Whitney Houston - "I Will Always Love You". Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You" was one of my favourite songs when I was 12 years old, because I would sing along, at bat mitzvahs and middle-school dances, warbling with a grin on my face, making friends laugh. These days, I am not so fond of it - I fell too hard for Viking Moses' rendition, and Dolly's original. But still that opening minute, before the shiny band shows up, give a tremulous thrill, butterflies. I wonder now what Houston was singing for, or whom. "I Will Always Love You" was recorded for a film that is only 38% good. In The Bodyguard, Houston plays Rachael Marron, a fictional pop singer, and this song is one of Marron's hits. Thus: "I Will Always Love You" is sung in character. If Houston were a good actress, "I Will Always Love You" would be a perfect sublimation of Marron's feelings - a message from the pop-star to Kevin Costner or whoever, informed by the finaglings of an imaginary producer, an imaginary record label, an imaginary buying audience. It would not be Houston's song - it would be Marron's.

And so, thank goodness, Houston was not such a good actress. And "I Will Always Love You" is thus a ballad of this reality, true in this world, for Ottawa 12-year-olds and Chicago 30-year-olds, for you and you and you, everyone with a breaking heart or a whole one, the day before Saint Valentine's Day, when you just wait for a legendary singer to hit the right high notes.

Rest in peace.

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