Here’s How Mariah Carey’s Holiday Earworm Almost Didn’t Happen

Love it or hate it (and what kind of Grinch actually hates it, honestly?), you’ve probably already heard Mariah Carey’s holiday hit “All I Want for Christmas is You” a thousand times on the radio and grocery store this month. Carey, however, says the holiday earworm almost didn’t happen. She made the revelation during a recent interview on The Bobby Bones Show.

“This was the beginning of my career and I had only done, I think, two albums at that point,” Carey says. “I felt like it was too soon. Because growing up, it was like, most people did [a Christmas album] later on.”

Ultimately, Carey says that her love for the holiday superseded any doubts about making a Christmas album so early in her career. “And then I was like…I love Christmas, a lot, so I might as well try. So, I just wrote ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You.’”

Since releasing Merry Christmas in 1994, it has become the all-time best-selling Christmas album by a female musician with over 15 million copies sold. The track “All I Want for Christmas Is You” also became one of the best-selling singles of all time and the best-selling holiday ringtone in America.

Even the Scrooges who don’t like the song can’t outnumber the legions of fans who listen to it every year. A bar in Dallas, Texas, tried to limit the number of times the song was played in their establishment, but we’re sure there are plenty of other jukeboxes that play the song on an endless loop.

Carey also just dropped a new Christmas song earlier this month, “Fall in Love at Christmas.” She will also premiere a Christmas special on AppleTV this December called Mariah’s Christmas: The Magic Continues.