With many declaring it’s almost Christmas as soon as they hear ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ and with just 40 days to go until the big day, This Morning sent Sam Rubin across to meet the Queen of Christmas herself, Mariah Carey.
When mentioned that most – in the UK – think of Mariah as an integral part of Christmas, the songstress smiled and said, “Well that’s fun to think! I love that! It feels like what you do when you set out to make music, to be a soundtrack to people’s lives.”
“It makes me happy because it’s talking about – for the most part – it’s about songs that I’ve written. They are literally the soundtrack of my life, because I wrote them and a lot of people come up to me and say ‘hey we listen to your Christmas album in July because we don’t care what month it is!’ so that’s pretty great.”
When Sam asked if she knew ‘All I Want For Christmas’ would become such an anthem, Mariah replied, “No, I didn’t and normally when people ask me the ‘did you know’ type thing, I pretty much say ‘yeah I had an idea or I knew’ but with this, I didn’t know.
“It was the first Christmas song I’d ever written and I just wanted it to be real to me. To my little girls’ self… like, what are the things I think about Christmas, what did I want, what did I wish for?”
She continued, “When I first wrote it, I wanted it to be timeless. I didn’t want it to be something that felt like a specific year – I wanted it to be something that I could have heard as a little kid growing up. I don’t know what version of Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer I heard as a kid, or Walking in a Winter Wonderland, but I just know that I loved those songs. So I wasn’t thinking ‘oh my song is going to be as big as those songs’ but I was like, ‘let me do something that makes me feel like I’m getting the experience of listening to a classic’.”
When asked if the music industry has changed over the years, Mariah admitted, “Yes, I think it’s harder to become an established artist now. You could just be on YouTube and if someone finds you, you’re a star, but it doesn’t last as long. I think people have to work a lot harder to have a career in this industry now.”
Revealing what she does to keep herself in tip-top condition vocally, Mariah said, “Rest is the best thing!”
Talking of her festive break and traditions of going to Aspen, Colorado, Mariah confessed, “I love having a snowy winter wonderland at Christmas, it’s the best. Afterwards, I want to go somewhere warm immediately! I feel like I would be missing Christmas if it wasn’t snowing.”
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