streetwalking cheetah with a heart full of napal. She sings like she's Marshawn Lynch and her songs are the 2010-2011 New Orleans Saints in the NFC wildcard game. She sings as though the listener were Sisyphus and she were the boulder. She came here to kick ass and sing songs and she's about out of ass.

She sings the songs that make the whole world cower in the storm cellar. She sings as though she intends to fell the mighty oak and drink every drop of the sea. put Celine Dion in Super Smash Brothers. She sings like the floor, the ceiling, and also the very air she breathes is lava. She sings these songs like she is a very particular set of skills. Skills she is acquired over a very long career. Skills that make her a nightmare for songs like these.

She sings hard, man. Do you get what I'm saying? She sings hard even at her softest. She sings loud, even at her quietest. She is everything louder than everything else. She is the too much that will never be enough. She is the final boss of popular song, and the greatest compliment I can pay her

is that she turns every song she sings into a Jim Steinman song. Take, for example, the song she sang in 1997. Three purposes for this song to my mind. Three objectives. Objective number one, win Celine Dion boatloads of prestigious awards, Grammys, Oscars, even a Golden Globe. Objective number two, hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

Vanquishing, for example, the fucking Macarena. And objective number three, finally, definitively win over all those snooty music critics who dismiss her as walking, breathing, living cheese. Well, don't be sad. Don't be sad. Because two out of three ain't bad. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is 60 songs at Explain the 90s,

and I'm through talking about meatloaf. Indeed, this week we're talking about My Heart Will Go On from Celine Dion's 1997 album, Let's Talk About Love, 31 million copies sold worldwide. Ghana or Mozambique, this song appears as well. On the soundtrack to the James Cameron feature film Titanic, which also came out in 1997 and grossed more than $2 billion. I went to see Titanic in the theater on a double date,

and on the drive home, I idly considered trying to make myself cry so as to appear more sensitive. Right off the rip, actually, I want to play you my favorite part of this song. It's the background dudes, cowering in the storm cellar. There, why does the heart go on?

It's lovely, isn't it? I think it's lovely. She was born Celine, Marie Claudette Dion in 1968 in Charlemagne, Quebec, youngest of 14 children. Her debut album, LeVois Dubondue, was released in 1981 when she was 13. That's French. Album's French language, Quebec only. That's from the title track, LeVois Dubondue translates as The Good Lord's Voice.

Check out that debut album cover sometime. There's a neat little echo of the substantially more famous Let's Talk About Love cover. or the other way around, I guess. Celine flushed to the right, brown eyes, serious expression. It's a cool parallel to me. From the knots, young Celine was managed by a gentleman named Renee Angelil,

26 years, her senior, who mortgaged his house to put her debut record out. I suspect that you are familiar with the 33 and a third book series and podcast. Each book is about one specific album. They got over 150 books at this point, but the all-time bestseller in that series, according to the 33 and a third,

Third, Brain Trust itself, is the book about Let's Talk About Love, written by the Canadian music critic Carl Wilson. He writes mostly for Slate. Fantastic book. Full title of that book actually is, Let's Talk About Love, A Journey to the End of Taste, because Carl is not, or was not, at the time, a Celine Dion fan didn't like her. He wanted to figure out why millions and millions of people loved her, but he, and seemingly millions of millions of other people, did not. But Carl, by Dintabye, identity being Canadian himself can also speak to the Canada of it all, the Quebec of it all. What's immediately striking is that at 13 years old, Celine is already very much not a critic's darling. Carl writes that Quebec radio said her syrupy ballads were fit only for nursing homes.

People made fun of her looks, her non-pop star looks, her bushy hair, her teeth, whatever. The Mad Magazine equivalent in Quebec, which existed, called her Canine Dion. The French have the word, Katan, cheesy, tacky, hickish provincial, I guess. And so now you've got a guy saying about Celine, she wasn't simply perceived as Kitan. She was Kitan. Un deterred. Selene put out eight French language albums in the 80s. And seven more since then, three in the 90s amid all her other activities. And one as recently is 2016. She has for sure not jettisoned to this French element, this foundation of her. her career. I'm bopping around now on message boards and the like. I do it so you don't have to.

And you can, of course, find people who insist that Celine singing in French is superior to Celine singing in English, the theory being there's a singular confidence, a passion, a softness, a nuance to Celine Dion singing in French. She puts down the bazooka. I wonder if part of the appeal of French language, Celine, if you're indifferent to her or even outright hostile to her, is that if you don't speak French, you don't know what she's saying. Lyrically, her best love songs are so broad, so direct, so sentimental, so lovey-dovey. If you don't like her lyrics, perhaps you find them florid and trite and melodramatic. But so with the French stuff, you can just luxuriate in the military-industrial spa day opulence of her voice

and not worry about what she means. Take the 1987 song Lolita, for example. Okay, that's a bad example. That's on me. The full title of that song translates to Lolita, parentheses, Too Young to Love, and we're moving on. Actually, time out. Did I say earlier that Paradise by the Dashboard Light

was my second most embarrassing childhood misinterpretation of a classic rock song? I did, didn't I? Okay, real quick. My most embarrassing childhood misinterpretation of a classic rock song was Eddie Money's Take Me Home Tonight. Hell yes. Eddie Money looked like 80s Evan Dando, first of all. Chew on that.

