VH1
When you were a kid growing up did you know that you
were going to make it?
MARIAH CAREY
I had to believe that I would or I wouldn't be here.
VH1
You had one year, I think you were 17. You moved to New
York City, you had the worst year imaginable. You were a
waitress?
MARIAH CAREY
Waitress, coat check. . .
VH1
Probably the worst waitress ever?
MARIAH CAREY
Oh, yeah, I was bad. . .put it this way, I wouldn't want to get me for a waitress.
VH1
Why?
MARIAH CAREY
I had this attitude of "Why am I here?" I want to be in the studio, I want to be
singing, I want to be doing my thing. I was just really rude to people. I didn't
mean to be. But I just think I was in my own world and listening to my demos,
doing what I'm doing now.
VH1
And then you worked at a hair salon and you're sweeping up hair and in no
time you're on Arsenio and the Tonight Show. Your head must have been
spinning.
MARIAH CAREY
Yeah it was. I've always been able to keep myself grounded.
VH1
How?
MARIAH CAREY
I don't know, because I'm just the same person that I always was. I remember
what it was like not to have any of this, and to sit home and just cry and pray
that I would be able to do it.
VH1
When you were a kid?
MARIAH CAREY
Yeah, just forever, until it happened.
VH1
What was that like when you were a kid?
MARIAH CAREY
I moved around a lot with my mom. My parents got divorced when I was really,
really little, so I always had the sense of never really belonging, for a lot of
different reasons.
VH1
Let's talk about the song "Outside."
MARIAH CAREY
Well the song "Outside" is actually about feelings that I had of inadequacy or
separateness from the rest of the world growing up. Even now to a certain
extent because of growing up in a multi-racial family. I really didn't have
anybody that I felt fully connected to one hundred percent or who I felt was
completely the same as me. A lot of people don't realize what a luxury it is to
be able to say I'm one thing. To have a sense of belonging with one particular
race or nationality. I mean people don't realize that that's a very empowering
thing. When you don't have it, it's something that you can never really obtain.
Especially for me because I embody so many racial outlets. I embody so
many races. My father's black and Venezuelan and my mother's Irish. So I'm
kind of tri-racial, kind of a mixed bag. I never really felt like I had anyone who I
fully identified with, who was the same as me. My brother and sister, but I
didn't really grow up with them because they're older and my parents got
divorced when I was really young. I didn't have them and I felt not exactly the
same as my mother and not exactly the same as my father. So, that's what
that song's about.
VH1
Growing up multi-racial being multi-racial in New York?
MARIAH CAREY
I think that I went through a lot of things inwardly growing up multi-racial, and I
think it's difficult for some people to understand because it's not the normal
thing. It's a lot more accepted now than when my parents got married. But I'm
glad I'm here. Everything I've gone through has made me who I am.
VH1
I want to talk a little bit about growing up so we can understand how you've
become who you are. I know your mom has been a really important part of
your life. I remember I read in one of the liner notes you say thanks for letting
me be the physical reality. How did she instill that in you when you were a
child.?
MARIAH CAREY
Well my mom is a singer. She came to New York to be an opera singer when
she was sixteen and she grew up in Illinois. Then she came to New York and
sang with The City Opera and she sang jazz when I was a little girl. She
always had jazz musicians or friends over singing until the wee hours and I
would sing along with them. That's how I first got to know about music,
appreciate music and have it be a real part of my life. I've also loved the radio
ever since I can remember. When I was a little girl I used to go and steal the
little portable radio out of the kitchen. I was three or four years old and I would
listen to it under the covers and sing. So there's never been a time in my life
that I haven't been on a quest for music.
VH1
Is that when you discovered that you had this voice? When you were three or
four singing under the covers?
MARIAH CAREY
Well that's when I did discover that I loved music. I can remember my earliest
memories revolve around music, learning how to whistle, I'm a very good
whistler. Actually my father taught me how to whistle when I was little, and then
I remember taking the radio out of the kitchen and listening under the covers
to sing myself asleep. I remember my mother teaching me how to harmonize.
I constantly needed to have music around me, it was always a source of a
calm for me. We had a lot of crazy episodes in my house when I was growing
up and music was always something that made me feel grounded and made
me feel special about myself.
VH1
Did it feel like a form of escapism? Like you could just go and be anything
you wanted to be when you had music?
MARIAH CAREY
For me music was a form of escapism but it was also something that made
me feel special about myself and gave me a pride that I didn't feel for a lot of
other reasons. It gave me hope. It definitely gave me hope. I could emerge
from whatever was going on around me and have something to look forward
to.
VH1
You started to write very young didn't you? You started writing a song at age
....?
MARIAH CAREY
I used to make up melodies when I was a little girl not realizing that's writing. I
would sing to myself and make up songs. I probably really started writing
songs at twelve or thirteen. Some of those were my "greatest efforts," but it
was a step towards what I ultimately wanted to do. At that point I was working
in studios with people who I grew up with who had their own studios. I was
singing demos for people and they would ask me to demo a song. I'd say,
"Hmm, the song's really good." I was always so into radio that I thought I could
write something just as good as that. I'd find myself trying to change their song
and they're saying "No, we're not looking for you to rewrite our song, just sing
the song." That's when I got my first taste of wanting to write. I always knew I
wanted to sing, but I never really thought about who wrote the songs or how
you went about becoming a song writer. Then I gradually got more into writing
and collaborating. I'm not good at playing. I can play piano a little but the
melodic ideas come to me so quickly that by the time I figure out the chords
that I'm hearing, I can lose the idea. Which is why I like collaborating with
someone who's really skilled as a pianist ,or someone who's gonna make the
tracks. But yeah I started writing pretty young.
VH1
You knew you wanted to pursue music it was just always inside of you but how
did you know you'd be successful? Was it something you always knew in the
back of your head that you could just do it?
MARIAH CAREY
Well it of goes back to what we were talking about. My mom was very
supportive of me as a singer and she really validated my talent in a lot of
ways. She would be there encouraging me without being a stage mother. I
auditioned for Annie when I was little but I was too tall. I wanted to do that as a
little girl. I wanted to be a professional singer, and from the time I was twelve, I
was striving for that goal. She used to take me to auditions all the time and
different things, but I would ask her to do that. It wasn't like she was forcing me
to do it. She encouraged me and she inspired me, but she never pushed me
in that direction. I know a lot of people's parents who looked at the way my
mother was with my singing and sort of scoffed at it. They said, "You know
you shouldn't encourage her because it's not a realistic goal, it's not a realistic
thing." If you have that attitude, it's not realistic. If you have talent and you have
determination it can be done. It's also about being at the right place at the
right time. We all know that I'm not taking anything from that. I wouldn't have
given up no matter how long it took. I would still strive and reach to get a
record deal. I'd still be going for it. I wouldn't have given up. It's easy for me to
say that considering that it happened so early on for me, but I just know how I
am, and I know that I wouldn't have given up. It's such it's a huge part of my life
I couldn't ever live without music. I would never be satisfied without having this
as my career.
VH1, April 6/98
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