by Mariah Carey
I particularly remember her singing from a Carly Simon songbook, she would play from it all the time. If I asked her to play a song for me to sing, she’d happily oblige. She never pushed me to sing or practice, but she encouraged me. She knew early on I had her advanced ear for music. When I was five she arranged for me to have piano lessons for a short time. But rather than read the music, I would play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” by ear. “Don’t use your ear, don’t use your ear!” my teacher would implore. But I didn’t know how not to use my ear. Because music was a gift of freedom in my world of scarcity, the one place I felt unrestrained, I resisted the repetition and discipline required to learn how to read music and play the piano. Hearing and mimicking came so easily to me. This is one of several times I wish my mother had pushed me and made me sit and stick with it.
My mother and her guitarist friend would also sing standards from the 1940s (of course that’s the era I loved, not only for the glamour but because the melodies were so strong). She particularly loved Billie Holiday and would often sing her songs. I remember hearing my mother sing “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.” I learned it and we would sing it together, and I would instinctively scat, which I loved. It felt like my little-girl version of catching the Holy Spirit.
I learned several jazz standards from my mom and her musician pals, and some of them took note of my ear and natural abilities. At about twelve years old I would sit with her and Clint, a piano player. He was a big brown teddy bear, and he could play his ass off. He would sit and work with me and treat me like a serious musician. When I would sit with him and sing, we were just two musicians working together. He taught me jazz classics, and one of the first songs I remember learning was “Lullaby of Birdland,” made famous by the great Ella Fitzgerald. I will always have a profound respect for Ms. Fitzgerald and all the jazz legends who laid such a fertile musical foundation for musicians of all genres. It was not an easy song at any age, but for me at twelve, it was beyond advanced. With its intricate melody, full of vocal shifts and changes, it was composed for one of the most nimble jazz vocalists of all time. Learning and listening to live jazz helped train my ear and shape my creative wiring. I was learning how to feel when to modulate and when to scat. Being introduced to jazz standards and a jazz discipline gave me my appreciation for sophisticated modulations in a song and how to employ them to communicate emotion. (Stevie Wonder is the absolute master of this.)
For me, songs are always about emotion. My mother may not have taken me to church, but jamming with jazz musicians was close to a spiritual experience. There’s a creative energy that flows through the room. You learn to sit and listen to what the other musicians are doing, and you get inspired by a guitar riff or what the pianist is playing. When you are in a zone, it is a miraculous madness. For me, it was always an exquisite escape, which I desperately needed and always sought.
By the time I was eleven or twelve my mother was taking me to a supper club on Long Island to sit in with her and other musicians. There was a dining room on the ground floor where they would serve dinner, and upstairs was live jazz. I was in the sixth grade, up in there at all hours of the night, any day of the week, sitting in with grown-ass musicians. I’m not sure if my mother just wanted to be able to hang out at night and sing and not be stuck in the shack—I mean “cottage”—with a kid, or if she was consciously developing me as an artist, or if maybe she wanted to present to her friends her little protégée? I do remember her encouraging me while I sang. I felt more welcomed (and natural) with jazz musicians at night in the club than with my classmates during the day—those kids who asked incessantly, “What are you?” those kids who judged me by the way I looked and had no idea what my life was really like. I always knew that the world of suburban Long Island wasn’t for me. I was a fish out of water, and though I survived it, I knew that no one there really cared about me, and I certainly knew I wasn’t staying.
And my mother wasn’t just any old mom supporting me—she was a Juilliard-trained musician. Music was something we genuinely connected on, and without pushing or becoming one of those overbearing stage mothers or “momagers,” she instilled in me the power of believing in myself. Whenever I mused about what I’d do “if I make it,” she would cut me short and say, “Don’t say ‘if I make it,’ say ‘when I make it.’ Believe you can do it, and you will do it.”
