Mariah's 'All I Want for Christmas Is You': The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Roll over Bing Crosby and tell Nat “King” Cole the news. America has a new favorite Christmas song: Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

There will always be a place in our hearts for Crosby’s “White Christmas” and Cole’s “The Christmas Song,” but let’s face it, Carey’s song is a lot more fun. That point was underscored last week when James Corden aired a video in which such superstars as Adele, Lady Gaga, Elton John, Gwen Stefani and Chris Martin — along with Carey herself — sang along with the song on the popular “Carpool Karaoke” segment of his The Late, Late Show with James Corden.

Carey’s recording has sold 3,260,000 digital copies, more by far than any other Christmas song in digital history. The song is currently No. 20 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. It climbed to No. 11 last Christmas, its highest ranking to date. (Expect an significant upward move next week.) This is the fifth consecutive holiday season that the song has cracked the top 40.

What’s the song’s appeal? It’s festive, to borrow one of Carey’s favorite words. It’s exuberant and and endearing. It’s like a fun Christmas party — compressed into just four minutes.

“It’s very retro, kind of ’60s,” Carey has said. The song echoes Phil Spector’s dense, exhilarating Wall of Sound production style. It would have fit right in on his classic 1963 album, Christmas Gift for You, which featured such artists as Darlene Love, the Ronettes and the Crystals.

Writing in The Atlantic, Emma Green called the song “an earworm for the generations.” In Stylus, Barry Schwartz writes, “To say this song is an instant classic somehow doesn’t capture its ‘amazingicity’; it’s a modern standard: joyous, exhilarating, loud, with even a hint of longing…”

Carey co-wrote and co-produced the song in 1994 with Walter Afanasieff. The two had previously co-written her smash hits “Can’t Let Go” and “Hero.” The song was part of her first holiday album, Merry Christmas. Carey was just 24 (or 25 — sources vary) at the time, and at the pinnacle of her career — she was in between her chart-topping studio albums Music Box and Daydream. There was considerable debate at her label, Columbia Records, about whether it was a good idea for a young artist at her peak to put out a Christmas album. (Such projects are generally deferred until an artist is past his or her hit-making peak; either a few years past it, like Michael Bolton was in 1996, or quite a few years past it, like Rod Stewart was in 2012.)

But Carey wanted to do it. “I’m a very festive person and I love the holidays,” she has said. “I’ve sung Christmas songs since I was a little girl. I used to go Christmas caroling. When it came to the album, we had to have a nice balance between standard Christian hymns and fun songs. It was definitely a priority for me to write at least a few new songs.”

Carey and Afanasieff co-wrote and co-produced two other songs for Merry Christmas — the ballad “Miss You Most (at Christmas Time),” and the gospel-tinged “Jesus Born on This Day.” But “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is what sold the album. (The album has sold 5,534,000 copies—and it’s still selling. It’s No. 32 on this week’s Billboard 200.)

The song came quickly. “It’s definitely not ‘Swan Lake’,” Afanasieff has said. “But that’s why it’s so popular — because it’s so simple and palatable.”

You may be surprised to learn that the song didn’t crack the Hot 100 when it was first released in 1994 — but that’s just a reflection of chart rules at the time. Only tracks that were commercially available as singles were eligible to make the Hot 100. Carey’s song was available only as a promotional single to radio. (Columbia was trying to force you to buy the album.) In December 1998, the rules were changed to allow songs that weren’t commercially available as singles to chart. The song has since amassed 17 weeks — and counting — on the chart.

You may also be surprised to learn that it’s not the first song with that title to achieve success. Vince Vance & the Valiants released a country song with the same title five years earlier. (What’s more, the titles of both songs start out the same as a 1940s holiday classic, “All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth).” That recording, by Spike Jones and his City Slickers, reached No. 1 in December 1948.)

Dozens of artists have covered the song over the years. Michael Buble included it on Christmas (2011), the best-selling holiday album of the past five years. Olivia Olson sang it in the 2003 movie Love Actually. Amber Riley sang it in 2011 on Glee. The song has also appeared on best-selling Christmas albums by such diverse artists as Lady Antebellum, Cee Lo Green, Fifth Harmony and Idina Menzel. It has been sung in concert by such artists as Miley Cyrus, John Mayer, Ariana Grande and Shania Twain. It has been recorded for compilation albums by such artists as My Chemical Romance and Bowling for Soup.

Carey has re-recorded the song twice. She re-recorded it for her second holiday album, Merry Christmas II You, in 2010. That version was dubbed “All I Want for Christmas Is You (Extra Festive).” She also re-recorded it as a duet with Justin Bieber for his 2011 album Under the Mistletoe. His version was dubbed “All I Want for Christmas is You (SuperFestive!)” (I told you she liked the word “festive.”)

Carey even released a children’s picture book based on the song in November 2015. The book features the lyrics along with illustrations by Colleen Madden.

Many of our most beloved Christmas songs originated during World War II, when millions of servicemen were away from their homes and families. This helps explain the deep sense of yearning conveyed by such songs as Crosby’s “White Christmas” (1942) and “I’ll Be Home For Christmas (If Only in My Dreams)” (1943) and Judy Garland’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (1944).

Carey’s song isn’t that deep or reflective. It’s pure fun. It’s not a coincidence that many of the Christmas songs that you hear most often on contemporary hit radio stations this time of year are up-tempo and light-hearted. Such songs as Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” (1957), Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” (1960), Burl Ives’ “A Holly Jolly Christmas” (1964) and Jose Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad” (1970) blend in much better with today’s upbeat pop, dance and hip-hop hits than slow, dreamy ballads ever would.

Sorry Bing, Nat and Judy. I’ll always love your songs, but contemporary radio programmers would doubtless say, “They just don’t fit the format.” Mariah’s song fits it like a glove.