"It's All Coming Back to Me Now" is a power ballad written by Jim Steinman. Steinman said the song was inspired by the book Wuthering Heights and was meant to be the most passionate and romantic song he ever created. Meat Loaf, who had worked with Steinman on many songs, wanted to record it for years. However, Steinman refused at first, calling it a "woman's song." Steinman won a court case that prevented Meat Loaf from recording it. Instead, the girl group Pandora's Box recorded the song. Later, Celine Dion made it famous with her version, which upset Meat Loaf because he had planned to use it for an album called Bat Out of Hell III.

Meat Loaf also said the song was originally meant for Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell and given to him in 1986. Both he and Steinman thought the song was for that album, but they chose to use "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" instead and saved "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" for Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose. Steinman once offered the song to Bonnie Tyler, who was recording an album called Hide Your Heart with producer Desmond Child. She believed the song would be a hit and asked her record company to include it, but they refused because of the cost of hiring Steinman to produce it.

The song has been released three times. The first version was on the concept album Original Sin by Pandora's Box. Celine Dion later recorded it for her album Falling into You. Her version was a commercial success, reaching No. 1 on the Canadian Singles Chart, No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart in late 1996. Meat Loaf eventually recorded the song as a duet with Norwegian singer Marion Raven for Bat Out of Hell III and released it as a single in 2006. This version reached No. 1 in Norway and No. 6 on the UK Singles Chart.

A music video was made for each of the three versions. Death is a common theme in all of these videos, which matches the idea from Virgin Records' press release for Original Sin that "in Steinman's songs, the dead come to life and the living are doomed to die."

Inspiration

Inspired by Emily Brontë's book Wuthering Heights, Steinman compared the song to a scene he imagined where "Heathcliff digs up Cathy's body and dances with it under the cold moonlight." This scene is not in the novel. Steinman believed this idea was removed from the book. In this imagined version, Heathcliff's intense love for Cathy allows him to dance with her body on a beach, even though the real West Yorkshire moors are inland and not near the sea (which would break natural laws).

In another interview, Steinman explained that the song explores the "dark side of love."

The website AllMusic described the song as "a sad and emotional song about losing love and feeling sorry for it, with a spooky piano melody."

Lines like "There were nights of endless pleasure" and "The flesh and the fantasies: all coming back to me" suggest feelings of romance and desire. The song ends with a quiet, emotional repeat of the main part. Critics also noted that Richard Wagner, a composer Steinman admired, influenced the song. A review in The Sunday Times said that the themes of Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde, which focus on intense love and longing, shaped Steinman's best work.

A 2007 article in the Toronto Star claimed the song was written as Steinman's "tryout" as a lyricist for Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Sunset Boulevard.

Pandora's Box version

In 1989, Steinman created the concept album Original Sin with an all-female group named Pandora's Box. The album included many songs later recorded by other artists, especially Meat Loaf. Elaine Caswell was the lead singer for the song "It's All Coming Back to Me Now," which she collapsed five times during its recording.

For the track, Roy Bittan played the grand piano, with Steinman and Jeff Bova on keyboards. Eddie Martinez played the guitars, Steve Buslowe played the bass guitar, and Jimmy Bralower played the drums. Todd Rundgren arranged the background vocals, performed by Ellen Foley, Gina Taylor, and Deliria Wilde. The song was released as a single in the United Kingdom on October 2, 1989, and reached No. 51 in the UK Singles Chart.

The 7-inch, 12-inch, and CD singles included Steven Margoshes's piano solo "Pray Lewd" (using parts of "It's All Coming Back to Me Now"), Steinman's spoken part "I've Been Dreaming Up a Storm Lately," and "Requiem Metal," a sample from Verdi's Requiem Mass, all from the album Original Sin.

Ken Russell directed the music video, filmed at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire. Journalist Mick Wall noted that Russell was known for combining sex, fantasy, religion, and death in his work, which matched Steinman's creative vision. Steinman wrote the video's script, inspired by Russell's "Nessun Dorma" segment in the opera movie Aria. Scholar Joseph Lanza described the video as showing a girl near death, surrounded by paramedics, imagining a large python, and dancing with semi-naked performers while the music played. Steinman's manager called the video "a porno movie." Russell and Steinman planned a scene with a motorcyclist jumping from a church tower, but the church denied permission. The two-day shoot went over schedule and budget, costing £35,000 per hour, with Steinman covering the extra costs.

