"Someday" was the third single released from Mariah Carey's debut album, and the third single to go to number one. "That started out as a bass line, sort of a drum-machine, almost hip-hop type groove," says co-writer Ben Marguiles. "Now people call is new jack swing, but that stuff was going on before all these terms came about. It evolved out of an improvisational track with some very strong changes and a very harmonic structure. Mariah has an ability to improvise vocally and come up with great melody lines, great hooks. We generally work on a chorus first, but she would sing melody ideas through the verse sections and it came about that way."
Marguiles explains how fast Mariah came up with the words: "In the amount of time I would be playing around with the arrangement and coming up with some new change or something like that, she'd be sitting there writing out lyrics, then we'd demo it. I mean, we'd start turning the tape machine on, turning the computers on, and just start doing it."
"Someday" was one of four songs that Marguiles and Carey included on the singer's demo tape. "All the demos that ended up going to CBS were very elaborate arrangements," Ben notes. "They were very close to what's on the albums, if not almost exactly."
Tommy Mottola of CBS Records asked Anglo-American producer Ric Wake, who had been working with Arista artist Taylor Dayne, to listen to Mariah Carey's demo. "It was obvious that she was great - she was amazing," says Wake, who met with Mottola on a Wednesday. The CBS Records Group president asked Wake if he could start working with Mariah in Thursday. "Mariah came over to my house the next day, we wrote 'There's Got To Be A Way,' and it went from there - we did four songs together."
One of the tracks that Wake produced was "Someday." "I loved that song right from the beginning," he acknowledges. "Tommy gave me a tape of 12 songs, and at the time, I think someone else was going to do it. It was up in the air, and Mariah called me up one day and said, 'I'd love you to do it if you want to do it.' It was great - I'm glad she called me.
"I remember the way that demo was; I wasn't sure how she wanted to do it...We did it in about two, three hours."
Marguiles liked the final version of their song "because it came off really simple and clean, and the point came across. Nothing was covered up. The original arrangement and production were very simple and funky. It had a simplicity to it that kind of drew you into it. To take it and make it too much of a production would have ruined the vibe of the song."
When she was first signed to Columbia, Mariah wanted to produce the album herself with Marguiles. "I wasn't open to working with a superstar producer," she said in Rolling Stone. Ben elaborates: "You have your ideas and your creations, and sometimes it's difficult. You're seeing your songs come to fruition, but at the same time, you want to have a say in how your babies turn out. These things start out like the nucleus of the embry of an idea. You sit down and start playing, improvising, and it comes to the point where it turns into a good demo; then you want to hear it. If you're a strong musician, or you're inclined to produce and arrange all that stuff, sometimes it's hard to hand over your creations like that. But it's inevitably what always happens, and you hope that people handle them with care."
"Someday" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 37 on January 19, 1991. Seven weeks later, Mariah Carey knocked Whitney Houston's "All The Man That I Need" off the top of the chart and moved in for a two-week stay.
Back to Song Book main
|