So the plot of Take Me Home Tonight is that Eddie Money, RIP, is singing amorously to a lady friend and imploring the lady friend to take him home tonight. And the lady friend in the song is played by Ronnie Spector, who sings. This, of course, being an echo of an earlier, even more famous song, Ronnie sang. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 years old. I thought Ronnie Spector was singing, Feed My Little Baby, F, E, E, D. I had learned about sex at this point. Thank you very much.

And I thought this song was about Eddie Money having a one-night stand and the woman getting pregnant and having a kid and showing up on his doorstep with a newborn, nine months later, singing, Feed My Little Baby. I thought, take me home tonight was a cautionary tale about premarital sex.

I swear to God, I went to a Catholic elementary school. I wouldn't say that it took entirely in my case Catholicism. Perhaps you would agree. But it had its effect Catholicism on me at the time. Feed my little baby. Unbelievable. Does it sound at all like she's singing, feed my little baby? No, it doesn't.

Anyway, Selene Dionne. made her full-length English language debut in 1990 with an album called Unison. I am listening now to these first few crossover Celine albums, and I am preferring them as full-length experiences to the blockbuster population of Ghana albums coming very soon. I feel a little more relaxed with these records, and the Let's Talk About Love Tier records.

And this has to be recency bias on my part, or, oh, I forgot about that song bias. I really like being reminded about songs I forgot about. I'm having a good time here. There's that, Bazooka. Where does my heartbeat now? I forgot about that song. There's a song on Unison called I Feel Too Much.

I think her fans took it as a promise. I think Celine thinks that her fans think that however much she feels, it'll never be enough. Or at least she could always feel more. She could always feel harder. And so the feelings arms race was on. I am honestly digging her self-titled 1992 album, the Celine Dion album, quite a bit. I am relaxed even when she is not.

If you asked me too. I forgot about that song. Originally a Patty LaBelle song. That song definitely owed Celine Dion money. This is fun. Let's keep going. What's next? Okay, that's the power of love.

For sure, I did not forget about that song. I have an incomplete, but still quite visceral, quite fun. frightening memory of being in high school and watching a friend of mine, a girl I went to high school with, just listen to that song. That's the whole memory. No context. I just watched a teenage girl vibe extremely hard to that song. I remember being legitimately impressed. I remember being intimidated by both Celine Dion's voice and the profound effect Celine Dion's voice could have on someone. Quick production note. This is the exact moment in the writing process. when I started eating an unwise amount of leftover Halloween candy.

Nothing previous to this starting now. Let's see what effect all these peanut butter cups have. It's fascinating. The Power of Love is the first song and the best song on her 1993 album, The Color of My Love, C-O-L-U-R. And here is perhaps where Celine Dion's imperial phase begins in earnest, her true blockbuster years. This was her first top five album in America,

hitting number four, 20 million copies sold worldwide. Burkina Faso or Mali. That's 1993 and 1994, Celine Dionne, and a suitably lavish and overblown royal wedding-type wedding, married her manager, René Angelil. She was 26 at this point. He was 51. The CBC, much later, called it the most talked-about wedding in Quebec history.

I am in no position to dispute that. The CBC adds that the bride wore a pearl studded silk dress with a 23-kilogram train and a headpiece containing 2,000 crystals. I get that that's a lot of crystals. Is that a lot of kilograms for a wedding dress train? I frankly have no idea. The metric system is the least of my problems at this point. The age gap between Celine and Renee, the circumstances of their first meeting. This was all a little squicky, is the word I am using, apparently. But they powered through it. You can find a clip of Celine and Renee on Larry King together, talking about when and how they fell in love, Ireland. And it's very sweet.

And Larry's like, did you love her when she was 13? And Celine just rolls her eyes. They were married for 22 years. They had three kids. They powered right through it. Powering right through it is Celine Dion's whole ass job, her birthright, her calling. I am quite familiar with the 1975 Eric Carmen hit All By Myself, which is plenty lavish and overblown, the original version. And I am quite certain that this high note does not appear in the original version. And with that, Celine Dion drank every drop of the sea and cried it all right back out. Her version of All By Myself is on the Falling Into You album. That's 1996. That's the one with it's all coming back to me now. That's the one that sold 32 million copies, Malaysia. By now she's an institution, but not,

of course, a critic's darling. Salon called her version of All By Myself, a dog ear shout. Rattering remake. When the Let's Talk About Love album came out in 1997, the Los Angeles Times, being a little less agro about it, said that Celine's voice is a technical marvel, but her delivery lacks the personality, an intuitive sense of drama that are a diva's stock in trade. The lack of personality dig, which Celine seems to get quite a lot, is what's always interested me. The idea that she's such an absurdly powerful and volcanic singer that it frays her genuine connection to the song, to the people listening to the song, to the subject of the song. She sings about fundamental human emotions with inhuman force and precision.

