Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Not only is she the solo artist withthe most No.
1s (19)and the artist with the most weeks at No.
(Andwho else could pull off a whole secret grunge album?)
Here are the stories behind 13 of Careys songs, as she tells them in her memoir.
I figured out the setup.
I experimented with the songs, she writes.
I did dance tracks, straight down the line, all different sounds.
I learned how to produce under pressure.
I was in the studio, doing it.
The song, she adds, remains one of my favorites.
Hero
Carey originally intended thisMusic Boxhit for Gloria Estefan, for the Dustin Hoffmanstarring movieHeroes.
She came up with the chorus on her way back from the bathroom during a studio meeting.
I hummed the tune and some of the lyrics, she remembers.
I did my best to reclaim it, but it was a gift no matter who it was for.
Hero belonged to my fans, and I was going to deliver it to them with all I had.
But Puff made it happen.
I couldnt contain myself, she writes of the moment she heard his iconic intro.
I may have even started jumping up and down on the bed!
Of the verse, she adds, That was IT!
Mottola, who generally considered rap background noise, wasnt a fan.
The fuck is that?
Carey remembers him saying.
I can do that.
Get the fuck outta here with that.
Carey, though, says she couldnt stop listening to the remix.
It felt like all the fun I had missed out on in my childhood, she writes.
The Roof (Back in Time) was my first complete docu-song, she writes.
Its exactly what happened.
Her budding relationship with Jeter, she says, inspired her like never before.
I was hearing different melodies, and I had new, real experiences to draw from.
Carey also co-produced the song with Afanasieff.
I needed it to be strong and simple, she writes.
Honey
Jeter continued to inspire Carey onButterflys lead single, which she started in Puerto Rico.
She says the sample of Hey!
DJ doubled as a secret shoutout to Derek Jeter.
Honey was a song about jonesin for that DJ feeling.
After hearing Honey, Mottola told Carey, Well, Im glad you were so inspired.
Carey also details thepreviously plannedremix featuring the Notorious B.I.G.
The idea came from her and Puff to replicate the feel of the Fantasy remix.
I had no doubt he would come in the studio and crush it; thats what Biggie did.
Biggie died before he was set to record the remix, which Mase and the Lox featured on instead.
Specifically, Crybaby came from reminiscing with a friend on her relationship.
In my best Joan Crawford voice, I lamented, The mother loved me!
The sister loved me!
The father loved me!
It could have been perfect!
There was so much energy surging through my body that the champagne glass I was holding completely shattered.
I took that intensity and put it in Crybaby.
And if youre going to criticize Carey for writing so many songs about Jeter, she already knows.
I milked and mined my limited time with DJ for much more than it was worth.
When You Believe
Thismeeting of iconswith Whitney Houston happened for the DreamWorks blockbusterThe Prince of Egypt.
To us, it never felt like a competition.
We complemented each other.
That went for outside the recording booth as well.
She had a marvelous sense of humor, Carey continues.
She started using my words and calling me lamb it was just pure fun.
Tommy knew fucking with my artistic choices was particularly low.
But I wouldnt let him stop me.
Yet she stays cryptic about the story behind this jazzy love song.
Though the song was about a brief and fleeting fling, it wasnt a resentful song.
I knew this song was going to be something meaningful, she writes.
I begged him not to leave yet.
He stayed to work on the song and then went to New York City to record the live band.
Carey worked on the vocals for two days straight at her studio in Capri.
She worked through the night and finished the song the next morning.
The sun was rising as the background vocals were peaking: Carry me higher!
I closed my eyes, knowing God had laid His hand on the song and on me.
Careys pastor, Bishop Clarence Keaton, reads two Bible verses on the track.
Twenty-five years after its release, the song became Careys 19th No.
1 as well as the first No.
1 of the new decade.
Carey learned the news during a holiday vacation in Aspen.
Thats only something genuine fans, not just marketing plans, can do, she writes.
