A Beatles Documentary Convinced Mariah Carey Not to Sell 1 of Her Songs

The Beatles‘ songs don’t sound much like Mariah Carey’s. However, a Beatles documentary gave Carey useful insight into the music industry. She learned a major lesson from one of The Beatles’ mistakes. Regardless, Carey still opined that showbusiness exploited her.

Mariah Carey was shocked The Beatles didn’t completely own their songs

In her 2020 autobiography The Meaning of Mariah Carey, Carey reflected on being an 18-year-old in showbusiness. She recalled using a photocopied version of the book All You Need to Know About the Music Business to help her navigate the industry. 

“Obviously I didn’t know much about contracts and deals then, but what I did know was that there was value in my lyrics and the songs,” she wrote. “I remembered seeing a documentary on The Beatles when I was growing up and being shocked that they didn’t have complete ownership of the songs, they’d written — The Beatles!) So I knew not to give away all my publishing.”

One of Carey’s early ballads got some positive attention. “[I] got an initial offer from a major publishing company for a song called ‘All in Your Mind’ to be placed in a movie,” she remembered. “I remember they offered me $5,000 for the publishing.” Carey didn’t mention the name of the movie.

The offer did not impress the Elusive Chanteuse. “I refused, even though back then $5,000 seemed like a million (which was how much I got for my first real publishing administration deal)” she said. “Thank God I had a cautionary Beatles tale fresh in my mind. I didn’t sell because I believed my songs came from somewhere special inside of me, and that selling them would be selling a piece of me.”

The singer still lost a lot of money she could have made off of her songs

Regardless, Carey was not satisfied with the deal she signed with record producer Ben Margulies. She was fine with giving him half of the publishing rights to the songs they co-wrote for her first album. These songs include classic hits such as “Vision of Love,” “Love Takes Time,” and “Someday.” 

However, Carey signed away 50% of the artists’ royalties for her first album to Margulies, as well as 40% of the artists’ royalties from her second album, 30% of the artists’ royalties from her third, and so forth. Between 1990 and 1999, Margulies was making a large sum of money off of Carey. She cited this deal as an example of how the music industry intentionally confuses artists in order to control them.

How Mariah Carey’s ‘All in Your Mind’ performed

“All in Your Mind” was never a single and it didn’t hit the Billboard Hot 100. The tune appeared on Carey’s self-titled debut album. The album Mariah Carey reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for 11 weeks. That’s quite the debut! The record topped the chart longer than any of Carey’s subsequent albums. 

Mariah Carey spent a total of 113 weeks. It lasted on the chart longer than any of Carey’s other records besides Music Box and Merry Christmas. 

The Beatles paved the way for Carey to have some control over her own art.