Cher had to be heavily persuaded before she said yes to recording “If I Could Turn Back Time.” The writer of the song, iconic songwriter Diane Warren, revealed this during a 2021 People interview. “She hated it,” Warren said when discussing Cher’s reaction to hearing the demo of “If I Could Turn Back Time.” Warren then had to beg the musician to sing the track, which ultimately did the trick.
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“I went to the studio and literally got on my knees and said, ‘I’ll pay for it. If you don’t like it, don’t use it.’ She agreed,” Warren said. Right away, Cher realized that Warren had been right about the song being one worth recording. “I remember looking at her in the booth and the look on her face when she sang the opening line, like, ‘You b****, you were right,'” Warren said. Furthermore, in an archival interview, Cher spoke about her initial reaction to “If I Could Turn Back Time.” She said of Warren, “She kept saying, ‘You’ve got to do this song. You’ve got to do this song.’ I said, ‘Let me go back to sleep. This is terrible.'” Cher then complimented Warren’s top-notch songwriting skills. “I don’t know if she loves writing, but she’s a great writer. I mean, there’s nobody better than her.”
