Happiness is... Mariah Carey - Fly Like a Bird
We all have a song that we know we can rely upon, time after time, to bring us a glimpse of happiness when we're sad, or to allow us to revel in the joy of happiness when we genuinely experience it. Mine comes from none other than my favourite diva extraordinaire, Mariah Carey. The song is "Fly Like A Bird", a gospel-soul number in which Carey praises the lord backed by a full choir, complete with white gowns, swaying and hand claps (in my head, at least).
Not only does this song mean a lot to me, it means a lot to Mariah. It's the final track on her 2005 multi-million selling album, The Emancipation of Mimi, which followed a bleak period in her otherwise illustrious recording career. Carey performed the track live at the 2006 Grammy Awards, and having always loved the track since the album's release, the performance in which Carey can clearly be seen to be thanking the lord for her rejuvenated success is utterly incredible. I challenge anyone not to get the smallest tingle when they see how hard Carey works to deliver that song along with all the emotion it requires.
A spoken bible verse opens the song, "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning", spoken by none other than Carey's own church preacher. Now I'm no religious person, but I love how joyful gospel music is. I'm inspired by the belief that a church choir have, that when they are singing, they are doing so directly to God and he can hear them. It's a beautiful sound, even if I don't subscribe to that same belief system.
In 2005, I was travelling in South-East Asia and my mum visited for a month in Thailand. She loved "Fly Like A Bird" too and it defined that part of the trip for me. When I returned, I made a DVD of the video recordings I'd made on that trip and for the part in which my mum was with me, I used that song as the background music. Whenever I've watched that DVD back, that song always makes me happy and reminds me of the great time we had.
Around the same time, I was living in a lock-keepers cottage on the canal-side in Leeds with one of my best friends, Jess. We loved The Emancipation of Mimi and the CD was always on repeat in our kitchen for years. It was such a happy, carefree time that we still look back on so fondly now. Many incredible memories, happy and sad, but ultimately a time of real bonding and building a friendship that will last forever. "Fly Like A Bird" really defines that period of time for me.
"Keep your head up to the sky, with God's love you'll survive..." sings Carey and her gospel choir during the bridge section before the song builds to its final climactic chorus. Even though I don't believe in God, I've used this song at times when I've felt down. It always lifts my mood. It's hard not to be lifted by such passion and conviction in a performance.
I've listened to "Fly Like A Bird" on my way to job interviews since its release and I've been offered all four jobs. I don't think the song has any kind of special power, but the state of mind it puts me in, a positive and happy one, gives me the required attitude, internally and therefore externally to achieve what I desire - what happiness really means I guess - being in a place where everything you desire for yourself and those you love is being achieved.
For Mariah, at that 2006 Grammy's performance, "Fly Like A Bird" was a celebration of happiness. Whenever I listen to it I'm reminded of, not just that, but all of the happy memories associated with this song for me, and of all the happy memories it's yet to be the soundtrack to. (So So Gay Magazine)
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