Toni Braxton tore up the charts with this tortured torch song and had one of the biggest hits of all time. 'Un-Break My Heart' was written by Diane Warren and produced by David Foster. Warren remembers, "the first spark was the title, which I thought was really cool. No, I wasn't suffering from a broken heart when I wrote it, but of course I know what it feels like. Writing a song like that is method songwriting, like being a method actor. I'm in character when I write the song and I'm playing a part and feeling everything. It was a relatively simple song to write, and it doesn't have a lot of words, so one challenge is to make sure that every line has significance. That's the case in every song, of course, but in this case I had to tell a story in very few words, so it was even more important." Shanice Wilson and Chante Moore did the backup vocals on the recording. Warren says Braxon "didn't want to do the song. She hated it. But I was there for her vocal performance in the studio, and predicted that she'd win a Grammy for it. And she did." (for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance). 'Un-Break My Heart' was a number one hit in Austria, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States, where it spent eleven weeks at the top and became the one thousandth number one single in Billboard history.
Don't leave me in all this pain
Don't leave me out in the rain
Come back and bring back my smile
Come and take these tears away
I need your arms to hold me now
The nights are so unkind
Bring back those nights when I held you beside me
Un-break my heart
Say you'll love me again
Undo this hurt you caused
When you walked out the door
And walked outta my life
Un cry these tears
I cried so many nights
Un-break my heart
My heart
Take back that sad word good-bye
Bring back the joy to my life
Don't leave me here with these tears
Come and kiss this pain away
I can't forget the day you left
Time is so unkind
And life is so cruel without you here beside me
Un-break my heart
Say you'll love me again
Undo this hurt you caused
When you walked out the door
And walked outta my life
Un-cry these tears
I cried so many nights
Un-break my heart
My heart
Don't leave me in all this pain
Don't leave me out in the rain
Bring back the nights when I held you beside me
Un-break my heart
Say you'll love me again
Undo this hurt you caused
When you walked out the door
And walked outta my life
Un-cry these tears
I cried so many, many nights
Un-break my
Un-break my heart
Come back and say you love me
Un-break my heart
Sweet darlin'
Without you I just can't go on
Can't go on
Only Shanice did the background on this song.
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