Share: My essay about Celine

[Shall]

I'm not a native speaker of English. There can be many confusing or funny expressions in my essay. Sorry for that , but I have tried hard to present, to describe and to evaluate my idol, Celine. Hope you guys like it.

 

To My Idol Celine Dion:

----Yes, you are not cool, because you make me feel warm all the way…

 

Celine Dion, born on March, 30th, 1968 in Quebec, Canada, is a French-Canadian. It has been almost eight years since I became her fan in my Junior school days. And It has become one of my sweetest memories to enjoy her Shanghai Concert, to be part of her tour, and to be completely captured by her glamour. After her “Taking Chances World Tour” winds down, she will be on her sabbatical again for her second child. At this moment of farewell, I will dedicate these thousands of words to my lifetime idol: Celine Dion.

 

Everybody needs an idol. Some fade away in the volatile course of youth while others remain evergreen, growing deeper to the bone as your mind turns mature. And then one day, when your idol steps away from the spotlight and you have just gone through a phase of your life, it is time to put away a set of old memories and go on traveling. For you and for your idol, tomorrow is only unknown. I wanna put my finger crossed and whisper a little prayer with the shadow of a sundial needle.

 

1. How I Became A Celine-Fan.

 

I always tried to retrace the exact date that I fell in love with Celine, but I found I couldn’t. In the grade five or six, because of Titanic, the Hollywood blockbuster, we pupils hummed My Heart Will Go On in Chinese version. From then on, I knew a woman named Xi Lin Di Weng. What a strange name, I just thought. Back then, I extremely hated English and I felt great jealousy of a girl who could sing that song in English. In order to sing that song like her, I learned and tried, in every means, but gave up eventually.

 

Later, I bought a cassette called All the Way…A Decade of Song on a day that was long forgotten. Unfortunately again, I dropped it in the corner and didn’t listen to it until I attended Junior school, during which my English began to take off. One day in an English class, our lovely English teacher were teaching us to sing English songs, and she even wrote the lyrics herself for everyone of us, on a piece of a slightly yellowed paper. Today, it is still well-kept by me, with my childish strokes of Chinese translation scattered around those beautiful and streaming English lines. It made me laugh out loud to find that I translated the word “Dream” into “Kongxiang” instead of “Meng”.

 

In the winter holiday of the second year, I wandered about in supermarkets, aiming to find some good music to fill my vacant days. I didn’t know what to buy. While glancing at the shelves, I found many of Celine Dion’s albums, among which “the French Album” caught my eyes. I bought it without hesitation because I wanted to figure out what French is like. I felt very relaxed and comfortable to her songs and just kept listening over and over again. Casually, I browsed the pages of lyrics and observed the pictures of her. Oh, is that she? There came a sense of mystery and I got an impulse to know more about her.

 

I never love watching TV and thus I never remembered the overplayed music video of My Heart Will Go On; furthermore, I hate stars and those worthless gossips around them; all in all, I knew nothing about showbiz, whatever domestic or abroad. Simply through buying some of her albums, I found her official website and I visited. And it changed everything. I printed out four or five pages of her brief biography, from the humble beginning to the international stardom. Thanks to my greatly progressed English, I managed to read it through and comprehend it well, with the aid of my e-dictionary. Her life path impressed me a lot and I thought she must be unique, because I felt a kind of modest but moving power from that woman. By then, it was fair to say that I had become one of her fans.

 

----To be continued----

Edited March 24, 2009 at 02:35 PM by Shall

[LuisMa]

I liked it a lot.

 

I remember back in 1993 on a Composition III course I was taking I had to write an essay, and I entitled it "Celine Dion: The World's Next Superstar."

 

Even the thesis with which I obtained my Master's degree had to do with Celine.

[frana]

I'm not a native speaker of English. There can be many confusing or funny expressions in my essay. Sorry for that , but I have tried hard to present, to describe and to evaluate my idol, Celine. Hope you guys like it.

 

To My Idol Celine Dion:

----Yes, you are not cool, because you make me feel warm all the way…

 

Celine Dion, born on March, 30th, 1968 in Quebec, Canada, is a French-Canadian. It has been almost eight years since I became her fan in my Junior school days. And It has become one of my sweetest memories to enjoy her Shanghai Concert, to be part of her tour, and to be completely captured by her glamour. After her “Taking Chances World Tour” winds down, she will be on her sabbatical again for her second child. At this moment of farewell, I will dedicate these thousands of words to my lifetime idol: Celine Dion.

 

Everybody needs an idol. Some fade away in the volatile course of youth while others remain evergreen, growing deeper to the bone as your mind turns mature. And then one day, when your idol steps away from the spotlight and you have just gone through a phase of your life, it is time to put away a set of old memories and go on traveling. For you and for your idol, tomorrow is only unknown. I wanna put my finger crossed and whisper a little prayer with the shadow of a sundial needle.