The fact that I believed I could become a successful artist is one of my greatest strengths. Around the same time, my mother entered me in a talent competition in the city and I sang one of my favorite songs: “Out Here On My Own” by Irene Cara.
I felt “Out Here On My Own” described my entire life, and I loved singing that way—singing to reveal a piece of my soul. And I won doing it. At that age, I lived for the movie Fame, and Irene Cara was everything to me. I related to her multicultural look (Puerto Rican and Cuban), her multitextured hair, and, most importantly, her ambition and accomplishments. She won an Oscar for Best Original Song for “Flashdance … What a Feeling” (which she cowrote), from Flashdance, making her the first Black woman to win in a category other than acting. (She won a Grammy, a Golden Globe, and an American Music Award for the song too.) But “Out Here On My Own” was such a pure song that touched my heart, and I couldn’t believe I won a trophy for singing a song I loved. It was the first time I’d received validation as an artist. What a feeling.
It wasn’t just music my mother exposed me to. She had friends who treated me like family, which helped offset all the shabby places we lived and the disheveled way I often looked.
My mother had a friend named “Sunshine,” who was short and quite a large woman, with a warm and generous heart. She wore her hair in two long ponytails, like Carole and Paula from The Magic Garden (a popular local kids’ TV show I loved, which was hosted by two young, hippie-esque women with a pink squirrel sidekick, who sang folksy songs and told stories, in the seventies and early eighties). Sunshine had big, older sons and no daughters, so she took an interest in me, especially in my disorderly and neglected appearance. She would often bring me cute, girlie clothes that she made herself. On my sixth birthday, she outfitted me in a white embroidered shirt paired with a blue skirt, white tights, and Mary Jane shoes. She even got my hair to lie down in pigtails (maybe being a Jewish woman and having textured hair gave her some insight). My birthday crown sat nicely right on top. She even bought me a birthday cake decorated like a lamb! A lamb! It is one of the few times I remember feeling beautiful as a child. Sunshine lovingly made sure I looked put together and cute. She was never anything but caring and sweet to me. Years later, when I was going into junior high, she came by with some clothes for me that I felt were too childish. I rejected them rudely, in the cruel fashion of an angsty preteen. To this day, I regret how mean I was to such a considerate caretaker—one of the few in my whole life.
I tried my hardest to accept all my mother’s unfortunate choices in men. I even tried to impress them. (Some of the names have been changed to protect the dickheads.) Tales of a certain man in my mother’s life right before my father loomed large in our household. We knew his name, François, we knew he was Lebanese, and we knew he was rich. Despite her great talents, my mother, like many women of her era, subscribed to the belief that a man was her most reliable source of security. The time between the relationships she had with François and with my father was not long; it was even sometimes suggested there had been some overlap, which led to the suspicion that perhaps Morgan was not my father’s child. Drama.
After the divorce from my father, my mother and François reconnected, and she planned an epic reunion with “the rich man who got away.” My mother got Morgan and me excited about the fantasy that a wealthy, exotic man would come and sweep us up out of our run-down digs, and we would be set for life—all we had to do was impress him. I could do that, I thought. Maybe my mother and I could sing a song at the piano? The night of their big date arrived, and while my mother and François were out, I pulled together the best l
ittle outfit I could to greet him. I was nervous, because my mother wanted to be rescued bad, and I wanted to be in a nice, safe place too. The stakes were high.
I was home alone when my mother and François returned (I was home alone a lot as a child). Determined to do my part to make this relationship work for my mother, I ran to the door. François came in ahead of her. He was a tall, imposing older man in a dark suit with sharp, mysterious features. “Hello!” I began cheerily, perhaps throwing in a curtsy for dramatic effect. “Shut up!” he barked. “Where is my son!?”
The force of his words crushed every bit of enthusiasm out of me. He was scary. I was only a kid, and this big stranger had stormed into my house, dismissed me, and screamed at me. I ran crying to my mother’s bedroom. She tried to calm me down, but I was inconsolable. I’m not sure if François ever saw Morgan (who had our father’s Black features running all up and through him). But needless to say, no rich, heroic man saved us that day; no man “saved” us any day.
