Hey everyone; here comes another entry in Better Than The Original; posts where I share a story about a song and how it was either altered, covered or downright never meant to be released until someone else did so — and give you a taste of preference over which one tickles your fancy a bit more.

For the second tale, here’s a story of a song that was released twice in a span of three years — but many don’t actually realize that it was.

Songstress Celine Dion caught wind of American success early on with her second English album, which was self-titled. Among the songs on the 1992 recording was the theme for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as well as it’s second single, “If You Asked Me To”.

The track, written by Diane Warren reached the top 5 of the Billboard 100 and helped began a reign of hit upon hit for the French-born Canadian and is regarded as one of her classics.

Except it actually wasn’t hers to begin with.

“If You Asked Me To” was originally released 3 years earlier by the legendary Patti LaBelle as the first single for her seventh solo album, Be Yourself — and the recording of the video for the song actually held some deep sentiment for the singer.

The music video was filmed shortly after Jacqueline “Jackie” Padgett died of lung cancer at age 43, and just one day after her funeral. (She was the third of Patti LaBelle’s sisters to die; all three of Patti’s sisters died before age 44.) As such, the context of the song changed dramatically, as a mourning LaBelle, dressed in black, sings the song in a church (with candles and mourning lilies), intercut with shots of her in tears.

Patti’s version of the song, however, only hit #79 on the Billboard 100, but fared much better on the R&B charts.

“I knew the song was a hit when I recorded it, and I was happy that Celine did it and did so well with it”, she shared via the liner notes of a Greatest Hits album in 1999. “But the arrangements are so close and we both have pretty powerful voices…so who knows why my version didn’t take off. Maybe it was timing…”

Perhaps one just had more luck with the song than the other — but it’s hard to point it to that when both songs pretty much don’t veer off the original sound songwriter Warren had in mind.

As time has gone on, Patti’s version has fallen by the wayside and also she has many other hits on her own to her name, it does boggle the mind a bit.

Check out both versions of “If You Asked Me To” after the jump and see which one catches your ear.

via YouTube