It's disconcerting. She's so real that she almost sounds fake. It's true that when Celendian cuts loose, when she lets her hair down, it's extra disconcerting. Believe me or don't, but here's the first 10 seconds of a song on Let's Talk About Love called Treat Her Like a Lady. It's like Drinking Rosey. from a fire hose. It's a lot. Let's talk about love

is substantially more than a lot. She's got duets on here with the BGs and Luciano Pavarotti and Barbara Streisand. And the Streisand duet in particular eventually gets around to being the Godzilla versus Mothra Battle Royale you're envisioning.

But for me, it's still this frustrating collision of too much and still not enough. At that exact moment in the video for this song, Celine and Barbara are making giant, diva-type bug eyes at each other. With all of these songs, to find the best 10-second clip for you, instinctively,

I just jump to exactly the three-quarter mark of the song, right? 3.45 or so, the bridge of the song into the final chorus, because that's where Celine Dion sings the hardest and makes most of her money and kicks most of her ass. The first track on Let's Talk About Love

is called The Reason, and it was written by Mark Hudson, Greg Wells, and Carol King, and it was produced by George Martin, the guy who produced the Beatles. And here's what Celine's up to at the 345 mark. Actually, just for comparison's sake, here's what she's up to at the 230 mark.

We're going to go all the way to now. We're going to go all the way tonight tonight. I don't think Celine Dion is thought of, at least by her detractors, as a singer of sexy songs. I think she is caught for many people in the same trap, Meatloaf and Jim Steinman built for me

back in their early 80s. Girls want love and guys want sex without having to concede love. Celine sings songs about love so grandiose that it's hard to imagine the actual people being in love, let alone anything else. If you want to get super crabby about it, maybe part of why so many of her biggest hits are soundtrack songs is because the movies provide you with the tangible flesh and blood love affairs. The movies provide the people, the humanity, which frees her up to concentrate entirely on volume and intensity and grandiosity. So Bell and the Beast, in the 1991 version of Beauty and the Beast, fill in Celine's duet with Peebo Bryson on the song Beauty and the Beast. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in 1993, Sleepless in Seattle, fill in Celine's duet with Clive Griffin on When I Fall in Love, Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert Redford in the 1996 movie Up Close and Personal, fill in Celine's song, Because You Loved Me.

And then there's Kate and Leo. I feel you. This song is subtitled love theme from Titanic, not sex theme from Titanic. Put it that way. That is how I know you go on. That is a truly lovely and human delivery of the word on there. Now that I listen to it, my heart will go on was composed by James Horner, a Celtic music enthusiast and frequent James Cameron collaborator.

with lyrics by Will Jennings, who co-wrote Tears in Heaven with Eric Clapton, and also wrote Up Where We Belong, the Oscar-winning Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warren's Power Ballad from 1982's, An Officer and a Gentleman. Some people are just mega-romantic movie ballad people. Nobody more than Celine Dion. The innovation, the new level of mastery that Celine brings to my heart will go on, is that she's figured out how to be super loud quietly.

There is nuance. There is drama. there is precisely calibrated rising action. This song is a bare attack in a library. My Heart Will Go On was co-produced by James Horner, Walter Afanasia F, who you may recall as co-writer and co-producer of Mariah Carey is All I Want for Christmas is You, and Simon Franklin. Billboard did a big oral history on My Heart Will Go on in 2017,

and Simon talked up the nuance and the quiet drama that Celine, brought here. He said, that very first near, far, wherever you are, everybody knew she could belt, but there was something about the delicacy. I agree with Simon. These are the delicate lines that do it for me.

In that billboard oral history, it is of course mentioned that James Cameron was famously initially dead set against this song appearing in Titanic. He did not want a cheesy pop song, at the end of his tragic magnum opus. He reportedly said, Would you put a song at the end of Schindler's List?

If you want the truth, I think he would. James relented. It also famously, even Celine Dion herself did not immediately vibe with My Heart Will Go On. She was on Bravo's Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in 2019. And she talked about when she was first offered the song. She said, it didn't appeal to me. I was probably very tired that day. I don't know.

Very tired. Her husband, Renee, convinced her to give the song a shot. That's the platonic ideal of marriage for you. So I suppose there's no getting through this without mentioning this guy. So, at the 70th Annual Academy Awards held in March 1998, the best original song category did indeed include, both My Heart Will Go On, and Elliot Smith's Miss Misery from Goodwill Hunt.

plus how do I live from Conair, the Tricia Yearwood version, written by frequent Celine collaborator Diane Warren. Stacked year. This contrast on the Oscar stage felt generational, epochal. It felt like war. You got Elliot Smith. Already this beloved, fragile, genius singer-songwriter on stage in a rumpled white suit alone, he clearly doesn't want to be there. He sings this beautiful and fragile song.

