For 30 years Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You has been the soundtrack to Christmas.
Released as part of the singer’s fourth studio album, Merry Christmas – her first festive-themed collection of songs – the track had modest beginnings, peaking at number two in the UK singles chart and number 12 in the US.
But over time, the song seems to have taken on a life of its own.
This year alone, it has topped the Billboard Hot 100 charts for the sixth year in a row, surpassed two billion streams on Spotify, and has reached 16x Platinum – selling more than 16 million units, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
From the opening chimes of the xylophone to the propulsive beat kicking in at the 50-second mark, what is it about All I Want For Christmas Is You that has kept it a beloved holiday staple for the last three decades?
‘Do something timeless’
Claiming it was the first Christmas song she ever wrote, Carey revealed in a 2019 Amazon documentary that she started writing the hit on a keyboard in her home while the 1946 film It’s A Wonderful Life played in the background.
In a 2023 interview with Good Morning America, Carey said her “goal” was to “do something timeless that didn’t feel like the ’90s,” drawing inspiration from Phil Spector’s 1965 album A Christmas Gift For You.
Walter Afanasieff, the song’s co-writer and co-producer, recalls the creative process slightly differently.
He told Deadline in 2022 that he and Carey wrote the song together in the summer of 1994 at a home the singer was renting.
Carey in December 1994. Pic: Pace/Mediapunch/Shutterstock
“I started playing a boogie-woogie, kind of a rock. Mariah chimed in and started singing ‘I don’t want a lot for Christmas,’” he explained.
Afanasieff credited Carey for the lyrics and melodies while he was responsible for “all of the music and the chords”.
Remarkably, the entire song was completed in just 15 minutes.
Carey performing during her 2024 Christmas Time tour. Pic: Paul R Giunta/Invision/AP
Nate Sloan, music journalist and co-host of the Switched On Pop podcast, believes the track’s success “resides in its sense of timelessness”.
“Though recorded in the 1990s, it has a sound that would be at home in multiple eras of American popular music,” he told Sky News.
“Few songs since the 1960s have been able to penetrate the annual ‘Christmas canon.’ Carey’s opus, with its throwback sound, is a perfect candidate for lasting appeal.”
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