Six Days Until Christmas: “All I want for Christmas…” (Mariah Carey)
Authors: Mariah Carey / Walter Afanasieff
Year of publication: 1994
There are good salaries and excellent salaries, but what would you say about collecting, every December, from 500,000 to 700,000 euros in royalties for just one song? Not bad, huh? All you need to do is write a song like “All I Want for Christmas Is You”, as Mariah Carey did in 1994, and wait for it to be the most listened to song during the Christmas period every year, in the United States as in Italy, according to Spotify. And given that the song was released 27 years ago, it has been calculated that the total earnings are around 19 million euros. Just for one song.
But it hasn’t always been a bed of roses for Mariah Carey. Born to an Irish mother and a black, Afro-Venezuelan father, who divorced early, Mariah experienced poverty and struggled with her racial identity as a child. She said in 2018: «My mother chose to live in predominantly white neighborhoods, where people had more money than us, and I didn’t fit in. Or in an all-black neighborhood when my parents were together; as a mixed couple, they had some problems there… so it seemed like it wasn’t the right place for me.”
Little Mariah has dreamed of having the perfect Christmas since she was little. “I started thinking, ‘What are all the things I think about at Christmas?’ Lights, gifts, stockings, fireplaces – she said – I have always loved Christmas so much throughout my life, but I grew up without much money, therefore not being able to experience it like other children did.” It is starting from these assumptions that Mariah Carey, in 1994, decided to record an album of Christmas songs in which, in addition to some classics, she also included some original songs. In reality, the record company does not seem enthusiastic about the singer’s choice, because these albums, in this period, are generally released when the artists’ careers are waning; but Tommy Mottola, Mariah’s then-husband and head of Columbia’s parent label, Sony Music Entertainment, definitely tips the scales.
So in a sultry August Mariah and her trusted co-author Walter Afanasieff lock themselves in the studio to create something that, unexpectedly, will become a Christmas classic. The singer loves the soul music of the 60s, and it is in that style that she would like to make “her” Christmas song. “We always wrote the songs the same way,” Afanasieff said. “First we composed the core of the song, the music of the melody, and then some of the words were already there as we finished writing it. I started playing rock ‘n’ roll on the piano, doing a boogie woogie with my left hand, and that inspired Mariah to come up with the melody.”
The two complete the song in just 15 minutes, at least in terms of melody and lyrics, but the pianist thinks it’s a little too simple, so he inserts a lot of chords into the harmony, which even if you don’t hear much in the end makes the song a little more special. Afanasieff: “That’s why it’s so popular, because it’s so simple and catchy and it doesn’t get out of your head.”
He initially attempted to record the song in California with a live band, but Afanasieff wasn’t satisfied with the end result, so he decided to do it all himself, programming every aspect of the song with keyboards: bass, drums, and assorted festive sound effects, such as jingling bells. Dann Huff added guitar and Mariah was accompanied on vocals by Melanie Daniels and sisters Kelly and Shanrae Price, all with gospel backgrounds. The final result is exactly what the singer wants: “It’s a very traditional and old-fashioned Christmas” she said herself. “It’s very retro, a bit ’60s. But it’s the feeling I wanted the song to capture. There is sweetness, clarity and purity.” Lyrically, the song says that the singer who doesn’t care about the usual material aspects of the holiday season such as ornamental lights, trees, snow and presents, but that all she wants for Christmas is to be with the one she loves.
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” was released as the first single from the album “Merry Christmas” in Japan on October 29, 1994, and in the rest of the world the following month, reaching number one in the charts in various countries including Great Britain, Australia, France, Germany, Denmark, Hungary, Greece, Portugal and Italy. Strangely, the song was not immediately released as a single in the United States, except as a promotional album, but its success was nevertheless enormous, bringing the public and critics together for once, and becoming the best-selling Christmas song by a female artist and one of the best-selling singles of all time, selling over 16 million copies worldwide.
The song was certified Diamond in the United States, the first Christmas song to achieve this. It is also Mariah Carey’s best-selling single in the United Kingdom, where it was certified six times platinum. As mentioned, since its first release “All I Want for Christmas Is You” regularly returns to the charts every year during the Christmas holidays, and on December 24, 2018 it set the single-day record for the highest number of streams on Spotify, with almost 11 million listens. Over the years the song has been performed by many artists, from Justin Bieber to Jon Bon Jovi, from Michael Bublé to Shania Twain, from Miley Cirus to Tony Hadley up to our own Giorgia and Cristina D’Avena.
And if you want further proof of the power of this song, in 2010 an English farmer named Angus Wielkopolski discovered that goats produce more milk by listening to this melody than any other song. The discovery was made on the farm at St. Helen’s, near York, where staff listen to music while milking, finding that goats produce an extra 250ml of milk when “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is played on a loop.
This sheet is taken from the book “What songs don’t say – Vol. 2” by Davide Pezzi
