Dreamlover, Come Rescue Me
In which the river takes us back to 1993 and a boy encounters a woman in a field
I’d like to speak with you about Mariah Carey. I’d also like to speak with you about my special feelings for Mariah Carey. Mostly, I’d like to speak with you about the music video for Mariah Carey’s hit song “Dreamlover”. First though, I need to do a little scene setting—a little mood setting too. It all comes together in the end, I promise.
Mariah Carey’s “Dreamlover” was released on July 27, 1993—the same day Microsoft released Windows NT 3.1. The Internet existed, but no one that lived on my block had AOL yet. That would take another year or two. A week or so before the single dropped, Bill Clinton announced the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, and my parents had to explain to ten-year-old me what that was all about—they tried to anyway. The Universe was still a few weeks shy of being able to claim Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg and The X-Files on its CV.
I was living in the D.C. suburbs. I’d always lived there. I’d just graduated from elementary school and was—apparently—living through a hot, dank-ass summer. According to the National Weather Service, “An unusually strong and unrelenting "Bermuda high" dominated much of the eastern U.S. during July [of 1993], generating oppressive heat and humidity from the deep South to New England.”
I don’t suppose ten-year-old me would’ve cared about the heat wave—not as such. Ten-year-old me would’ve been very focused on going to the pool, drinking soda, riding bikes with the neighbor kids, eating Bomb Pops from the ice cream truck, and playing with fire when the adults weren’t paying attention. It was a summer like any other except for one key difference. When September of 1993 came round, I would be going to middle school. I would be a man—a little, ten-year-old man with black and purple FILAs and a blue and orange Mets cap. Which is to say, I was completely vulnerable.
And then Mariah Carey basically took me hostage and left me with no choice but to fall in love with her.
Grunge existed, but it wasn’t on my radar yet—not really. Grunge was some T-shirts with band logos that my older brother had picked up at Hot Topic. That was about all I knew. Just a year earlier, I was still bopping along—happy as a clam—in the bubble of music my parents had curated for me. I understood that Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison were “the oldies”, but I don’t think I understood that there was new music available that was also worth listening to. If there were, my parents would’ve mentioned it, right?
In other words, we’re talking about the narrow window in my youth where I had been exposed to contemporary pop music but my peers hadn’t yet saddled me with the dark knowledge of what was cool and what was not cool. When “Dreamlover” wove itself directly, deeply into my brain stem that summer, it was pure joy. When I lobbied my mom to drive me to the mall and buy me the cassette single, it was pure need. When I fell in love with Mariah Carey as she frolicked about in a flannel shirt in fields of grass, it was pure love.
This isn’t meant to be a music review, but I feel as though I’d be omitting something essential if I didn’t just come out and say that I still really like “Dreamlover”—a lot. It holds up as pop bliss. It was built on a “boom, bap, boom-boom bap” sample from “Blind Alley” by The Emotions. The “lets do hip hop!” vibe doesn’t make me cringe when I listen to it with 2024 ears. It feels natural. The hook is undeniable—I still find myself making up nonsense lyrics for the chorus when I’m trying to keep my son entertained. “Dreambaby eats yumyum pears,” for example. “Oo-oo-oo-oo, baby.”
But back to the love story. I remember the act of listening to cassette singles on my Walkman at that age as a powerful, transcendental one. I remember listening—in bed, at night—and becoming a different person. In this instance, I became a person who was married to Mariah Carey and who got to hug and kiss her and probably drive a car.
I remember feeling feelings. I remember thinking, Mariah, I would never disillusion you one more time! Disillusioning someone even the first time is clearly very bad!
I remember thinking about gender and about gender norms. Really! I didn’t have the language to talk about gender in a sophisticated way in 1993, but neither did literally anyone I knew. What tools did I have to work with? I knew what boys in my neck of the woods were expected to want and to do, and I was pretty sure I knew what girls in my neck of the woods were expected to want and to do. None of that had prepared me for “Dreamlover” though.
