The Meaning of Mariah Carey

by Mariah Carey

  I was giddy with excitement when it was time to present the house I had created to my mother. I was proud of the work that I had done. To me, this house was also testimony to my ability to hold on to childhood desires, proof that the trauma and danger I had faced hadn’t destroyed my hope. My mother thought she was coming up to Sing Sing for one of our semiregular dinners. When I picked her up, I told her I had to swing by Tommy’s friend Carole’s house, which was nearby. When the wrought-iron gates I had installed swung open like welcoming arms from the stone pillars and we entered the property, I felt my mother go still, then heard her take a deep breath. Trees will do that: make you stop and breathe. She moved out of the car as if the fresh air was making her slow down.

  She looked up at the house in all its beauty. I watched her take in the grace of the flower boxes. And as Carole opened the front door, the aroma of rich coffee and hot cinnamon buns drifted past us. (I had orchestrated it to be brewing and baking when we arrived, as I wanted those details to set the mood.) My mother stood in the doorway and softly said, “Oh, Carole, your house is beautiful.” Playing right along, Carole offered to show her around, and I followed behind. When we got to the staircase my mother paused at the photos, but I could tell it didn’t quite register. So I broke her trance. “Mom, look at who’s in the pictures.” She was struck with utter confusion as she noticed her family on Carole’s wall. Faintly, she replied, “I … don’t understand.”

  “This is all for you. This is where you live now,” I said. She was speechless. And I was the proudest I’d ever been.

  Mike, who I completely treasure, was still quite little then. He went tearing through the house and out to the backyard, running along the plush grass, squealing with delight. He was full of such pure joy (and is still such a source of joy to me). He was free. A little boy playing in the afternoon breeze with no filth, just free. We had come full circle from swinging over trash heaps or being thrown out like garbage—or so I thought.

  * * *

  Along with the ballroom and couture shoe closets of Sing Sing, I built a fantastic state-of-the-art recording studio. Adjacent to the studio was a huge Roman-style swimming pool of white marble inside of a grand parlor. In these two places I found solace and solitude. They were a temporary reprieve and a chance to feel weightless—in the recording studio and in the water. But the studio, the pool, and I were all still confined, enclosed within the bounds of Sing Sing’s fortress.

  Under ordinary circumstances, the chance to have my own studio—custom-made to my exact specifications and at my disposal at any time—would have been liberating. In the early days of my career, I was at the mercy of other people to get studio time, grateful to be in grim little spaces, singing songs I didn’t like, bartering, doing whatever it took to get my songs recorded. And now, I had my own fully equipped, gorgeous recording studio. I imagined I could have my own sessions when I wanted to and call in the artists I wanted to work with, like Prince did. Sing Sing wasn’t Paisley Park, but it was fabulous, and it was mine. Well, half mine. There was a studio with sophisticated recording equipment, but there was also very sophisticated security equipment outfitted throughout the house—listening devices, motion-detecting cameras—recording my every move.

  A FAMILY

  So when you feel like hope is gone

  Look inside you and be strong

  And you’ll finally see the truth

  That a hero lies in you

  —“Hero”

  It was the middle of July 1993, and I was headed to Schenectady, New York, to record a Thanksgiving special for NBC. It was the first event to kick off promotion for my soon-to-be-released third studio album, Music Box. The first single, “Dreamlover,” would be dropping in a week, and the full album would be released on the last day of August. Schenectady, a typical industrial city in eastern New York, was largely made up of Eastern European immigrants and Black folks who had come from the South to work in the town’s cotton mill. It’s a straight shot north along the Hudson River from Hillsjail.

  The concert was to be taped in Proctors Theatre, a former vaudeville house complete with a red carpet, gold leaf galore, Corinthian columns, chandeliers, and Louis XV couches in the balcony promenade—the whole nine yards. Even though it was a beautiful, classic theater, it was not the setting I would have chosen, to be sure; nor would most twenty-year-olds in the early 1990s. But I made few decisions about my whereabouts then. Outside of the recording studio, every aspect of my life was decided by a committee in those days, with Tommy acting as chairman of the board. (Oddly enough, I was never invited to the meetings.)