He gets the fuck out of there. Whereas Celine Dion with a two-story, vaguely boat-like structure loaded up with a full orchestra looming behind her, Celine sings the bejesus out of my heart will go on.

Is there chest pounding as part of her performance? I think you know there is. Does Celine Dion win the Oscar in question? I think you know she does. And here is a massive cultural and emotional and philosophical divide made tangible by the conflict between these two songs,

sung by these two humans. She hugged Elliot backstage. Elliot said she was actually incredibly nice. But still, two religions here, the sad, quiet guy with the acoustic guitar, the bombastic pop diva with the full orchestra. Don't make me say it. Don't make me say it.

I'll say it. I will evoke the name of the argument that has royal music criticism for a generation. The argument that flashy pop music is just as viable and emotional and worthy of critical respect as gritty rock music. I will say it. I just said it. Carl Wilson's book on Celine Dion starts out with the Oscars. And he admits he was pulling for Elliot Smith and he was indignant on Elliot Smith's behalf when Madonna announced the winner for Best Original Song and she smirked and went, what a shocker, my heart will go on. I love Elliot

Smith. X-O is one of my favorite albums. I was pulling for him too in that moment in 19, I would have probably shot fireworks out of my dorm room window if Elliot Smith had beaten Celine Dion at the Oscars. I would have taken it as a victory for truth and genuine emotion and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You don't need me to say this, but it's fine if you still feel that way. It's fine if you hate my heart will go on. It's ubiquitous. It's relentless. It's just enough of way too much.

But I'll say two things. The first thing, can you tell me something? Can you admit something? I suspect that at some point in your life you've been driving, Camaro, Thunderbird, station wagon, minivan, whatever, and my heart will go on as come on the radio. And for some reason you don't turn it off. And you're running errands and you get where you're going. The outlet mall, Taco Bell, your grandmother's house, wherever.

Maybe you made it home. You're sitting in your garage. And it's the middle of the song somewhere, the flute solo, say, one of them. And for some reason, you wait. You keep the radio on. You keep the car running. You keep listening. You linger, you stall.

What are you waiting for? I'll tell you what you're waiting for. You're waiting for what happens three quarters into the song. I've done it. I've done it several times. Second thing I'll say, I have also often found Celine Dion overbearing overall. Way too much as a singer,

not quite believable as a regular mortal human. But there's this video of Celine Dion in Las Vegas, doing her blockbuster Vegas residency, and she's singing all by myself. And she hits that bonkers high note, three quarters of the way through all by myself. And she's holding the microphone closer to her cheek than to her mouth, which I'm sure is technically geometrically perfect,

but it looks really weird. And after she hits the note, she pumps her fist in the air and crosses her arms, it does a subtle little pelvic thrust like, oh, and it's quite silly. And perhaps even Catan, as the French would say. But this is in 2016. Her first Vegas show back after the death of her husband, René Angelil, who died in January,

2016, of cancer. He was 73. And post-high note, during a lengthy instrumental break, Celine brings a hand up to her face, and not sobs. She holds back sobs. She holds back the sea that she has swallowed. It shouldn't take a moment that explicit. and shattering and human to convince me fully of her humanity.

I put it down to the colossal height and volume of her artistry that her humanity often seems just out of reach. But this moment is the three-quarters moment to end all moments. She shouldn't need to do this. She shouldn't need to bear her soul and perform her grief to finally definitively win anybody over. But if that's what it takes, our guest today we're delighted to be joined by Leslie Gray Streeter, a journalist and author.

Her book is called Black Widow, Journey Through Grief for people who normally avoid books with words like Journey and the title. Leslie, welcome. Thank you. I'm so psyched for this. You don't know. Me too, me too. Do you want to start in Vegas or do you want to start in Florida? Should we do Florida? Let's go Florida because it gets us to Vegas. And people are like, what does that mean? And I'll explain. Please do.

There you go. I worked at the first. the Palm Beach Post, I'm in West Palm Beach for 18 years. And if any of you who have ever been in local journalism know that any famous person who's ever lived in your town for any reason is now a local, because you have a reason to write about them or to get their book for free or like me be sent to Vegas to cover their show. And that is what I did. Celine Dion, who was obviously from Quebec, I lived in the Jupiter area for a very long time. she and her husband and their kids.

And so we tried to cover her a lot. She never responded to me personally, but it was still enough to get me to Vegas. So when she did her show in Vegas in 2006, I and my editor were like, what if you spend an obnoxious amount of money to send me to Vegas for a week? And it was like, not only was she there,

but carrot top, Scott Thompson, who went to college at Florida Atlantic University and Bucca, he was out there as a luxer and like, it's a thing. And they fell for it. So they sent me out to Vegas and we did other stuff. Like we went to see the Beatles Love Show, which just opened. This is 2006. And I got to hang out with Carrot Top and drive around in his Hummer.