As a boy, in the old times, my experience of pop music was mostly getting to live vicariously as a pursuer. Most songs seemed to be sung by men trying to get women to fall in love with them—even to “rock and roll” with them in some cases. Whenever I listened to a song like that, I would close my eyes and imagine that I had written the song—that I was playing the guitar, that I was singing to my crush.
When I closed my eyes and listened to “Dreamlover”, I was the crush. I was being sung to. I was the pursued. The lyrics weren’t super advanced, but they were subtly subversive. Granted, she was asking to be rescued like a Disney princess, but she seemed totally in control. She did to me at least. The verses of the song are the requirements for the position—a list of things she needs alongside a list of reasons you can go fuck yourself if you’re bringing bullshit to the party. True, the world had already witnessed Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin and Debbie Harry and Madonna and whole host of female performers who were comfortable addressing men directly through their work in all sorts of boundary-pushing ways, but I hadn’t really been exposed to any of that at ten years old. When I was ten years old, “Dreamlover” was revolutionary to me—mind-blowing. This wasn’t a song—this was powerful magic. And, frankly, it was pretty fucking hot. I was into it. I’m still into it.
Here, of course, is a link to the official music video. I encourage you to watch it for the sheer pleasure of it. First though, I would be honored to guide you into its heart. Come. Follow me. May the river take us where we need to go.
We’re underwater, you and I, looking up to the surface. Someone is reaching down to us from above. Is it a beefy boy? Maybe! We can’t know!
Suddenly we’re having an out of body experience, watching ourselves swim up to the surface. We’re wearing jean shorts and a short-sleeved red gingham shirt, cinched just below our bust-line so that… our tummy doesn’t get too warm? Under the water?
“Up where they walk! Up where they run! Up where they stay all day in the sun! Wandering free! Wish I could be!”
Wait, that’s a different song. Let’s put a pin in “Part of Your World” though. I could write a whole post about The Little Mermaid—another great way for boys and gender non-binary kids in the early nineties to play around with “what if I was a girl though?”
Anyway, we don’t get to see ourselves surface—not right away. Suddenly, we’re in a wide-open field. There are grassy hills as far as the eye can see. We’re wearing, potentially, the same jean shorts that we were wearing under the water, but now we’ve accessorized them with a chunky black belt. Now we’re wearing a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Like the underwater gingham shirt that came before her, the flannel shirt is also cinched just below our bust-line. In our memory, it was purple and white. In 4k, it seems pretty clear that it’s blue and white with little red stripes, and so it probably just read as purple and white on our little CRT TV when we were ten years old.
We’re romping around. Were having a blast. We’re surrounded by dozens of beefy dance boys.
All of them are wearing pants but not all of them are wearing shirts. They exist for our delight—for us to frolic among.
There’s a motherfucking pony munching on motherfucking grass.
There is a single, safe-looking little tree on the horizon. The sky is big and blue sometimes. Sometimes, it is full of big, fluffy white clouds. Sometimes it is completely overcast and gray.
Throughout it all, we are aglow in the light of the angels. We are the light of the angels. We are the light. We are an angel.
Let’s step aside for a moment and admire the subliminal-messaging in the quick cuts. So subversive! Do they sneak naughty pictures of naked body parts into our subconscious? No! They sneak flowers into our subconscious! And sometimes there are flashbacks to the person who pulled us up from the water.
Back to us though: We have a big, sincere smile on our face. We are so fucking happy. No one has ever been happier. Our hair is gorgeous and curly and long and… remarkably dry. And we have it split loosely into two casual, low-hanging pigtails because that was just what felt right after we toweled off—that’s what our heart was telling us to do.
We love to bend over with our hands on our knees as we sing, “Oo-oo-oo-oo, baby,” and rise fluidly to a standing posture. We love that pony so much.
We are so pretty.
We love to brush flowers along our neck and our face.
We love to roll around on the ground and laugh and smile. We love to sing and sing, half-hiding our eyes behind our hands because we are so shy.
