[3] Girl group Pandora's Box went on to record it, and it was subsequently made famous through a cover by Celine Dion, which upset Meat Loaf because he was going to use it for a planned album with the working title Bat Out of Hell III.

Confident that it would be a hit, she asked her record company to include it in the album; they declined, citing the cost of using Jim Steinman to produce it.

Meat Loaf eventually recorded it as a duet with Norwegian singer Marion Raven for Bat III and released it as a single in 2006.

[8] Influenced by Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights, Steinman compared the song to 'Heathcliff digging up Cathy's corpse and dancing with it in the cold moonlight', a scene which does not exist in the novel.

[2]The website AllMusic called the song 'a tormented ballad about romantic loss and regret built on a spooky yet heart-wrenching piano melody'.

Specifying this song, The Sunday Times wrote that "the theme of Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde, with its extreme passions and obsessive love, informs all his best work".

[3] A 2007 article in the Toronto Star claims that the song was written as Steinman's "tryout" as lyricist for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard.

[17] Journalist Mick Wall observes that Russell's reputation for "mixing sex, fantasy, religion and death ... was the kind of director Jim Steinman had wished for in his various dream states.

"[18] Steinman wrote the script, based on Russell's "Nessun Dorma" segment in the compilation opera movie Aria.

[19][20] Scholar Joseph Lanza describes the video: a woman's near-death experience [from a motorcycle crash] is set amid operatic excesses and black leather.

In a simulated city engulfed by an apocalyptic blaze, British vocalist Elaine Caswell sings and participates in a ritual to celebrate the song's "nights of sacred pleasure"... [The soundstage] is stocked with gravestones, motorcycles, pythons and dancers (allegedly from the London production of Cats), strapped in chaps, studded bras, and spiked codpieces.

[20]The girl, near death, is being ministered to by paramedics, fantasizing and being 'sexually aroused by a large python and writhing on a bed that lit up in time with the music, while surrounded by a group of bemused, semi-naked dancers'.

'[19] Russell and Steinman even designed a sequence where a motorcyclist would cycle up the steps of a local church-tower, jump out of the turrets at the top, and then explode; alas, the wardens of the church refused permission.

[17] Upon its release, Music & Media described "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" as "passionate, full-blown pop/rock " which has "dramatic build-ups" and is "reminiscent" of T'Pau.

[22] Mark Matthews of the Hartlepool Mail praised Caswell's "strong vocal" but felt the track is "very laboured" and "sounds like it could have been taken from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical".

[23] Dave Jennings of Melody Maker was negative in his review, calling it "simply pompous and empty, like Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart', but with a shrill, mechanical session singer draped on top".

[25] Donald A. Guarisco, writing for AllMusic, considered the "tormented ballad about romantic loss and regret" to be "built on a spooky yet heart-wrenching piano melody".

[27] Bat Out of Hell and Meat Loaf collaborators Todd Rundgren, Eric Troyer, Rory Dodd, Glen Burtnick and Kasim Sulton provided backing vocals.

[3] In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Elaine Caswell said that she expressed shock upon hearing Dion's version, often leaving a scene when the song came out in places such as laundromats in tears.

AllMusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine marked it as a standout along with "Falling into You", and praised it, "Celine shines on mock epics like Jim Steinman's 'It's All Coming Back to Me Now.

He added, "Lesser talents might have been gobbled up by his melodramatic arrangements, but Dion rises to the occasion with a performance that soars above the instrumentation with deliciously theatrical flair.

"[35] Dave Sholin from the Gavin Report felt that Steinman's "dramatic writing style melds perfectly with her powerful vocal, giving this production an incredibly passionate quality".

[36] The Miami Herald said Dion "knocks a couple out of the ballpark... [the song] features seven minutes of Wagnerian bombast, thunderclap piano chords and emoting that would wither an opera diva.

"[37] Stephen Holden from The New York Times wrote, "The melodrama peaks with two overblown Jim Steinman productions: 'It's All Coming Back to Me Now', a romantic flashback replete with thunderclaps... "[38] People magazine stated that literally, it "blasts off the CD with a booming piano chord followed by seven minutes of Wagnerian melodrama, Dion's crystalline soprano swelling and trembling with operatic abandon worthy of the Ring cycle's immolation scene.

[40] Sun-Sentinel noted it as "lyrically and musically beautiful" and said that "this nearly eight-minute ballad sets the pace for this album with Dion's emotional singing.

[43] Although Castle Ploskovice served as the exterior, the most notable areas featured in the music video are its entrance hall, ballroom, and the arched walkways.

[citation needed] The video opens with a man being thrown off his motorcycle, after lightning strikes a tree down in his path - eventually killing him in the process.

[5][105] Meat Loaf attempted legal action "to prove that he had some level of dominion of the song", and was furious for many years afterwards when Steinman won the case.

[27] The song was 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.

Critical reaction was generally positive, with The Guardian writing that the song is "ostensibly a reflection on love, but imbued with the delicacy of aircraft carriers colliding at sea".