("All I Want For Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey)
- First thing that you must realize,
people love every inch of that song.
They know the bassline, the drumbeat,
the piano part.
They know the sax part, they know the background vocals.
When you say Christmas,
it's Mariah's favorite time of the year.
It's her favorite holiday.
Mariah Carey is Christmas.
♪ Is ♪
♪ You ♪
(swishing)
- The thing is, I always wanted Christmas to be perfect
and I always looked forward to the holidays.
And then I have this incredibly dysfunctional family
that would ruin it every year.
Not my mom, my mom would try to make it fun.
But we didn't have a lot of money
so sometimes she would wrap up fruit
and whatever it was (laughs) that she could afford.
And I was like when I grow up,
I'm never gonna let that happen.
I'm gonna make Christmas perfect every year.
♪ Silent night ♪
- Mariah has always been a lover of the holidays.
She loves to go away to Aspen.
She wants snow on the ground.
We've gone up there and had reindeer and Santa Claus.
(laughs) I mean she goes all out.
- I used to call her Mariah Clause. (laughs)
Listen, she loves Christmas.
- I have such an emotional connection to Christmas.
And it wasn't about the gifts.
It was just about the hopefulness of the holiday season
and just feeling in the spirit,
and the need for me to express myself
and make a song that made me feel happy
at the holidays.
("Silent Night" by Mariah Carey)
I was approached by the record company.
This is like after I had done two albums and an EP,
somewhere in there.
And they were like "Why don't you do a Christmas album?"
And I just felt like don't people usually do that later on
in their career?
♪ Jesus ♪
♪ Oh what a wonderful child ♪
♪ Jesus ♪
- To release a Christmas album three to four years
into your career was practically unheard of at the time.
A Christmas album was something that you saved
to finish out your record contract.
- I didn't quite understand it
but in retrospect, it was really a good idea
because it just captured that specific moment in time.
- We talked about it, talked about it in the label.
The thought of a Christmas record was like
well, I guess we're just gonna do a bunch of covers
in the public domain or whatever.
And it was like "Yeah, but I wanna write some new ones."
Hang on a minute, easy goin' there, that's tough.
- "Baby, It's Cold Outside", the "White Christmas",
these classics that are beautiful songs
written by some of the best songwriters
that America had ever seen.
That's typically what went on a Christmas album.
- It's very safe to put out a cover of a holiday song
because people like the standards,
partially because there's so many memories involved.
It's a family tradition.
Every generation knows "Jingle Bells"
or "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas".
If you put out a new song,
it's not gonna have that same emotional weight.
So there's sort of a risk involved.
- To come up with an original holiday song
that becomes a hit,
next to impossible.
♪ To see King Jesus where He lay ♪
♪ In a manger filled with hay ♪
- What I did was I said
"Let me try and get into the Christmas spirit."
I was living in this house, upstate New York.
Actually, I put on "It's A Wonderful Life" downstairs.
You could hear it throughout the house.
And I went into this small room
and there was a little keyboard in there.
And I started playing.
And I'm a terrible piano player, right?
Sometimes it'll be like a happy accident.
("All I Want For Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey)
- It was done very quickly and kind of came out organically,
which the best songs do.
Sometimes when you know that the melody is the melody,
it just comes out naturally.
- To make a Christmas song that's really you,
that embodies your style, is really hard to do.
But you're like what if I can write something
with a different melody that reminded me
of bein' a child of Christmas.
- Whether it's like the presents under the Christmas tree,
of course, hanging your stocking,
the lights, the snow, all those things.
My favorite line in the song is
"I won't even wish for snow"
because I always wish for snow.
I always want it to be a special festive winter wonderland.
I always have.
And so when I was writing these things down,
I made a list of the stuff that I've thought of
since childhood and crafted it
and turned it into be about a long lost love.
That part is something that I'll always remember.
Just the quietness of being there in that room
and playing, and then writing
and changing a Christmas song into a love song
back into a Christmas song and making it all one thing.
("All I Want For Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey)
When I got into the studio with Walter A.,
we came up with a lot of different ideas
to make it feel like a classic.
(audience applauds)
I wanted "All I Want For Christmas Is You"
to feel like something I could've grown up listening to.
I decorated the studio.
It wasn't Christmastime
but I was like we're gonna get into that vibe.
- The studio looked like Christmas.
The temperature was cold.