  As we pulled up to the center of town, the streets seemed to be increasingly empty, and I began to notice a lot of police officers. Several streets were blocked off near the theater, patrolled by clusters of men in dark uniforms, outfitted with shiny shoes and black guns. The limo slowed to a crawl as I stared out the window, the eerily quiet streets rolling by. A familiar anxiety was rising inside, which I fought mightily to contain. I had to mentally prepare to present new songs in front of new people, a performance that would be televised to millions on a major network. I knew I couldn’t let my anxiety develop into fear. With the exception of the cops—who had called all these cops? I had my own security with me; in fact, I always had security with me—the street behind the theater, where the backstage door was located, was desolate.

  Before I was quickly whisked into my gilded dressing room, I caught a glimpse of crowds of people behind barricades. Though I now had a moment to settle in, I still felt anxious. Eventually I asked why the streets were blocked off and full of police. What in the world was happening in downtown Schenectady on this hot midsummer day?

  “Miss Carey,” they told me, “it’s for you. It’s because you were coming to do the show.”

  Apparently, masses of young fans were crowding the streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of me. At first, I couldn’t fully digest this response. What did they mean? The barricades, the squads of police, the emptied streets were because of me? My first album, Mariah Carey, had come out three years prior hitting and holding the number-one spot on the Billboard 200 chart for 11 consecutive weeks, remaining on the list for 113 weeks in total, with four singles going number one back-to-back. I had won Grammys for Best New Artist and the best female pop vocal performance, and received nominations for both Song of the Year and Record of the Year for “Vision of Love,” which I performed on The Arsenio Hall Show, Good Morning America, The Tonight Show, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. The album would go on to sell nine million copies in the United States alone and was still selling all over the world (it would go on to sell more than fifteen million copies). My second album, Emotions, had been released just the year before. I particularly adored working with David Cole (one half of the fab C + C Music Factory). He was a church kid who loved dance music (as evidenced on “Make It Happen”). As a producer, he pushed me as a singer, because he was one too. I released an EP with live versions of songs from my first two albums for the wildly popular show MTV Unplugged. It included a remake of the classic Jackson Five hit “I’ll Be There,” featuring my background singer and friend Trey Lorenz. The song quickly shot to number one after the show, making it my fifth number-one single and the second time “I’ll Be There” held the coveted spot. I performed “Emotions” at the MTV Video Music Awards and the Soul Train Music Awards. And here I was again, about to hit another stage, and somehow I had no clue that I was famous.

  For four solid years of my life, I was writing, singing, producing, and doing photo shoots, video shoots, press junkets, and promotional tours. All the awards and accolades I received were handed out in highly coordinated industry settings. It just seemed to be part of the work. If I had any “free” time I was sequestered in an old farmhouse up in the Hudson Valley. Tommy orchestrated all of it. I was in my early twenties.

  Because I was never alone, I had no comprehension of the impact my music and I were making on the outside world. I never had time to think or re
flect. I now believe that this was completely by design. Did Tommy know I would be easier to control if I were kept ignorant of the full scope of my power?

  I’m told that in the Music Box era, as a gift to me, my then makeup artist Billy B and hairstylist Syd Curry made a thoughtful scrapbook for me, in which they gathered little notes of love and appreciation from other artists or celebrities they worked with or saw in their travels. Joey Lawrence (remember Joey from Blossom?), who was such a heartthrob at the time, apparently left a significantly sweet message. Well, Tommy saw the lovefest of a book, ripped it up, and burned it in the fireplace before I was able to see it—a childish act of cruelty, especially to Billy and Syd, who went through all that effort to prove to me how big I was even among the stars.