When the song was released, Music & Media called it "passionate, full-blown pop/rock" with "dramatic build-ups" and compared it to T'Pau. Mark Matthews of the Hartlepool Mail praised Caswell's "strong vocal" but said the track felt "laboured" and "like it could be from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical." Dave Jennings of Melody Maker criticized it as "pompous and empty," similar to Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart," but with a "shrill, mechanical" singer.

In a review of Original Sin, Neil Jeffries of Kerrang! called the song "excruciatingly operatic." Donald A. Guarisco of AllMusic described it as a "tormented ballad about romantic loss and regret" built on a "spooky yet heart-wrenching piano melody."

Like the album, the Pandora's Box version of "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" was not commercially successful, which Steinman viewed as a "personal insult." He stated, "these songs are my children. I want them to do well, and if they don't, I don't just give up on them."

Celine Dion version

"It's All Coming Back to Me Now" was covered by Canadian singer Celine Dion for her fourth English-language studio album, Falling into You (1996). Jim Steinman produced the track, with Steven Rinkoff and Roy Bittan credited as co-producers. Todd Rundgren, Eric Troyer, Rory Dodd, Glen Burtnick, and Kasim Sulton, who worked with Steinman and Meat Loaf on Bat Out of Hell, provided backing vocals. This version used a modified version of the original Pandora's Box track, with Elaine Caswell's vocals and some instrumental parts removed.

The song reached number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks, becoming the thirty-fourth biggest number two Hot 100 hit of all time. The full version of the song, which is seven minutes and thirty-seven seconds long, appears on Falling into You. A shorter radio edit, lasting five minutes and thirty-one seconds, was included on all editions of Dion's first English-language greatest hits album, All the Way… A Decade of Song (1999).

According to The Sunday Times, Andrew Lloyd Webber told Steinman that he believed this song was "the greatest love song ever written." He reportedly said after hearing Dion's version, "This will be the record of the millennium." Elaine Caswell, who originally sang the song, said she was shocked by Dion's version and often cried when hearing it in places like laundromats. Caswell later met Dion to record a cover of "River Deep – Mountain High." Dion mentioned she listened to Caswell's original vocals and hoped to match her voice.

The song was also included in Dion's 2008 greatest hits compilation, My Love: Essential Collection. Live performances of the song appear on the albums A New Day… Live in Las Vegas and Taking Chances World Tour: The Concert. Dion performed the song during her Falling Into You: Around the World tour (1996/1997), Let's Talk About Love World Tour (1998/1999), Taking Chances World Tour (2008/2009), two Las Vegas residencies (A New Day… and Celine), Tournée Européenne 2013, Summer Tour 2016, 2017 European Tour, and her 2018 tour. She also performed it during her British Summer Time concert in London's Hyde Park on July 5, 2019, and opened her 2019–2020 Courage World Tour with the song.

Dion's version received positive reviews. AllMusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it a standout track, praising Dion's performance on "It's All Coming Back to Me Now." Larry Flick from Billboard asked, "Is there a pop diva hotter than Dion right now?" He added that Dion's performance "soars above the instrumentation with theatrical flair." A Calgary Sun reviewer said the song was "the highlight of her English-language recording career," noting Dion's "over-the-top vocals" and the song's "epic arrangement."

Other reviews highlighted the song's dramatic style and Dion's vocal power. Toronto's Eye Weekly said Steinman's absence from the last Meat Loaf record was "finally justified" by Dion's performance. The Miami Herald described the song as "Wagnerian bombast" with "emoting that would wither an opera diva." Music Week rated it four out of five and called it "a melodramatic builder" that "should be huge." The New York Times noted the song's "romantic flashback" with "thunderclaps" and "melodrama." People magazine said the song "blasts off the CD" with "seven minutes of Wagnerian melodrama" and Dion's "crystalline soprano."

Some reviews were less favorable. The Vancouver Sun called the song "intensely self-indulgent" and "mediocre," while The Ottawa Sun described it as "turgid." The Toronto Sun said it "sounds like a Meat Loaf reject."

British director Nigel Dick directed the music video for Dion's version, with Simon Archer as cinematographer and Jaromir Svarc as art director. The video was filmed at Castle Ploskovice, the summer palace of the Austrian Emperors, and at Barandov Studios in Prague, Czech Republic, between June 29 and July 3, 1996. It was released in July 1996. The video features scenes of Dion's character haunted by her lover's image, with stylistic similarities to Russell Mulcahy's video for Steinman's "Total Eclipse of the Heart." The video has two versions: a full version (7:44) and a single version (6:00), both included on Dion's 2001 DVD collection, All the Way… A Decade of Song & Video.