There were ornaments, there were Christmas trees
and Christmas candles.
- I was standing in the booth
and I would look into the engineers area
and the whole window was outlined
with colorful Christmas lights.
And it was just transforming the moment,
whatever time of year,
even in the middle of summer.
- But this makes you happy.
You just wanna sing and dance.
- It all comes down to the song itself.
It's just so catchy.
I think its elements of girl group,
Motown's 50's, 60's song gives it some familiarity.
- "All I Want For Christmas Is You"
doesn't even sound like the 90s.
It doesn't sound like the 80s.
It sounds more like the 60s.
And there was something about that
Phil Spector-y, Ronettes vibe
that I think probably signaled to whoever heard it
that it would be a timeless song.
♪ Make my wish come true ♪
- It had all of that that you loved
but with a new twist.
- When the bells lead into the slow, balladish intro
and then kick in with this festive beat.
♪ You ♪
It was not of the time.
It's still not of the time.
- The melody for one.
♪ I don't want a lot for Christmas ♪
♪ There is just one thing I need ♪
♪ And I ♪
It's amazing.
It's one of the reasons it's so classic.
- It was really inspired by
songs from the 60s or the 50s,
where you couldn't help but be happy
when you heard them.
♪ The fireplace ♪
I was tryin' to do my own version
of the Wall of Sound.
Those background vocal parts
that become almost the lead.
♪ Want you for my own ♪
♪ Ooh-ooh-ooh ♪
- She knows how to hone in and not make the song
sound like 1994.
The harmonies, the way the music was done.
It's just a great classic song.
- You almost think when you hear it,
I've heard this before.
But you haven't.
- It means so much to me to be able to sing the song
with people all over the world.
Countries where they don't even celebrate Christmas.
To share experiences with people
that have had this song as a part of their lives,
growin' up with the song.
♪ For Saint Nick ♪
♪ I won't even stay awake ♪
- Sometimes in Japan,
because that single is the biggest song ever in Japan,
we'll have to perform "All I Want for Christmas"
when the flowers are in bloom (laughs) in the spring.
- And it gets more applause than the other songs.
It's always such a rush for me.
It's a great feeling.
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ You, baby ♪
♪ Oh-oh ♪
- The Billboard Hot 100 in 1994
was based on just song sales and radio airplay.
Nowadays, it's still song sales, still radio airplay,
but also, streaming.
- When I first made the record,
it wasn't as big a hit as it is now.
- The song originally charted from its radio airplay,
got to number 12 on the overall radio songs chart.
It wasn't in the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100
until this decade.
- The release of "Love Actually" just completely
amplified the song.
I mean it gave it just like a completely different light
and a whole new life.
- Since 2011, we've had a chart called the Holiday 100.
Mariah Carey's song has been number one on that chart
for 35 cumulative weeks this decade.
It's basically the "All I Want For Christmas Is You" chart.
- It's grown in popularity over the years
and that's the thing that's amazing to me about this song.
Its highest peak was last year.
- The song entered the top ten
and it was the first time in almost 60 years
that a new, original Christmas song charted that high.
- That's the highest any holiday song has gotten,
other than "The Chipmunk Song" by The Chipmunks
back in 1958.
It did something that no holiday song has done in 60 years.
A lot of people have been wondering
is the song gonna get to number one
on the Billboard Hot 100.
It got to number three last year.
Keeps getting bigger every year.
Is this the year it finally happens?
- I think really good chances that it will be.
It is so consumed.
I mean that's the best way to describe how many people
listen to it around the holidays.
That's the Christmas song that everybody loves.
And people can celebrate and be happy together
when they hear it.
♪ I don't want a lot for Christmas ♪
♪ This is all ♪
- 'Cause I think everyone around the holidays,
you put on Christmas music to get in the spirit.
You have the smell of the candles.
It brings back when you were a child.
- I think that that's something
you really can't fabricate.
The emotional connection has to be pure.
- It's just a feelgood song.
We hear it every Christmas holiday
and it puts you right in the Christmas spirit.
♪ Is ♪
♪ You ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
I just remember
where I was coming from as a writer and a producer,
creating the song,
and wanting it to feel like a classic
and a modern classic.
It was an accomplishment for me that I was really proud of.
♪ Ooh, baby ♪
♪ Is you ♪
(audience cheers) (audience applauds)
Merry Christmas!