  With no parental or familial management or protection, I was easy to manipulate, but the dynamic of my relationship with Tommy was complex. In many ways, Tommy protected me from my dysfunctional family, but he went to the extreme: he controlled and patrolled me. Yet his control also meant that in these early years, all my focus, all my energy, and all my passion went into writing, producing, and singing my songs. Tommy and his stranglehold on my movements seemed a fair price to pay for getting to do the work I had always dreamed of. He had my life, but I had my music. It wasn’t until that moment in Schenectady that I began to realize the degree of my popularity. I had fans! And soon they would become another source of my strength.

  In the dressing room, where I sat in a chair having my hair first straightened, then curled and sprayed, the magnitude of what I had just learned began to sink in. The police were not around because of some violent or dangerous incident—they were there to make a clear way for me. My family may not have provided me safety, my relationship may not have given me security, but realizing that there was a multitude of people showing up and pouring out love for me gave me a new kind of confidence. Because Tommy never allowed me to experience the glamorous privileges granted to the young, rich, and popular, the fame I discovered was solely defined through my relationship to my fans and their relationship to my music. I decided that day that I was prepared to be devoted to them forever.

  The Thanksgiving special was titled Here Is Mariah Carey, and I was going to debut three new songs from Music Box: “Dreamlover,” “Anytime You Need a Friend,” and “Hero,” along with some of my known hits—“Emotions,” “Make It Happen,” and of course, “Vision of Love.” I had always written songs from an honest place, using my own lived experiences and dreams as a source. I also pushed my vocals to their extreme. I was also going to debut “Hero.” It’s always a risk to debut songs at a live show that people have not had the opportunity to connect with through radio repetition. Even though I wrote “Hero,” it wasn’t originally intended for me to perform.

  * * *

  I was asked to write something for the movie Hero, starring Dustin Hoffman and Geena Davis. Tommy had agreed I would submit a song for the film, to be sung by Gloria Estefan, who was on Epic Records (Sony, Tommy’s label, was the parent company). I knew that Luther Vandross was also writing a song for the soundtrack, so I would be in great company. I hunkered down in Right Track, or the Hit Factory—one of the major studios where I had spent a major fortune. I was there that day with Walter Afanasieff.

  The plot of the film was explained to everyone in the studio in five minutes: a pilot goes around and rescues people. That’s about all I absorbed. Shortly after, I got up to go to the bathroom, one of the few activities I did unaccompanied by someone on Tommy’s payroll. I lingered in the stall to luxuriate in my fleeting moment of peace. Savoring my time, I slowly walked down the hall to return to the studio. As I walked, a melody and some words came clearly into my mind. As soon as I got back into the room, I sat right down at the piano and said to Walter, “This is how it goes.” I hummed the tune and some of the lyrics. As Walter worked to find the basic chords, I began to sing, “and then a hero comes along.” I guided him through what I had heard so vividly in my head.

  “Hero” was created for a mainstream movie, to be sung by a singer with a very different style and range than my own. Honestly, though I felt the message and the melody were fairly generic, I also thought it fit the bill. We recorded a rough demo, which I found a bit schmaltzy.

  But Tommy heard the potential for a classic. He insisted not only that we keep the song but that it was going on my new album. I was like, Okay. I’m glad he likes it. I finessed the song and made changes to the lyrics to make it more personal. For that, I went to the well of my memories and dipped into that moment when Nana Reese had told me to hold on to my dreams. I did my best to reclaim it, but it was a gift no matter who it was for.

  By the time of the Schenectady show, “Hero” had lost its simplicity and gained some depth. The initial trepidation I felt about singing it live for the first time in front of an audience was melting away as I thought about all the people who had lined the streets and packed the theater to see me that night. I decided that this song did not actually belong to Gloria Estefan, a movie, Tommy, or me. “Hero” belonged to my fans, and I was going to deliver it to them with all I had.