And sure, Matarella sticks with him and women were hitting on him. It was very weird and very awkward, but he was very cool about it. And we go to his house and he says to me, my house, which was a big house to me. sure was made from pieces of Celine Dion's house pieces pieces of like they deconstructed Celine's house to build Carrot Top's house for real and it's like this is how Celine is that lesser

celebrities no offense Carrotop are benefiting from her largesse because there's so much Celine that it makes a house for Carrot Top and I was like, tagnav have my roof Carat Top I don't It's and I will beat my chest dramatically and go Like, Celine, it's so cool. So, yeah, so we went out to the show and got to go.

And I brought a friend of mine with me who is super like, we're, you know, 80s, 90s kids. So she was like into ska and she drove a Vespa and she was a super cool woman. And she was like, let's go. I want to go to Vegas and me. And I thought she was going to say, Celine Dion. And she's like, yes, let's go. So we went. And the show was so amazing because, first of all,

It was one, she was one of the very first people to do those residences in the modern time that then begett Elton John's Rai Piano or Brittany or anybody, everybody now does these residencies, Shanaya Twain, all these people. So my mother actually saw Shania Twain in Vegas very long story. But anyway, the horse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, she loved it. So, but Celine really started this. So we go to the show and it's packed. And it's packed both with people that you would imagine would be, quote unquote, typical Celine Dion fans who.

who are many of them women, many of them Canadian, some of them gay men who like a spectacle, some of them, you know, there were more black people there than I expected, you know, but that's a whole other story. And we went to the show, and I think the only thing seemed to be whether you were going to chill out enough to enjoy the spectacle that was about to wash over you,

that it was nuts. It was like she had this, every set was a showpiece. It's like, you know, like Sherry would do this thing. It was like everything was a costume change. everything was like and then the lights come on. At one point, Dearing of My Heart will go on. She had this woman who's acrobatics thing like floating as if in the water and the air and the water. And it's kind of creepy because it's the song about dead people.

But you're like, okay, is she dead? Is she not? And obviously that song was such a huge song. You know, that was going to be sort of this huge set piece. But every moment at one point she sings Stevie Wonders, I Wish. and she sings the line of looking back on when I was a little napy-headed boy. Now, Celine Dion, never having been nappy-headed or a boy, I imagine. And I thought, what?

But then I thought, she's going with it, man. She went with it and no one else seemed to be right. Now, if she did it, it might be a problem. But I still don't think she would care because I think she understood. It's kind of like when women, I heard a woman, Candace Glover on American Idol years ago, did Bruno Mars if I was your man. she didn't change the gender. She just sang it.

So I'm like, if she can be a man, Celine can be a nappy-headed boy. That's a little different, but I get you, yeah. It's a little different, and it's not like I can give her permission from the delegation of black people to say it's okay to be a napeated boy, but Stevie signed off in it.

He was getting a check, I imagine. I imagine, yes, he was. He all cares. So it was something about the fact that she was like, I'm singing this as a tribute, and it was funny, and why would I change the words because you get what it is insane. Right.

And I wish though the day, the important thing, is I wish those days would come back once more. Like, okay, Celine, we're in. And to me, that's the power of her, that her sheer, here's an old-timey word, gumption. That is old-time. I like that word, yeah.

You know what I'm saying? She just went for it and accepted that you would come along with it. And also, she seems like a person that if she knew she offended someone, she'd be sad about it. You think so, yeah. I think she would. I mean, she'd probably still do it. But no, I think that she seems, I don't know.

Maybe that's just me and my cynicism, But I feel like she's... I think you're right. You know, I think she's a person that has established that her fans mean so much to her that she's out there. Her whole thing is throughout her career is spreading goodwill and emotional music that people connect to and not caring if it's cool or not caring if it's approved of.

And that's what I dig about her. That's, yeah, I had a much less exciting version of that. Like, whenever I listen to the Falling Into You record and she starts in on river deep mountain high. I have a moment I go, oh, and then by halfway through this song, I'm like, okay, all right, go ahead. I think, yeah, it's a similar thing. You sort of, you wince at the beginning, but then you just vibe with it. And that's, that's how you get it. The way you put it to me was you like earnestness, but also a spectacle. And I think that's a really good framework for it. I really think that, and we had discussed this earlier, that part of how I think you take the

90s or any decade is where you came into it. And I came into the 90s at 19 as a freshman at University of Maryland and being a journalism major and wanting to be a critic, but also understanding that I was overly earnest about a lot of things. And so I fell into the trap of your Lilith Fair and your Sarah McLaughlins and your Indigo Girls and your song Colvins and your Tracy Chapman's. And I loved all that stuff because it was quote unquote more important, but also it was Sarah singing about the dogs, man, she's singing about it. A lot of dogs. A lot of dogs.

All the dogs. And it was all of this, like, I'm straightforward telling you about my emotions. And so Celine sort of at the end, even though she'd been around for 10 years at that point, at the end of the decade, when my heart will go on and, you know, earlier in that because you love me, which I think all of, and it's all coming back to me, which I will say are all about widowhood and grief, but I think everything is about widowhood and grief. All of those songs were just like, here are my emotions. It's that Billy Porter, Witness My Moment thing.

