It seems like no matter how many times Mariah Carey says it, there are people who still believe that she doesn’t write her own songs. Or at least, she believes that there are people who believe this—many of her public discussions about her songwriting and how much that particular craft means to her are often accompanied by her bemoaning the existence of people who still don’t get it. Mind you, she’s been discussing writing songs since 1990 (and writing songs before then)—it was one of her talking points when she was promoting her self-titled debut way back when. In fact she’s discussed her songwriting and the enduring disbelief about it so frequently that I assembled a (by no means complete) supercut of such moments from interviews throughout the years. Since videos uploaded for Gawker no longer live on their corresponding pages, I’m taking the opportunity to repost this one after reading some news today.
Mariah is among the nominees for next year’s Songwriters Hall of Fame, reports the AP. Other artists up for the honor include: the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, Tracy Chapman, Jimmy Cliff, the Isley Brothers, Kool & the Gang, Tom Waits, N.W.A., John Mellencamp, Alice Cooper, and Tom T. Hall. Other “non-performing” nominees include New Edition/New Kids on the Block svengali Maurice Starr and Mariah’s frequent collaborator Jermaine Dupri. Six songwriters (or songwriting groups) will be officially inducted June 14.
Will people finally believe that Mariah Carey writes her songs given this official recognition? If she’s right and there really are people who don’t believe this it’s kind of... unbelievable given her singular eccentricities like her penchant for 10-cent words that don’t often turn up on pop songs and frequent references to her circle of friends that make sense to no one outside of lambs (“Speed dial connecting me to Rae-Rae / Click in Shawntae and Mae-Mae” from “Migrate”). For the sake of saving her moments of bleakness, though, I hope this nomination (and eventual win!) does the trick and she finally finds some peace.