Aerosmith’s megahit I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing was originally written for a woman to sing.
Songwriter Diane Warren has revealed the band’s sole U.S. number one – for the 1998 movie Armageddon – was penned with a woman’s voice in mind, but she changed her mind after hearing Steven Tyler in the studio.
“I was shown the end of the movie,” Warren told Rolling Stone.
“So I went back and wrote the song… and never in a million years thought Aerosmith would do it,” she admitted.
“I kind of thought a female vocalist would end up doing it, but it’s so much more powerful with Steven Tyler – him being that vulnerable in the song really worked,” she went on, recalling: “I remember the first time hearing it and just being literally knocked off my chair with how great that was. That should have won Record of the Year (at the Grammys). That was a great record.”
Warren has also opened up about begging Cher to record her song If I Could Turn Back Time in 1989.
“I got on my hands and knees and held her leg down until she said she’d try it out,” she says. “I go, ‘Look, I’ll pay for the tracks. If it doesn’t work, then it’s all my cost. I know the song’s right for you’,” she recounted, adding: “She said, ‘I’ll do it. I’ll try it’. And that’s probably my most iconic song!”
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