![]() And that’s when we first hear her at the microphone singing, and the rest is history.” And then we just waited until the sessions began, which were in the summer of ’94 where we got together in New York and started recording. “Then for the next week or two, Mariah would call me and say, ‘What do you think about this bit?’ We would talk a little bit until she got the lyrics all nicely coordinated and done. I tried to make it a little more unique, putting in some special chords that you really don’t hear a lot of, which made it unique and special. It was very formulaic, not a lot of chord changes. It was an easier song to write than some of the other ones. I started playing some rock ’n’ roll piano and started boogie woogie-ing my left hand, and that inspired Mariah to come up with the melodic ‘I don’t want a lot for Christmas.’ And then we started singing and playing around with this rock ’n’ roll boogie song, which immediately came out to be the nucleus of what would end up being ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You.’ That one went very quickly. We would write the nucleus of the song, the melody primary music, and then some of the words were there as we finished writing it. ![]() In an interview with Billboard, Afanasieff described the songwriting experience: “It was always the same sort of system with us. “But that’s why it’s so popular-because it’s so simple and palatable!” “It’s definitely not Swan Lake,” he said. She cowrote the hit holiday song with veteran songwriter Walter Afanasieff, who says the speed in which they wrote it is the secret to the song’s success. Mariah cowrote the entire thing in about 15 minutes. I’m sure holiday parties and shopping malls are to thank. That whole “Billboard #12” lapse in judgment has since been corrected because the song has earned itself a diamond record (aka it’s sold more than 10 million units). It’s the first and *only* holiday single to be certified diamond. Obviously, the people of the ’90s weren’t fully appreciating the magic they had been blessed with because when “All I Want for Christmas Is You” first came out in 1994, it didn’t make it higher than 12th place on the Billboard Hot 100 list. The song originally peaked at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 list. They’re all great…but TBH, nothing beats the original. And there’s the version she recorded with Justin Bieber as a duet. When she released her second holiday album, she put out an “extra-festive” version of the song. Of course, there’s the OG single that we know and love, but Mariah has put out a few different versions of the Christmas hit at this point. From who wrote it to how much money it’s made (spoiler: it’s A LOT), here’s absolutely everything you could possibly want to know about the best holiday song of all time. Yeah, it’s *that* old despite it sounding like a modern-day banger! And as it turns out, when a song has been an unrivaled hit for as long as “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has, there’s a lot of history and fun facts to go along with it. The hit song synonymous with Christmas cheer has been warming everyone’s heart since its release in 1994. Walk into any store this winter and I can guar-an-TEE you’ll hear it at least once-or more like around 5 to 100 times, give or take. Of course, there are tons of classics you have to listen to every December (or November 1, if you’re one of ~those~), but could you even imagine the holiday season without Mariah Carey’s quintessential bop “All I Want for Christmas Is You”? It’s impossible. Before you can hang your stockings, trim your tree, bake every Christmas cookie recipe in sight, and write out your Christmas wish list for Santa, there’s one very important thing that must come first: turning on the Christmas music and blasting it at full volume.
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