Pop diva Mariah Carey has been hit in the summer with a new copyright infringement lawsuit for her Christmas chart topping favorite “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”
TMZ reports that the singer is being sued by Andy Stone, who claims he also crafted his own song with the same title. Andy is seeking at least $20 million in damages from Carey.
His version was released in 1989, five years before Carey’s chart-topping track. In the filing, Stone asserts that he recorded his version in Nashville and that it found its way to the Billboard charts during Christmas time in 1993, and that he also filmed a music video.
Carey’s arrived in 1994 and became a mega-hit via Sony records under the leadership of Carey’s ex-husband Tommy Mottola. But, Stone says she never asked his permission to use the same song title. According to TMZ, the title is the only thing the two songs have in common; the lyrics and melody are apparently completely unalike.
Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” climbed back to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 2021—the third time that the track has reached the top of the chart. It has a history of returning to the Hot 100 during the holiday season.
“To have another Billboard Hot 100 with a song that means so much to me, I literally don’t know what to say and I’m just so thankful,” Carey said this past December. “I really am thankful to all of you.”
“All I Want For Christmas Is You” is one of the most popular Christmas songs around the world each year, and it has already re-entered the top 200 on the US iTunes Chart. People love every part of that song and Christmas is undoubtedly Mariah season each year because of this song.
The song which was originally released in 1994 and is co-written and produced by Carey with Walter Afanasieff as part of her fourth studio album and first holiday album “Merry Christmas”.
Mariah Told Billboard that she was the one who wrote the song four years ago when the song reached top ten on the hot 100 chart for the first time.
She said, “As a songwriter, I feel so honored to have this song reach Billboard’s [Hot 100] top 10 for the first time. I honestly never thought we’d be talking about this happening, but I’m so thankful to everyone who embraces this song as part of their holiday tradition.”
“I am proud of this song that I wrote basically as a kid on my little Casio keyboard,” She continued.
In her December 2019 Amazon Documentary, Mariah Carey is Christmas: The Story of ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ she held on to the same narrative as solo writer.
She said it was the record company’s idea to release a Christmas album and as she reluctantly quieted her songwriters grinch she began getting in the Christmas mood.
In the documentary she admits to not being a great piano player, and the melody was more serendipity: “That part is something I’ll always remember, just the quietness of being there in that room and playing and writing and changing a Christmas song into a love song […] and kind of making it all one thing.”
Even though the song was not recorded during the Christmas season, Mariah said she decorated the studio to match the festive mood and started exploring how she could make the song last for a long time.
“When I got into the studio with Walter A, we came up with a-lot of different ideas to make it feel like a classic. I wanted “All I Wanted For Christmas Is You” to feel like something I could have grow up listening to”.
In her Best Selling book “The Meaning of Mariah Carey” she writes:
“It was from my little girl’s spirit and those early fantasies of family, and friendship, that I wrote ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You”.
Think of how it begins: ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding … the delicate chimes are reminiscent of those little wooden toy pianos, like the one Schroeder had on Peanuts.”
However, her co-writer Walter Afanasieff, who holds credit and 50% royalty thinks Carey doesn’t gives him credit publicly for “All I Want For Christmas Is You”.
