At my boys’ school I was shoved, spat at and brutally bullied. Carey’s songs made me dig deep and keep going, even when I had a breakdown years later
I was 12 when it happened. Dad was parking the car and we were getting ready for a torturous hour of food shopping. Suddenly, over the radio, I heard a voice that today is one of the most recognisable in the world, but at the time it was new to me: a whispery, breathy voice that floated and fluttered over a slinky, laid-back track. It was Mariah Carey and the song was Honey. I instantly fell in love. What a voice!
The next weekend I rushed to HMV and bought the cassette tapes of two Carey albums, Butterfly and Daydream. This was when album covers would unfold into tiny books of song lyrics and photographs. I spent hours poring over Carey’s lyrics and listening to her in my room or on the bus. Her songs felt like an escape, a place of refuge. They took me away from the horror that I was experiencing. Because I was struggling. Really struggling.
