The song My Heart Will Go On has since achieved cult status and is hardly separable from Titanic. However, director James Cameron initially did not want the song in his film.
When you hear My Heart Will Go On, sung by Céline Dion, on the radio, most people probably think directly of the movie Titanic and the tragic love story of Jack and Rose.
However, neither the director nor the singer felt enthusiasm for the song at first. But the composer remained persistent and eventually managed to get the song into Titanic.
Here you can see a trailer for Titanic:
“I don’t want to sing the song. The director of the film doesn’t want a song in his film.”
As singer Céline Dion told in an interview with Vogue, director James Cameron originally did not want any songs in Titanic. His reasoning: “My film is great enough; I don’t need any songs.”
However, James Horner, the film’s composer, saw it differently. So he visited the singer secretly and played the song for her:
“He started playing us the song […], and my husband looked at me, and he looked at him and said: ‘James, we should stop now.'”
Céline Dion did not want to sing My Heart Will Go On. But the composer remained persistent and finally managed to convince the singer’s husband and manager to get her into the studio for a small demo.
However, there were still two enormous problems, as Céline Dion herself said: “I don’t want to sing the song. The director of the film doesn’t want a song in his film.”
Reluctantly, the singer still goes to the studio, and after a short briefing, she records My Heart Will Go On in one single attempt:
So I start singing the song, he tells me a bit about the story of the film, and I’m already in tears.
But it’s just a demo, just to showcase my voice, one take, just quickly, just to present it to the director; he insists on putting this song in the film.
I sang the song, and I never sang the song again to record it, to make it into a record. It was a one-take thing.”
Céline Dion, source: YouTube
So the demo is indeed the version that we ultimately hear in the finished film, as well as on CD or the radio.
After the song was recorded, the composer now faced the next hurdle, as Simon Franglen, the song’s co-producer, revealed:
“James Horner carried a cassette around for weeks, waiting for the right moment to play it for Cameron. He wanted to make sure he was in a good mood.” (Source: Collider.com)
As Céline Dion recalled, the composer approached the director with his request and said: “I won’t tell you who sang the song. Just do me a favor and listen to it once.”
Apparently, this one-time listen was enough for My Heart Will Go On to eventually make it into Titanic despite the initial refusals by both the director and the singer.
Not only did the director initially not want the song in his film; he also believed that Kate Winslet should not get the lead role as Rose. However, the actress managed to convince him of the opposite. You can read more about this here on MeinMMO: Titanic: Originally, James Cameron did not want Kate Winslet in the lead role