The moment is happening. It's happening. And you're going to deal with it. And so many people with their minds and with their hearts said, okay, we're in it with you. And they didn't second guess it. They didn't try to be ironic. You know, they didn't try to filter it through like eight layers of cool or apologizing. It's like I saw the monster tour in Hershey in 2005.

And it was R&M counting crows and live. Wow. There was never a more self-conscious moment of, we want you to know about our pain and also our whatever, and here it is. And to be a Counting Crow's fan is to know that Adam Durrance is never going to sing Mr. Jones the way that you want it. It's very annoying.

If he sings it at all, but you buy into it. Celine, I read a New York Times review that says Celine Dion, is from 2020 right before the pandemic. Celine Dion does not think she's too good for her hits. And I was like, drag, gone, right. You know, because she's not going to go. I refuse to sing my heart will go on. Right.

Because I won't because Eddor, it's like, do you want it? Do you want it? I deny you. We're like, okay, and then we're mad. And then we go buy tickets again because I've seen kind of crows probably more than I've seen almost anybody. Right. And I keep buying the tickets.

And he keeps disappointing you. But at this point, it's on me, right? Sure, sure. Yeah, it is your fault at this, but Celine will never disappoint you. I was going to ask you if you thought there was connective tissue between Lilith Faircore music and Celine Dion. Like she's singing harder than all of those women combined. But like there's a shared emotional worldview there that you just don't want to admit maybe how close they are. Right.

Well, I think so. And I think also a lot of it has to do. And I love your podcast because you talk about sort of what these things mean that there are all these artists that are trying to be. I don't care what you think while deeply caring. While you deeply care, that people care, which is the whole like the whole sellout thing, the specter of that, or are you a black artist, through a white ars,

whatever it is, or you two pop, or you too, whatever. And a lot of it is caring damn deeply while trying to pretend that you do not care at all. And Celine says, I care. I care. So let's just cut out this middleman where no one cares and let's ride some horses

and have a dead dude on a motorcycle crash and the window and let's have you know, Leonardo DiCaprio dying and we'll all look better for admitting it. So I think that to me, I did not see a real difference in liking any of that music

because it was all about women talking about things and some of them wrote their music and Celine did not. But and so you can decide if that makes you a real musician, not a magician. That's a whole other thing. Both. Both. Exactly. If she a magician, I believe she is.

And so to me, it was all about, the little affair to me was about women feeling their emotions and saying we're not going to filter our emotions through what men think of us anymore, we'll do it ourselves. And Celine, in a way, even though yes, she's very young woman whose producer became her husband. Is that creepy? It's not my business. Everybody's fine with it. I don't care.

It's not, yeah, it seems weird, but that's not my business. The point is she then... They powered through it, I think. She powered through it, and I think that she created a place where I think is kind of badass, because she's like, I'm going to do what I do and you like it or not. And I don't think there's any Celine Dion fan who ever thought, I'm not going to like this because the reviewer from Pace didn't like it. No shots at Pace, but yes.

No, and I as a critic, I got to tell you, I so often as a female music, and as a black critic who I did not cover hip-hop. I covered pop music and rock music. So I had my credentials suspect, be suspect by so many people based on like, do you like what I like? I assume you don't. So then I'm going to quiz you at all these guys who thought they should have my job and they didn't.

Oh, God. Ask me these questions. That's why I appreciate people like Rob Sheffield, who has been one, who's also widowed, who's been wonderful to me, who blurred my book, has been wonderful. Because he. admits what a lot of critics didn't, which is I'm a fan and I like stuff. But I can still be subjective about things and objective about things, objective about things, but I can still say, I dig Taylor Swift and I don't care if you like it.

And I dig these things because everyone dig something. Are you digging on stuff that people think you should dig? Right, right. There's a lot of that. There is an, I'm a huge crowded house and Neil Finn fan. I think anything Neil Finn ever did was poetry and wonderful. And it irritates me when people. go, they just had one hit.

I would stab you in the head. You will stab them in the head over Neil Finn. And then you go, I have to look at my choices about that. You get that. This is a safe space, absolutely. The sort of Paste magazine perception, I don't actually know that. But people who hate Celain Dion or critics who dislike or like to complain that there's no grit or personality, no soul in her voice in like this soul music sense.

Like there's far less crossover with R&B or rap than you get with Mariah Carey or Mary J. Blyge, of course. Do you agree with that criticism or is it better that unless she's singing Stevie Wonder, like, Celine doesn't pretend to be someone she's not. She doesn't, but she also says it doesn't, who she is doesn't stop her from appreciating things. Like there was a big thing where she did, if you ask me to. And Patty LaBelle had done that, but Celine was unaware of Patty's version. and Patty was like, yo, I did this version. And so Celine goes, oh my gosh, Miss Patty, I was unaware of your version is amazing, it's immaculate, thank you, whatever.

