"Life was a winding road and I learned many things little ones shouldn't know."Īs she so often has in previous songs ("Make It Happen", "Through The Rain" etc), Mariah preaches faith and perseverance on the chorus. "I was a wayward child with the weight of the world that I held deep inside," she begins. Produced by Walter Afanasieff and penned entirely by Mimi, this ballad ranks as one of the best songs in her holy discography. The latter topic is usually avoided at all costs in popular music, but Mariah documented hers with bracing honesty on "Close My Eyes."
She wears her heart on her sleeve throughout, touching on love, heartbreak and trauma. MC6 is also the living legend's most personal album. Not only that, but it represents the best of both eras - the ballads on Butterfly are extraordinary and the bangers ("Honey", for instance) will still get any dance floor heaving. For starters, it was the stepping stone that took Mimi from the balladry of her early recordings to the (hip-hop and) R&B-informed sound of today. But, if I had to choose a favorite, it would be 1997's Butterfly. And then being biracial on top of it, and having no place to really fit in.90s Classic: Mariah Carey's "Close My Eyes" Wednesday 16 September 2020Īs a life-long Lamb, all of Mariah Carey's albums are dear to me. “Close My Eyes” from Butterfly talks about it: “I was a wayward child with the weight of the world that I held deep inside/Life was a winding road, and I learned many things little ones shouldn’t know.” A lot of intense stuff happened to me when I was a kid, that people who grew up with money or with families that weren’t fully dysfunctional will never quite understand.
People don’t really know about it because I’ve always been pretty vague, but I’ve alluded to it in certain songs.
CLOSE MY EYES MARIAH CAREY TV
TV Hits (Australian Magazine) October 1997 It's personal - it's about my life and childhood. It was night, I was looking out at the moon and it was just like this introspective little moment, thinking about my life and what I've been through. I was up at this farm where we used to go every weekend and I was actually in the bathtub. I started writing that song four years ago. The line in "Close My Eyes", "I feel like a child as I look at the moon/ Maybe I grew up a little too soon," encompasses the whole thing really. I was still going through a confusing personal change. You're like a kid in school and then it's recess. It's like when you've been confined for a long time. MARIAH: I guess I was putting my foot down and trying to be free. VH1: What was it about this album that allowed you to let all these emotions come out? I like to keep some of those things for myself. I don't want to say what my symbols are because it's about whatever they want to read into it. I've read the letters and they really relate to that song. A lot of my fans get very specific about that song because they apply it to their lives. MARIAH: There are a lot of different things in the song that are personal and symbolic for me. VH1: So the song could be about your career so far. Fast forward to '97, and while writing Butterfly, I picked up where I left off after the first chorus.” I wrote the whole first verse and kept it in the back of my mind - I didn't even write it down - for like four years. What did it take to get here?" That started the concept for the song. I took a breath and said, "I've really accomplished something. It's almost like I watched my whole career go by. It was the first time I really sat and took it all in.
The moon was out and I was reflecting on my life. I was taking a bath and looking out the window - one of my favorite things. I got off stage and went home to this really pretty farm in upstate New York. I hadn't done anything other than Unplugged and little one-off shows with a piano player, so if was like my first real concert. MARIAH: I had just done my first concert for a TV special in Schenectady, N.Y. VH1: You originally wrote "Close My Eyes" four years before Butterfly.