Music Monday 02 - Celine Dion

I’ve done a lot of embarrassing things in my life. Once I stuck my foot through a wall at summer camp and so severely sprained my ankle that I spent the night being carted around in a wheelchair. Another time, while preaching in main service, I misspoke and said something about teenagers needing more sex. And, the pièce de résistance of my embarrassing moments, is when I accidentally dropped the F bomb in front of my entire Sunday school class. In spite of all those moments, however, there is one embarrassing facet of my life which stands out among all the rest. It is something I have tried to change but can’t; I have avoided it and I have confessed it, yet it continues to haunt me. I like a lot of bad music and I have a lot of guilty pleasures, yet the guiltiest and most embarrassing is Celine Dion. I have liked her as long as I can remember and, as far as I can tell, I will like her for many years to come.

There are a lot of things wrong with Celine Dion; I can readily admit that.

•She’s kind of annoying: The way she talks and the ways she carries herself and the odd noises she makes are kind of annoying. I don’t think she is someone with whom I would want to hang out but that doesn’t mean I can’t like her music.

•She’s too skinny: She looks a lot like a skeleton with long brown hair. She’s all bony and I think it wouldn’t hurt her to mix in a steak or some French fries. On The Soup with Joel McHale, Joel was talking about Celine’s new pregnancy and said that the baby was already complaining about how bony it is in the womb.

•She does that stupid thing with her hands: If you’ve ever seen Celine perform, whether it’s live or on TV, she always holds both of her arms out with her palms facing out, then she slaps her chest with both hands and flings her arms back out. What’s up with that? What is that? Stop doing that.

•She’s married to a dude who is 26 years older than she is: I know a lot of dudes date younger women; I myself am dating someone five years younger. There is a significant difference, however, between five and 26, like 21 years. And not only is she married to a significantly older man, but she told the world about it in the liner notes to one of her CDs; liner notes must have been the Facebook relationship status of the early 90s.

•“My Heart Will Go On”: I can’t stand the movie Titanic. It was too long and garnered award after award because teenage girls loved Leonardo DiCaprio. The popularity of the movie was also helped by its romantic theme song “My Heart Will Go On”. That song was everywhere for the better part of 1998; it couldn’t be escaped. Yet, even though I didn’t like the movie and that song filled my darkest nightmares, I still haven’t been able to give up on Celine.

There is a lot wrong with Celine Dion, there are plenty of reasons not to like her, but I can’t help it; I can’t stop liking her. So, in my defense, here are three reasons why, in spite of my best efforts, I still like Celine Dion.

She’s Talented
Even if you don’t like her music and you thing that she’s the most annoying Canadian since Dudley Do-Right, it’s difficult to deny Celine Dion’s talent. She really does have an amazing voice with an incredible range. Over the course of her career she has worked with talented producers and song writers to make quality pop music which can be very catchy. Obviously, catchy things aren’t always good; leprosy and pink eye are catchy but I’m not looking to contract either. Even though Celine’s music may not be of the highest quality, it is well produced and, like pink eye, catchy. It’d be easier to turn by back on Celine if I could write her off as a talentless corporate creation like Britney Spears but I can’t; she is actually talented and I do enjoy her music.

Beauty and the Beast
In 1991 Beauty and the Beast came out and I had a new favorite Disney movie. Beauty and the Beast is still my favorite Disney movie and probably one of my favorite moves because of the nostalgic place it holds in my childhood. Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson sang the single version of “Beauty and the Beast” which reached #9 on the Billboard charts. I still listen to that song and get caught up in the memory of the ballroom scene in the movie and my childhood thoughts of some day finding my own Belle. Celine Dion and the song “Beauty and the Beast” are so well connected to the nostalgia of my past that it’s difficult for me to separate those good feelings from the woman who sang the song. As a result, Celine holds a place in my nostalgic heart which she still occupies today.

My Mother
When I was a little kid I spent a lot of time with my mother; I was kind of a momma’s boy. I would always go the grocery store with her, partly because I didn’t want to be home alone and partly because I wanted to spend time with my mother. My mother has greatly influenced my life. Along with my father, she taught me the foundations of the Christian faith and lived out those foundations every morning, as I saw her spending personal time devoted to God. She helped set me along a lot of good paths in my life, but she also set me along the path that led to Celine. We would listen to Celine on KOST 103.5 on those rides to the grocery store and I think that, again, those fond memories are tied to Celine. My feelings for Celine run deep and are rooted in my childhood; I have supported her in the past and I will continue to support her in the future.

It’s embarrassing to like Celine Dion as much as I do. It’s not normal, it’s not right, but I can’t change, even if I wanted to. I’ve given thought in the past to changing my ways, I thought that it might really be time to work on these issues and move on. Then, when I was in Bethlehem, half-way around the world, we went to a restaurant and they were playing music. Now, in a restaurant in Bethlehem, I would have expected to hear some contemporary Arab music, perhaps some classical music, maybe even some Christmas carols. Yet in that restaurant, 6,000 miles from Canada, they were playing Celine Dion’s greatest hits. Now I don’t know if it was a sign from God, but the improbability of that moment and the joy I got from hearing “A New Day Has Come” while eating pita and hummus, made me realize Celine Dion brings a little happiness into my life. And who wants to cut out any amount of happiness, embarrassing as it may be.

What is your musical guilty pleasure?