LISTEN: How one of Céline Dion’s biggest and arguably gayest hits almost never happened
Titanic, having been written for the 1997 movie that told the story of the famous shipwreck. Both the song and the film were massive successes: Titanic became the first movie to earn more than a billion dollars at the box office, and “My Heart Will Go On” was an international hit, topping the charts in more than 25 countries and becoming the world’s best-selling single of 1998.The song was written by Jack Horner, who also wrote Titanic’s score, with lyrics by Will Jennings, who helped write hits for gay icons like Whitney Houston (Jennings penned the words for “Didn’t We Almost Have It All”) and Barry Manilow (Jennings wrote the lyrics to “Looks Like We Made It” and “Somewhere in the Night”).
All they needed was a vocalist, and Horner, who’d previously worked with Dion on a song for the animated film An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, thought she’d be the perfect fit.But both Cameron and Dion were resistant to the song existing.
Cameron apparently didn’t like the idea of ending his tragic drama with a pop song, and Dion was simply over singing songs for movies.
Still, her late husband René Angélil insisted that she record a demo of “My Heart Will Go On.”“I wanted to choke my husband.