And so I know people who like both first. Some people are like they just reflectively like Patty's version because it was first. First, and it was Patty. Yeah, because it's Patty. But Celine wasn't trying to erase anything. She just, nobody told her, you know, she was in her Celine bubble, living her Celine life and they gave her the song. And, you know, and she sang it.

My favorite Celine. Dean Deaunt's song is called Taking Chances and it was written by Dave Dave Stewart and Cara Doe from Real Rhythmics and Kara DiGuardi songwriter to me the worst American Idol judge

that's a whole other story Not very good but that that song and the album got really good reviews and I wonder if it's if people thought well she has songwriters that we respect and it's a great song it's a great song

but I think that they thought is it okay to like this album? Maybe they really did like it better, but maybe it's okay to like this album better because people that we vouched for. I mean, what are you going to say about Dave Stewart? Right, you know? Yeah, yeah. And I think that Celine,

from what I read, love that song and literally Dave's during Caradier Guardi wrote that song about being put together as songwriters and taking a chance in each other in this vulnerable sense as songwriters. And Renee, Angelil, heard this song and said,

Can Celine do it? And they said, yeah. They would, I would say yes to that as well, just for the royalty check. Yeah. That seems like a good idea. Your book, Black Widow, is so funny and so sad and so wonderful. And it's about losing your husband. And there is a very sad, but very funny scene in which you explicitly ban my heart will go on from your husband's funeral.

Because it's too much because you will start a riot. Yes. Has her music, you know, she's known as being just super melodramatic, super sentimental, like the ultimate tearjerker, has her music or like super emo music in her vein ever helped you as catharsis or is it consistently sort of permanently too much? It truly has. It truly has. I mean, we'll talk about taking chances, but came up before I ever started dating my husband.

We knew each other in high school. But that song to me when it came out, I would sing it about like, you know, in my car, you know, my career or about some knucklehead I was dating or whatever. And most of the time, it would have been a bad idea to take that chance because it's terrible. But it was very after Scott died, that song, taking chances was like, what do I do? When I moved last year in the middle, quit my job and moved in the middle of pandemic back to Baltimore where I grew up, that was like, let's do this. And never knowing if there's solid ground below or a hand to hold or hell to pay, let's do this.

you know, and so I think that a lot of her music has been, to me, reflective of a grief or a mourning experience. Like, it's all coming back to me now. In the video, there's like Jim, what's his name? Jim Simon was like, hey, it's about Wuthering Heights. And the boyfriend dies in the motorcycle thing. And then she's imagining him running down the hall or whatever on his motorcycle. Because You Love Me was from a movie with Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert Redford

called Up Plus and Personal where he dies. in it. Right. You're spoiling a lot of stuff here, but it's... Sporters of 25-year-old media. Yeah, sort of that. And Wuthering Heights, it doesn't end well. Okay, just so you know... No motorcycles in Wuthering Heights, as I recall, but it doesn't end well, yeah. But, and so when my heart will go on, when the song came out a couple weeks before the movie did, I knew someone had died because there's that line with, You are safe in my heart. I'll go, oh, safe in her heart.

Not in her arms, not in her house, but in her arms, I go, in her heart, I go, somebody died. Right, yeah, you got it. I never thought of it that way that it's a spoiler, but you're right. Not that Titanic, like, right, but you're right. You're absolutely right. And interestingly, love the song, hate that movie, it's a whole thing. Wow. Okay.

Talk about that. Here's why I hate that movie. I hate it, well, for many reasons. I saw it with a boyfriend I had just broken up with. Okay. We were doing the friends thing. That's not smart. No, I was 26, what did I know?

But we broke it up, I guess, like the month before it came out. And he's like, you want to see Titanic? I'm like, fine, whatever. So we go to the movie and we're still on touch. Hi, dude, you know who you are. But I saw this movie and I thought, well, maybe this is an attempt or whatever. It was not because it was so depressing to me because it's like, I believe, and I'm a truth or in this and have written several stories about it, that if the boat had not broken,

then she would have had this to fear or not. And either marry Billy Zane and left him at any point or left on her own, but this experience would not have maintained this lifelong widowhood. I mean, she claimed his last name and everything. I mean, they knew it didn't have like a week, three days, whatever. It was, and I just, I didn't believe any of it. Also, I was mostly interested in the emotional journey of like the poor Irish people under the boat or the poor Italian kids or underserved. Yeah, by the narrative.

Or the dudes who were like in the orchestra, the court, the environment. Yeah, I like those guys. Yeah. Those people, I was like, yes. And that's like, why didn't have to make up fake people to whatever? And also the technology of it. You know, I'm not a huge James Cameron fan in terms of his narratives, but his technology and everything is spot on.

So that even 20-something years later, almost 30 years later, that moment where the boat goes up. It's its side. Yeah, it's inverted, right. And it just goes straight up and down. It's just the science of it and understanding like how much that he talked about, like, how much things would weigh and what would hit first and the people or whatever. The guy you hit the fan on the way. I always remember the guy who hits the fan.

Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. But fascinating. So I thought that was so much and more interesting than Jack and Rose kill me. I don't care. But the song to me was very expressive and this whole idea that after people leave that you're,

your heart will go on and their place in your heart remains. Yes, it seems modeling and stuff, but I got it at 27, 26, and at 44 when my husband died, even though I was like, dudes, if you sing this, riots will happen, that was going to go. And then my husband's cousin then not understanding that I didn't want anything like that, so he played that song for the Fast and a Furious. That's very funny and very sad as well. I feel bad for enjoying that scene, but I did enjoy that scene quite.

My heart left my body. I said to my sister, I'm going to kill, what? You know, there's violent thoughts at the funeral. But it ended in a Jefferson sing-along, so it was all fine. But the idea, I believe,

that she, after being widowed, her husband died like six months after mine did. Once again, she doesn't know me. But I think not only did I think that she took on a certain, her, I don't know if Gravitas and Celendian or things she used in the same sentence, but I think that people considered her differently, that, you know, suddenly in her recovery and her grief, she became like this wacky fashion icon. And, you know, she did the show at Barcliffe Center where she got a pretty good review. I didn't mention the Carl Wilson book,

the 33 and a third series, you know, where, which was, when it came out, I was insulted on everyone's behalf because once again I was a person who was used to people looking askance at the things that I find because I had like on a poison t-shirt yesterday so I and I'm wondering you know I love those go-go's yeah yeah you know I love stuff but I like things that are serious too I have those botafety's as well but when it came out and that he was able to admit yeah I still don't get her music but I at least understand that I cannot reflexively dismiss the people that like her because there's a connection that she makes that she goes I care about you and what you like and I care about you liking me and that's all we care about so anyone else comes along for the ride is fine so when

her husband dies i spoke to her publicist i think i was trying to get her but i was also trying to connect with someone the publicist someone else the publicist was connected to and she goes i heard about her husband i'm very sorry and she talked about how at the funeral in montreal in quebec that selene dion sat there at the casket and waited for the fans fans waited outside in the cold in january in canada for three hours to come and talk about to her and pay the respect and she did not leave until the last person that left. And her publicist was like, I've worked for celebrities forever. I've never seen anything like that commitment because that's just something, that's where

your money where your mouth is, you know, that you're sitting there. Because if there's any reason to have an excuse not to talk to people, it's your husband dying, right? It's like, I'll like this. It's like wave, wave, goodbye. But I, at my own husband's funeral, I wanted, I was talking to people and it became like a receiving line and the people at the funeral home were like, oh my God, well, she's sit down so we can start this. I'm like, I'm going to talk to people. I am not Celine Dion,

but I am a person who understands that those moments are connected and that even though those people didn't know, Renee, someone said in one of the stories I read that Celine is Quebec, which once again is over the top and ha ha ha, you know, I love that, man. It's chest beating. It's, ah, ha. And she inspires that in people. And I think that that's a gift, no matter what critics or important people think of you, that's the gift. Yeah. I watched a video yesterday of Celine singing all by myself live in Vegas for the first time after her husband died. She's struggling. She's not struggling musically because she's a pro, but she's like shaking emotionally. It's very difficult to watch. And the crowd, of course,

is cheering her on. I think you're absolutely right that there's sort of a mass rehearing of her now, that there's just more, people are bringing more sympathy to her songs and they're sort of conferring more authenticity. I think you're absolutely right that all these songs are about death, about widowhood.

And now they're sort of making these very explicit, you know, celebrity connection that's enriching the songs for them. I think absolutely that's happening now. And I think it's something that you can, I appreciated that in a kind of surface, oh, I get it way, at 25 or 26,

but at 44, or, now at 50, I get so much more because, you know, honestly, everything seems to be about death at this point. And you look at things and go, I mean, I listened to your episode from last week about the crossroads, which was obviously about death, but you go, oh, my gosh, that, you know, these very young guys were living this experience for people they knew were dying. And it was not just Uncle, Uncle Charles, but all the other people, you know, and Easy and everybody. But, you know, I lost my dad at when I was 41. want and I lost my husband at 44 and people continue to die or just like leave your sphere of

consciousness or whatever. And so things can be about grief, but also I hope like in my book, right? Also, that's what you live through. So it can be funny at some point. Right. Right. Well, this has been phenomenal. This has been the greatest half hour. It's a great honor to have spoken with you. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super psyched. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Leslie Gray Streeter. Thanks to our editor and producer Justin Sales, my friends, I am heartbroken to report to you that this will be the last episode with our dear friend Isaac Lee. He has been the producer, The Guiding Light of this podcast from the beginning. It sounds good because of him.

He was a guest several times. He has hated many of the songs I have talked about, and he has grit his teeth through it all. He is a professional. He is a lovely person. We will miss him terribly. we will soldier on, but this one is for Isaac Lee. After you play this song, I want you to play some Jodacy for Isaac, please. Thank you. And now, without further ado, here's Celine Dion, with My Heart will go on.

We'll see you in a couple weeks.