I did not like or trust most of my mother’s men. She had one older Black boyfriend, Leroy, who tried to “protect” us from Morgan during one of his more violent episodes by saying, “I got my piece,” and flashing a pistol. Imagine that: your mother’s boyfriend carrying a gun and threatening to use it on her teenage son, your brother. Sadly, it did make me feel safer; Morgan had become a scary presence to me by then.
However, my mother’s men were not all bad. Nothing and no one is ever all bad. There was a sweet man in my mother’s life named Henry. He was my favorite. He was about ten years younger than my mother and a horticulturalist. He drove an old red pickup truck, outfitted for the field; his many gardening tools, tree cuttings, mulch, and other supplies would stick out from the back. He knew his trade. He was very well educated and grew extraordinary plants that towered over me (mainly some species that were illegal at the time). He also grew an impressive Afro that seemed to float around his head. My mother and I lived in a few different places with Henry, but for a while the three of us were in a small house on a grand estate, where he was the gardener. The place gave me plantation vibes, and we lived in the modern equivalent of the servants’ quarters. But still, Henry’s house was nicer than most of the houses we’d lived in and gave me a brief moment of stability.
I was in the third grade when we lived there, and Henry built me a swing on a big, old tree that was near what looked to me like a mini-mountain made of garbage. One day he brought home two rescue kittens, one for me and one for him. I liked his better; he was orange, with a very special spirit. Ultimately he became mine. He grew to be big and squishy, and his name was Morris, like the icon. I’d sit and swing with him on my lap. We truly loved each other. I confided in him when I had a really hard day at school, which was often. I never fit in with the kids, who were all white and most of whom lived in the estates in that neighborhood. I was the child of the girlfriend of the hired help, and they let me know it. I brought my troubles to Morris. Even if I had had any friends I wouldn’t have wanted them to see I lived near a trash dump. Once, when I was really upset after having a pretty big argument with my mother, I ran out of the house, grabbed my cat, and headed for my place. While swinging over the hill o’ garbage with Morris in my lap, the smell of rotting food wafting over my face, I promised myself no matter what, I would never forget what it felt like to be a child—a moment I re-created years later in the “Vision of Love” video. (Sans the garbage. I wanted to be sentimental, not bleak.)
I really liked Henry; he was an Aries just like me. We would dance, and he would pick me up and twirl me around. He provided me with glimpses of what the life of a carefree little girl could be. Henry was kind, and he paid for my second year of performing arts summer camp. I remember his mother, who used to work for Estée Lauder and was an exceptional cook. One day she laid out a divine soul food spread, ending with a German chocolate cake, which I had never had before. It was a delicious, warm, gooey, homemade pile of happiness. But with all that love also came darkness. Henry was a Black Vietnam veteran and was severely damaged by the consequences of both of those identities. I suspect he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and, even as a kid, I was aware of his occasional psychedelic drug usage. I believe the fallout from his experiences of war and racism was the root cause of why he and my mother broke up.
One day near the end of my third-grade school year I got home and my mother was up in arms. She announced, “We can’t stay here anymore. We have to leave now.”
She already had our things packed and in her car. Henry was sitting in a chair in the middle of the kitchen. The lights were off, and I could see the strong silhouette of his Afro. He was holding a long double-barreled shotgun in one of his hands. Staring down at the white linoleum floor, he said very calmly, “You’re not leaving me. I’m not gonna let you guys leave.” He never raised his head or voice and seemed to be in a kind of trancelike state.
“I’m not going to let you guys go,” he said. “I’m going to chop you up and put you in the refrigerator and make you guys stay here.” Well, after he said that, I rushed to get into the car. My mother started the engine.