 

1. How I Became A Celine-Fan.

 

I always tried to retrace the exact date that I fell in love with Celine, but I found I couldn’t. In the grade five or six, because of Titanic, the Hollywood blockbuster, we pupils hummed My Heart Will Go On in Chinese version. From then on, I knew a woman named Xi Lin Di Weng. What a strange name, I just thought. Back then, I extremely hated English and I felt great jealousy of a girl who could sing that song in English. In order to sing that song like her, I learned and tried, in every means, but gave up eventually.

 

Later, I bought a cassette called All the Way…A Decade of Song on a day that was long forgotten. Unfortunately again, I dropped it in the corner and didn’t listen to it until I attended Junior school, during which my English began to take off. One day in an English class, our lovely English teacher were teaching us to sing English songs, and she even wrote the lyrics herself for everyone of us, on a piece of a slightly yellowed paper. Today, it is still well-kept by me, with my childish strokes of Chinese translation scattered around those beautiful and streaming English lines. It made me laugh out loud to find that I translated the word “Dream” into “Kongxiang” instead of “Meng”.

 

In the winter holiday of the second year, I wandered about in supermarkets, aiming to find some good music to fill my vacant days. I didn’t know what to buy. While glancing at the shelves, I found many of Celine Dion’s albums, among which “the French Album” caught my eyes. I bought it without hesitation because I wanted to figure out what French is like. I felt very relaxed and comfortable to her songs and just kept listening over and over again. Casually, I browsed the pages of lyrics and observed the pictures of her. Oh, is that she? There came a sense of mystery and I got an impulse to know more about her.

 

I never love watching TV and thus I never remembered the overplayed music video of My Heart Will Go On; furthermore, I hate stars and those worthless gossips around them; all in all, I knew nothing about showbiz, whatever domestic or abroad. Simply through buying some of her albums, I found her official website and I visited. And it changed everything. I printed out four or five pages of her brief biography, from the humble beginning to the international stardom. Thanks to my greatly progressed English, I managed to read it through and comprehend it well, with the aid of my e-dictionary. Her life path impressed me a lot and I thought she must be unique, because I felt a kind of modest but moving power from that woman. By then, it was fair to say that I had become one of her fans.

 

----To be continued----

 

Hi beautiful essay

Well done

[sclxy]

well done,my countryman of the same age.

[ce-line]

Thanks for sharing! I really enjoyed reading it. Very beautiful!

[CelineDionFan710]

thats so kool

[Shall]

It's weird that I can't edit my post?! So I can only continue here:

 

Essay Update:

 

2. On Celine’s Music.

 

Celine’s much gifted voice has brought her numerous awards, tens of millions of album sales and sold-out concerts for years. It is her great popularity and huge fan base make her commercially successful, although she never really cares about this. The more I get to know her, the more I feel that she is much criticized and quite controversial. Of course this controversy has nothing to do with gossips, which she never has any. Too many music critics extremely hate her popularity and never appreciate her music, some of which even completely ignore the art of her songs and despise her almost-zero ability of composition. Here are my personal analysis and perspectives.

 

1) A Controversy of Meaning.

 

Many critics look down upon her too sentimental, schmaltzy or saccharine ballads which are overly positive, only speaking of trivial romantics but never heat topics or serious affairs. They resume that only rebellion, anger and absurdity can represent cool arts, and only open challenge and blatant confrontation can reflect personalities. They wrongly believed that Celine thinks the world is paradise simply because she herself is in such a place. In fact, how can she not understand the tribulation of this world? Celine’s niece, Karine, was born with a congenital disease (Cystic Fibrosis). Due to her close relationship with Karine, Celine intensively and constantly feel the influential force of the brutal fate, before and after Karine’s death in her arms, in her singing voice. Later on, when she performed The Power of the Dream at the opening ceremony of Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996, she didn’t agree with a sentence in that lyrics “It’s the moment that you think you can’t, you will discover that you can.” , for she clearly knows that someone or something is doomed to be a tragedy.

 

However, Celine is not going to change the world like other singers. She only wants to enter people’s lives through her music and lights up the world through love. It’s not like what some people claimed that she is totally blind to the disasters on the earth. In 2005 After Katrina Hurricane, Celine severely condemned the slow response of Bush government. With tears she shouted for those refugees: “Let them touch those things (the relief)” and donated one million US dollars. As to the Iraq War, Celine blamed and asked: “How could it be so easy to send planes to another country, and kill lives?” Back to that time when the war had just started, Celine was given a star in the Walk of Fame of Hollywood but she refused, saying: “I cannot imagine that I celebrate the success of my career when so many people are sacred in the shadow of wars.” When September 11 happened, Celine participated in “A Tribute to Heroes” Concert without second thought when she was still in her vacation, taking care of her 7-month-old baby son. Wearing a long black dress, she consoled those wounded hearts by singing God Bless America with her warm voice like a Maria. At that time, nationality doesn’t matter any more but love and hope does.

