Every Sunday I would wake up to Whitney Houston’s voice echoing through the hallways of my house. My family liked Whitney, but I loved her. I was captivated by her music and found many similarities between her family and mine. You see, Whitney was born the same year and month as my mom, and Whitney’s daughter, Bobbi, was born the same year as me. We shared a love for singing; my mom sang, I sang, Whitney sang… As a child, I thought “this is so cool!”
I would listen to her every night to go to bed
I would listen to Whitney every night. Growing up, I had difficulty falling asleep but Whitney’s music helped me sleep. I guess you could say her albums became the soundtrack to my dreams. So, when she passed away it really hurt me – it hit me hard.
I knew all of Whitney’s songs, but “I Will Always Love You” stands out. I was in single digits when I first heard it; she did it in the 1992 movie “The Bodyguard” – a year before I was born. The song itself was amazing, but when they put it in the movie and I saw the visual representation of the meaning behind the song, I said to myself “this is a good break-up song”.
After seeing the movie, I would be lying if I told you I didn’t sing it to somebody I was dating at the time to break up with them. I surely did! It made the break-up more dramatic. For them, it probably also made the whole ordeal more heartbreaking. But I liked it. Based on our situation I felt it was the perfect opportunity for the song to be used.
There are different versions of the song including an up-tempo version, but I like the slow version. I like that she took her time, she sang the song, and she broke the man’s heart.
She took her time, she sang the song, and she broke the man’s heart
Dolly did a good thing when writing the song. I can’t say I’ve ever heard Dolly’s version and I don’t know how the song would sound from her. But lyrically it is amazing! It is also one of the first songs I ever heard with a sax solo. The sax was doing things I didn’t even know could be done with a sax. I don’t know if that was in Dolly’s original version or if it was added by Whitney and her team… but a job well done.
Whitney’s vocals take the song to another level; they are phenomenal. When she held out “and I….” at the start of the chorus, I would say to myself, “okay, I want to be able to hold the note half as long as Whitney” and I would sing it over and over again just to get the note. I will never forget the lyrics to this song because it was such an important part of my vocal journey, my vocal beginning.
This song was such an important part of my vocal journey, my vocal beginning
I wanted to have the same tone and I wanted to do the vocal things that Whitney did with her voice. If she swelled on a word, or held it out long and added vibrato, I was like… “I’m here with you Whitney… let’s go”.
When I hear the song now, I feel nostalgic. It brings me back to watching the bodyguard movie on a family movie night and it reminds me of my musical beginnings as a vocalist. You could call Whitney my vocal coach because I learned so much about singing from what I heard in her albums, especially this song.
Anonymous
Toronto, Canada