15 February 1998
When Titanic came out on video, I reckon I saw it three times a day for two weeks. I should add that it was because I was working in Xtravision that summer, where it was playing non-stop on the shop-floor screens. People would come in to buy Titanic, then stand enthralled and watch it playing in-store, with their own copy of it in their hands. Others would put their name on a list to get an elusive rental copy when one came back. Eventually I was able to block out Titanic at work, and the 1998 World Cup was a welcome distraction, but I was still greatly relieved that autumn to drop Titanic out of my life like a sinking ship and return to college, where naturally I told people I had spent the summer listening to Massive Attack and The Velvet Underground.
Titanic was, well, titanic, and Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ was its manifestation in musical form. Like the movie, and at the risk of mixing metaphors, the song was an unstoppable juggernaut, its singer going full battleship and firing all cannons. It was number one in almost every country that had a record shop, for weeks and even months on end. It swept the usual glitzy awards. It was coming out of any device wired for sound; I’m pretty sure even car alarms were playing it.
As a record, ‘My Heart Will Go On’ is a straightforward proposition: romantic blockbuster theme for romantic blockbuster movie. Celine does her usual thing: starts with a hushed quivering voice to signify emotion, then steps it up to signify more emotion, for the climactic key change is almost bellowing – and then back down to hushed. As a song, ‘My Heart Will Go On’ is cliched bombastic schmaltz: “Love was when I loved you” and the like. I can’t work out if this love is in the past, present or future, or if this great love is still with her or lying at the bottom of the north Atlantic in icicle form. But here I am like an eejit trying to make sense of these lyrics, as if they weren’t merely power-ballad fodder. I’m just glad I wasn’t working in a record shop that summer instead.