Something has shifted. We’re on the other side of the screen. We’re our old selves again and Mariah Carey is singing to us. She is a woman. She wants us. She needs us. We are the Dreamlover—her Dreamlover.
Her warm brown eyes. Her perfect eyebrows. Her million-dollar smile. That cutie little mole. My gosh.
Holy shit, she’s going up in a hot air balloon! Is that safe? Probably it’s fine! She is an angel after all!
But we’re starting to think that maybe the flowers are more erotic than we first gave them credit for. We should have known better. Flowers are always up to something. Some of them do look like naughty bits if we’re being honest.
Another shift. We’re having the flashback again. It was definitely a beefy boy who dove into the water to rescue us. He dove from a cliff? By a waterfall?
And he… spent a little time playing with a turtle? Was that before or after he dove into the water?
And for some reason we’re wearing a red bandana.
And now there’s a dog! Is that the beefy rescue boy’s dog? Is it a Dobermann Pinscher? Is it safe? It looks scary. Can we pet it?
Now it’s in front of a mansion? In a pool? Is that his mansion? Is that our mansion? So many questions!
Now, back in the field, Mariah is flapping her arms like a bird. Is she going to fly away? Please don’t fly away, Mariah. We need you so! We need you so! Take us up! Take us down! Take us anywhere you want to, baby now!
Wait, there’s a blond girl on set with braided pigtails and sunglasses? Who the fuck is that? Was she there the whole time? That could really complicate things! We’re just going to pretend we didn’t see her. In fact, what are you even talking about? We don’t know her.
Oh, shit! Now we’re in the water looking up at Mariah? Has she been the Dreamlover the whole time? Are we the pursued or the pursuer? Are we a boy or a girl? Do we own that dog and that mansion? Does she? And, you guys, seriously, did we decide to play with that turtle before we dove into the water to rescue Mariah or right after we rescued Mariah? Because either way, it seems a little weird to stop and play with a turtle, right? Is that her turtle? Was this directed by Charlie Kaufman?
None of that really matters. Nothing matters. Only Mariah matters. Only our love matters.
Mariah smiles and rolls back into the grass. She kicks her feet up in the air. Cute sneaks, girl!
Woo!
Baby!
How do you guys feel? I feel great! Why don’t we go cool off for a while in the supercontext?
To give credit where credit is absolutely fucking due, this truly exceptional music video was directed by Diane Martel. She has a stupidly impressive videography! Check it out! She’s got to be an unofficial member of Wu-Tang Clan, right? Like, invited to Method Man’s kids’ birthday parties or whatever?
“Diane,” says Method Man, “can you bring the Dobermann? Hmm. I see. Yes, Redman will be there.”
All I’m saying is, if I ever need a music video made, I know who I’m calling.
Anyway, “Dreamlover” wouldn’t be the last time Diane Martel struck gold by selecting a nice outdoor space and letting Mariah Carey go bonkers and flirt with the camera. Consider later on, when she directed the original “All I Want for Christmas Is You” video. That’s right! That video! In which Mariah romps around in the snow, beaming, making us fall in love with her but in the cold this time. Consider later still, when Mariah directed herself in the “Fantasy” video. In which she set herself in an amusement park. “Have all the fun, Mariah!” said Mariah. “All of it!”
What can we say that hasn’t been said? The summer doesn’t last forever. The “unusually strong and unrelenting Bermuda high" that had dominated me for weeks would eventually relent. September would roll around and I would become a sixth-grader—an adorable little man. On September 10, 1993, I would be invited over to the neighbor kid’s house to watch the pilot episode of The X-Files and eat bbq chips. Mariah Carey would start to lease space in my heart to Gillian Anderson. They got along really well in there! They still do! But no one will ever replace Mariah Carey in a particular place in my heart—the one reserved for the special feelings that were created in the narrow window after my special feelings machine first came online and before all of the hormones on the planet were emptied into it.
What I’m trying to say is, thank you, Mariah Carey, for being… part of my world.
