ATF Tunes: Don’t turn around now; you may see me cry

The artist whose song made it to #6 needs no introduction, because she is the most successful Canadian recording artist in history. Six diamond albums, 200 million records sold worldwide, 10th best-selling artist of all-time worldwide, 35 Top 40 singles, sang the 8th best-selling single of all-time internationally, and has won 20 Juno awards. She is also one of the few Canadian artists to score hits in both official languages. You know who it is. The question is: which song of hers made it here?

We listened to all of Céline Dion’s English and French songs prior to selecting our favourite and deciding on its position on our ATF list, and it was a tough choice. Our policy of not including covers helped whittle the volume of songs down a bit. As it turned out, the song that we liked best was not a big hit for her and was released as a single in Spain of all places; a music video was never made. It was off her 1993 English album The Colour of My Love (our favourite album of hers) but was not included on the U.S. version. Albert Hammond wrote the lyrics and Marti Sharron the music. It was produced mainly by Steve Lindsey who has worked with Leonard Cohen, Elton John, and Peter Gabriel, among others.

It appears that the song could be considered Dion’s greatest that was never a charting single because many singers took advantage of this and covered it in various languages later on: Myriam Hernandez (Spanish), Elena Paparizou, Sergei Penkin (Russian), Kate Julien (French), André Hazes (Dutch) and Josh Groban. Of course, no one could sing it better than Celine Dion’s original vocal.

The astoundingly gorgeous song we’re talking about is “Just Walk Away“, one of our favourite songs of all-time by a Canadian artist. Warning: do not listen to this song without a box of tissues nearby. The tears will not be from sadness but from being mesmerized by such heart-walloping beauty.

Lyrics

I know I never loved this way before
And no one else has loved me more
With you I’ve laughed and cried
I have lived and died
What I wouldn’t do just to be with you

I know I must forget you to go on
I can’t hold back my tears too long
Though life won’t be the same
I’ve got to take the blame
And find the strength I need to let you go

[Chorus:]
Just walk away
Just say goodbye
Don’t turn around now; you may see me cry
I mustn’t fall apart
Or show my broken heart
Or the love I feel for you
So walk away
And close the door
And let my life be as it was before
And I’ll never, never know
Just how I let you go
But there’s nothing left to say
Just walk away

There’ll never be a moment I’ll regret
I’ve loved you since the day we met
For all the love you gave
And all the love we made
I know I’ve got to find the strength to say

[Chorus]