NEW YORK – It sounds impossible, but that's the magic of it. On Thursday, a new Whitney Houston song arrives 13 years after her death.
English singer Calum Scott is responsible. The single is a duet between Scott and Houston, a balladic reinterpretation of the timeless “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me),” using Houston's original vocal stems. (Stems are the individual musical elements that, when combined, make up a song.)
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“It wasn’t even something I could have dreamt as a possibility, and the fact that I'm getting to do it is, geez, one of the honors of my career,” Scott told The Associated Press. Houston's voice is one that soundtracked his childhood — courtesy his mom — and he refers to Houston as one of the most influential performers in his life and the lives of many.
“Timeless,” he describes her.
Here's how the new song came into existence.
Recording with a giant
Such an undertaking couldn't be possible without the approval of a number of parties. Specifically, it required Pat Houston, Whitney’s sister-in-law and the executor of her estate, and Primary Wave, which acquired the copyrights to hit Whitney Houston songs as part of a 2022 deal.
Pat Houston says the idea for Scott's “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” actually came from Primary Wave. They were familiar with Scott's live cover version of the song from his stint opening for Ed Sheeran in 2024. On that tour, Scott stripped the 1987 classic down into a ballad, blending it with Robyn's “Dancing On My Own.”
After hearing what Scott could do with the song — taking it from its up-tempo pop spirit to a big-hearted ballad, while also taking into consideration that 2025 marks the 40th anniversary of Houston's music career — Pat Houston was on board. It was yet another opportunity for celebration. “I said, you know what, this is a no-brainer. This is the Houston style. So, let’s go with this,” she said.
“Whitney was a balladeer and that’s why we all fell in love with her,” she continued. “And Calum turned the song into a beautiful ballad.”
From pop hit to ballad
First, the Houston estate and Primary Wave provided Scott with the original vocal stems, produced by her longtime producer Narada Michael Walden. Then Scott recorded the song with producers Jon “MAGS” Maguire, Andrew Yeates and Charlie T in the U.K. in “about a week,” he recalls. They were joined by a string section, which gave additional dimension to their somber take on the song.
“Take a pop song and make it sad,” Scott jokes of his approach.
Recording the ballad made sense because, as Scott points out, the lyrics to the original song are a bit melancholic. “You want to dance with somebody who loved you, you know, you're not actually dancing with them,” he says. It's about yearning. But in an early demo, the chorus was recorded in a minor chord — which sounded a bit too depressing. The change was made swiftly; even slowed, the song needed some of that Houston ebullience.
Another early decision: The new song would start with just Houston's voice, alone, in the first verse. “Whitney starts the song because this is her song,” Scott says simply. “I would never dare stand in front of Whitney for that first verse.”
Eagle-eyed (eared?) fans might notice the sound of a snare drum bleeding into her vocal on that verse — because it was originally recorded to tape, not digitally, and because “we can’t change anything like that because those are etched into the song and into her vocal,” says Scott. “And to remove it would be taking a piece away.”
It's one of the reasons they kept the song's iconic key change in the last chorus as well.
“I really had to dig for those high notes,” he says of the recording. “It was an honor just to harmonize with her.”
Getting the blessing
Scott looked to the original songwriters for approval — the dream team of George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam. They were immediately on board.
“Some people would have come in and they would have added something ... to boost their visibility next to Whitney. And he had the boldness to tear it all down and just have acoustic piano, just Whitney, and then give her the first verse,” said Merrill. “And I mean, this is his project. To me, that’s showing such respect.”
That, and they recognize Scott as a virtuosic vocalist. “His music really features his voice, as with Adele or Whitney, and rightly so because he can carry it off,” said Rubicam. “There aren’t just hundreds of people who can carry that off with his kind of power.”
“They’re a good vocal match together,” she adds. “They both got a lot of emotionality and command also of their vocal instrument. ... Whitney could overpower a lot of people. But for Calum, he’s confident and he had a vision about it and they both are meeting at an emotional level.”
A duet and a collaboration — but not a tribute
“I felt like I gently walked alongside Whitney,” says Scott. The song is meant to feel alive, channeling the spirit of Houston — not a tribute, but an active single. It's why their version of “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” will be featured on his new album “Avenoir,” out Oct. 10.
“This is as much part of my story as any other song on the album,” he says. “Just being given the honor of it has been, you know, I could die a very happy man now.”
“Forty years ago, this particular song was hot then and it’s hot now,” says Pat Houston. “So why not keep producing. But it’s the right connection, it's the right platform and it certainly is the right artist to collab with her on this.”