The video opens with a man being thrown off his motorcycle after lightning strikes a tree, killing him. Dion's character is haunted by her lover's image, seen through a mirror and picture frames. On January 10, 2020, the video reached 100 million views on YouTube.

Smooth Radio listed "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" at number 19 on their "Greatest Power Ballads of All Time" list. Pitchfork included the song in its "250 Best Songs of the 1990s" list, calling it a "theatrically proggy arrangement" that "crescendo[s] behind her."

Australian CD and cassette single:
1. "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" (radio edit) – 5:27
2. "To Love You More" – 5:29
3. "Where Does My Heart Beat Now" (live version) – 5:30
4. "Fly" – 2:58

**Australian and US

Meat Loaf and Marion Raven version

Steinman was very happy when the song became a hit for Celine Dion, but Meat Loaf was angry because he believed the song was written for Bat out of Hell II: Back Into Hell and was promised to him for a future Bat III project. Steinman said he always thought only a woman should sing the song, while Meat Loaf believed it was meant to be a duet. Meat Loaf tried to take legal action to show he had some control over the song. He remained angry for many years after Steinman won the case.

The song was later recorded as a duet by Meat Loaf and Marion Raven for the 2006 album Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, produced by Desmond Child. Raven was chosen because her voice had a sound very different from Meat Loaf’s. In interviews, Meat Loaf said the version he and Raven recorded is the best version of the song.

Meat Loaf said he cried when he first heard the song, which he described as the only time this happened. He also said the song might refer to Steinman and himself, with strong emotions returning every time they work together. He mentioned that while he loves Steinman, he would not kiss him, even though the song includes the line "when I kiss you like that."

P. R. Brown directed the music video for the Meat Loaf and Raven version, which first aired on VH1 Classic on August 8, 2006. The video shares some similarities with Celine Dion’s version, including a story about Meat Loaf being haunted by the memory of his lover. However, the video for the Meat Loaf and Raven version is told through flashbacks. Scenes with Raven’s character alive have a yellow tint, while scenes after her death have a blue tint. Raven’s death is shown during the final chorus, unlike in Dion’s version, where the motorcyclist dies before the first verse. Meat Loaf becomes angry when Raven’s former lover appears at a masquerade ball they attend, a moment some reviewers compared to the film Eyes Wide Shut.

This version of the song changes the word "nights" to "lights," making the line "There were nights of endless pleasure" become "There were lights of endless pleasure." The single version ends with an extra line: "We forgive and forget and it's all coming back to me now." The album version, like those by Pandora’s Box and Celine Dion, ends with Raven whispering "And if we…" followed by four piano notes.

The song was available for download on iTunes in the UK in August 2006, two months before its UK release on October 16. The CD single included the song "Black Betty," and the limited-edition 7-inch vinyl featured "Whore," a rock duet with Patti Russo. It was also released as a DVD single. The album version was shared on Meat Loaf and Marion Raven’s MySpace pages in August. The single version was played during promotional interviews, such as on BBC Radio 2. The cover art was created by Julie Bell, who also designed the Bat Out of Hell III album.

The single reached No. 6 on the UK Singles Chart on October 22, 2006, giving Meat Loaf his highest UK chart position since 1995. It was his last UK Top 40 hit. The song also reached No. 1 in Norway and No. 7 in Germany. Reviews were mostly positive, with The Guardian describing the song as "ostensibly a reflection on love, but imbued with the delicacy of aircraft carriers colliding at sea."

Marion Raven joined Meat Loaf on his 2007 European tour, where she promoted her album Set Me Free. Meat Loaf introduced her on stage during the tour to perform "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" together. A performance from the tour was recorded and released on DVD as 3 Bats Live.

Other versions

• This song appears in Jim Steinman's Bat Out of Hell: The Musical, where the song is broken into more parts and performed by four characters.
• The TV series Glee showed a short version of this song in season 3, episode 21, titled Nationals, where Lea Michele performs it as Rachel Berry. A longer version that is 5 minutes and 22 seconds long, with Michele singing, was released as an online version in 2012.
• The show Riverdale showed a version of this song in season 5, episode titled Chapter Ninety-One: The Return of the Pussycats, where Ashleigh Murray, Asha Bromfield, and Hayley Law perform it as members of the band Josie and the Pussycats.
• After winning the last episode of The Masked Singer UK in 2024 by singing It All Comes Back to Me Now, British singer Danny Jones released the song with his band McFly.