  The Thanksgiving special included inner-city kids from a local community organization. I saw the kids backstage, brimming with both promise and fear, and in them, I saw me. I would sing this song for them too. The concert opened with my latest hit, “Emotions”—upbeat and embellished with lots of my signature super-high notes. As I was singing “Emotions,” and through the several stops and retakes required (singing live for TV recording is tedious work), I was able to really look at the people in the crowd. This was Schenectady, and these were real folks—not paid seat fillers or trendily dressed extras but authentic, mostly young people with that unmistakable hunger and adoration in their eyes. I saw them for who they were, and they were me. I closed my eyes and said a prayer. As the first few chords of the piano intro played, I started to hum from my heart. When I opened my mouth, “Hero” was released into the world.

  Some of us need to be rescued, but everyone wants to be seen. I sang “Hero” directly to the faces I could see from the stage. I saw tears well up in their eyes and hope rise up in their spirits. Whatever cynicism I had about that song was gone after that night. But Tommy, too, had noticed the size of its impact.

  Later that year, on December 10, 1993, when I performed “Hero” at Madison Square Garden, I announced that all stateside sales proceeds would be donated to the families of victims of the Long Island Railroad shooting, which had happened three days prior. On a train—a route I’d ridden before—a man pulled out a 9-mm pistol and opened fire, killing six people and wounding nineteen. Three brave men, Kevin Blum, Mark McEntee, and Michael O’Connor, subdued him, thus preventing more slaughter. They were heroes, and so I dedicated “Hero” to them that night. Just ten days after the September 11 attacks, I sang the song as part of the America: A Tribute to Heroes telethon. And on January 20, 2009, I had the unthinkable, unparalleled honor of singing it at the Inaugural Ball of the first African American president of the United States of America. To this day, “Hero” is one of my most performed songs. Music Box would go on to reach diamond status in the United States and is one of the highest-selling albums of all time.

  And here’s a side note with a side eye: A couple of people have come for “Hero,” and for me, with both royalties and plagiarism claims. Three times I have been to court, and three times the cases have been thrown out. The first time, the poor fool going after me had to pay a fine. Initially I felt victimized, knowing how purely the song came to me, but after a while I almost began to expect lies and lawsuits to come with my success—from strangers and my own family and friends. And they won’t stop.

  * * *

  The taping that night in Schenectady took several hours. A television show has so many technical needs—multiple cameras, close-ups, far and cutaway shots, costume changes, hair and makeup touch-ups, extras, audience reactions—it’s a production. When we finally wrapped, I said all my than
k-yous to the kids, the choir, the orchestra, and the crew. Then, just as I had come in, I was whisked out the backstage door, which seemed to lead not to the street but straight into the limo.

  I plopped into the backseat, buzzing from a contradictory cocktail of exhaustion and exhilaration. As we pulled out into the street, I noticed that where there was once emptiness and a scattering of barricades, there were now crowds of people swelling over the flimsy metal partitions, screaming my name and “We love you!” I noticed the cops too, standing there, unfazed, in the pulsing midst of the energy and excitement. It was one thing to be informed, but quite another to see with my own eyes, hear with my own ears, and feel in my soul the reaction from real people to me and my music. What I felt that night in Schenectady was not idol worship, it was love. It was the kind of love that comes from honest connection and recognition. I was mesmerized as I looked out the window, watching all these people shower me with such love. Not just fans. A family.

  As the crowd faded from sight and we neared the outskirts of town, approaching the highway, my high began to wear off. And by the time the wheels touched the tar of the Taconic Parkway, the mood in the car had returned to its routine gloom. Most Thursday evenings Tommy and I would ride up the southern stretch of this highway, leaving glamorous Manhattan behind to spend the weekend in Hillsdale. As the lights and high-rises shrank in the rearview mirror and the magnetic pull of the city dimmed, a part of my life force grew faint as well.

  When the car radio, which stayed locked on Hot 97 (their then slogan: “blazing hip-hop and R & B”), would begin to break up, muffled by static, I knew my life as a Grammy award–winning singer-songwriter twenty-something was over. Every weekend, Tommy would turn off the radio that was my lifeline and take a moment of silence before popping in one of his beloved Frank Sinatra CDs. What a tragic metaphor, listening to Tommy hum “My Way” as he drove us back to my captivity.