“Morris!” I screamed. “I have to get Morris; he’s still in there!” Panicked, I jumped out of the car. I was determined to get my cat. That cat represented too much for me; he was unconditional love to me.
“Be careful,” my mother said, as she let me reenter a house occupied by an armed man who had just threatened to chop us up. (Henry never did anything to hurt me and perhaps she believed he wouldn’t now, but still.) I had to pass the kitchen, with Henry and the shotgun, to search the other rooms for Morris. When I finally found him, I scooped him up in my arms, ran out of the house, and jumped in the car. As we sped off, my heart was going a mile a minute. “Hallelujah, I got Morris!” I triumphantly exclaimed.
I never knew what happened between her and Henry, and I never saw him after that day. I heard that many years later, while he was riding down the road in his same vintage red pickup, “‘Vision of Love,’ by Mariah Carey,” came bursting through his old radio. I was told that he rolled down the window and yelled out into the fresh air, “She made it! She made it!” I really hope Henry made it too.
My mother did occasionally try to give us moments. She would save up a little money so we could do things like go to dinner in New York City. And it was on these excursions that I developed a taste for “the finer things.” I have a distinct memory of one night when we were riding back from the city. I was looking out the back window at the New York City skyline, and I said to myself, This is where I’m going to live when I grow up. I want to have this view.
I always knew we lived in shitty places among other people’s nice houses in the suburbs. I never dreamed I’d get married and live in a big white Victorian house, or even a cozy little home like my guncles. But I did envision something grand. I remember watching Mommie Dearest and seeing Joan Crawford’s pristine manor. That’s what I want, I thought.
I even believed I could surpass its splendor. Even then, I saw myself living in a mansion or more, because I knew I would realize my dreams. And when I saw the New York skyline, looking like a giant silver crystal encrusted with multicolored jewels, I envisioned I would live somewhere where I could see that. And I do. I see it clearly; I see the entire city from the rooftop of my downtown Manhattan penthouse. As a result of a lot of hard labor, I went from swinging over garbage to singing in a mansion in the sky.
So yes, my mother exposing me to beauty and culture gave me encouragement and lifelong lessons that contributed both to my art and to what is good in me. But my mother also created persistent turmoil, which caused trauma and deep sadness. It has taken me a lifetime to find the courage to confront the stark duality of my mother, the beauty and the beast that coexist in one person—and to discover there’s beauty in all of us, but who loved you and how they loved you will determine how long it takes to realize it.
Looking back now, I can see that in my early years, there wa
s significant neglect. For one, there were the people my mother let be around me, particularly my violent brother, my troubled sister, and their sketchy cohorts. And I often looked a mess, though I believe that was likely a result of my mother being oblivious (in the name of being bohemian) rather than malicious. However, I noticed a shift in our relationship when I was about fourteen years old. One night, as we were riding together in the “Dodge dent,” as she called it, “Somebody’s Watching Me,” by Rockwell, came on the radio. It was a huge international hit on Motown Records at the time, and I loved it, largely because Michael Jackson sang the hook. We were driving and bopping along with the song when my mother broke out into Michael’s signature part of the chorus. “I always feel like / Somebody’s watching me.”
She sang it in an elaborate, operatic style, and I turned my face to the window to hide my giggle. I mean, it’s a very eighties R & B record, with the hook sung in Michael Jackson’s impeccably smooth signature style, so to hear it delivered like Beverly Sills (a popular Brooklyn-born operatic soprano from the 1950s to the 1970s) was pretty hilarious to my teenage singer’s ears.
Oh, but Mother was not amused. She whipped the volume knob down and glared at me, her brownish-green eyes narrowing and hardening to stone.
“What’s so funny?” she spat. Her seriousness quickly swallowed up the silliness of the moment. I stuttered, “Um, well … that’s just not how it goes.” She stared at me until every bit of lightness faded. Almost growling, she said, “You should only hope that one day you become half the singer I am.” My heart dropped.