 

Celine never complains the reality. With a sensible heart and caring soul, charity work has become part of her life. Every time she visits St. Justine Children Hospital in Canada, she would shed tears. By now, she has collected more than one billion US dollars for this place, let alone her countless charity concerts, donations and auctions. She was handing out meals for AIDS orphans and playing with them when she was raising money in South Africa. She appeared in McDonald’s, preparing food and telling stories for children; she sang for unfortunate people on TV programs, encouraging and hugging them – she tries her best to help people. Isn’t that more beneficial than just expressing cynical opinions in music? Needless to say, many good avant-genre music has positive effect on our time, and Celine’s music is just different from it. There are simply no good or bad in taste; no high or low in comparison.

 

2) A Controversy of Form.

 

Adult Contemporary is Celine’s signature style but it is constantly blamed for changeless and progressless. Celine had grown up in rock music; her brothers and sisters were all playing instruments and had their own bands. Naturally, Celine learned to play the piano well (although she refuses public performances) and there is no problem for her to sing rock, jazz or even opera. However, Adult Contemporary played a dominant role in the end of last century and that style was deeply etched in her image. The time shaped Celine and there are little spaces for others. She is the Celine that forever sings The Power of Love, Because You Loved Me, It’s All Coming Back to Me Now, To Love You More, and My Heart Will Go On. When the curtain opens and when the light casts down, they are exactly what the audience want. Celine has been keeping her signature style for years, because she wants to meet the expectation from listeners but not to follow the taste from critics.

 

At the turn of the new century, adult contemporary quitted the main stream market. Does Celine need to chase the trends of R&B, Hip-hop or Teen-pop? Never does she. Her stable audience is sufficient for her to continue singing happily for her fans. Never becoming a diva of changing, she remains the diva of ballads. I admit that Celine is a typical commercial singer, but I can see her struggle between commercialization and personalization. She did try to come up with the market. One Heart (2003) is an example. Too many songs are of Britney-Spears category and are certainly not what she should pursue. Generally speaking, she doesn’t stray away from her main route and the lullaby album Miracle (2004) was her own willingness. To be honest, if Celine only cares about the sales of albums, why she bothers to record French ones?

 

Taking Chances (2007) was somehow changed a little, but not at all in essential. I agree that it will be a brand new feeling if every song is like Can’t Fight the Feeling, but Sony or anybody wants not to take chances. The Rolling Stone gave the album just one or half star but I don’t care the magazine that has never been confirmative about Celine’s accomplishment. Yes, one’s meat can be another one’s poison. Celine herself said that part of the reason to do a rock album is because of her son, who loves rock rather than his mom’s music and created a rock version of My Heart Will Go On when he was several years old. Also this album finally gave her an opportunity to record A Woman in Me, the song that she had been waiting for 15 years, because it was different from her other songs of previous albums. In some sense, this album fulfilled her own wish. As long as she was voluntary but not forced or controlled, I will support her anyway.

Edited March 25, 2009 at 03:43 AM by Shall

[Shall]

3) About Composition.

 

“I don’t write songs.” – Celine has long clarified her standpoint. Celine has been attacked too often due to this weakness. It’s true, and critics have every right to express their contempt. However, it doesn’t change the fact that Celine’s choice has been wise, too. Celine never received any formal education on music, and she even hadn’t finished the compulsory education. She dropped out of school in Grade 8. Luckily, from a little child star to an international diva, Celine has always been surrounded by prominent composers. Her first mentor and confidante, Eddy Marney, was able to capture every ounce of her subtle change in her growth and successfully provided suitable songs for her early albums till she said goodbye to her childhood. In later years, Celine’s partners came by one after another, from Luc Plamondon in the early stage to Jean Jacque Goldman (French Albums) and David Forster (English Albums) in the peak of her career. Quite a few songs and albums became record breaking and were remembered in the history of popular music.

 

Celine is a very concentrated and occupied perfectionist. Her only purpose is to sing perfectly, instead of being Jack of all trades but master of none. Therefore, She never pretends to be versatile and show off her talent, if she has any. That’s why she refuses to play the piano in public by saying that she isn’t playing it well enough.

 

In France, an artist will be looked down upon if he/she can’t compose. But Celine Dion is the only exception. Having conquered the proud and picky Frenchmen, Celine wins them over and gains such reverence and admiration. Besides this, Celine’s French with Quebec accent was often teased by French people and was impersonated on televison. However, she never feels inferiority about her background and always speaks confidently in her Quebec accent. Gradually, many of them almost forget all of her awkwardness and many more became crazy about her personal appeal. Whenever Celine walks out of the hotel in Paris, the crowd are excitedly calling her: Celine, Celine, Celine…

 

As a core fan of Celine, once I was eager to hear some songs written by herself. But instantly I realized that it won’t be Celine anymore. Her true emotion only bursts out with the voice; her soul only flourishes together with her powerful sound. During her spectacular performance, I can see through her telling eyes, shivering lips and the rolling tears, all of which contribute to a real Celine. If I’m asked what is Celine’s most beautiful moment, it must be on the stage, singing. Definitely.

 

--to be continued--

[SensationalCeline]

Great Essay. I loved reading it.

[Terre]

Nice job, thanks for sharing!