There’s Got To Be A Way (1991)

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There's Got to Be a Way" is a song by American singer and songwriter Mariah Carey from her self-titled debut studio album (1990). Columbia released it as the fifth and final single from the album only in the United Kingdom in May 1991. It was one of four songs Carey wrote with Ric Wake during their first recording session together in February 1990, but "There's Got to Be a Way" was the only composition to make the final track listing.[1]

Key Lyrics

There's got to be a way

To unite this human race

And together we'll bring on a change


In another land they still believe

Color grants supremacy

I don't understand how there can be

Regulated bigotry

Background

"There's Got to Be a Way" was composed by Mariah Carey and Ric Wake for Carey's self-titled debut studio album (1990); the lyrics were written by Carey, while she and Wake composed the music. It was written during Carey and Wake's first recording session together. They composed four songs, but only "There's Got to Be a Way" was chosen for the final track listing.[2] Co-produced by Wake and Narada Michael Walden, it appears as the second of eleven songs on the track listing.[3]

Composition

"There's Got to Be a Way" is an R&B-pop music song with elements of gospel, lasting for a duration for four minutes and 52 seconds.[4] The song begins with Carey publicly decrying the existence of war, poverty and racism in the world, and she uses the bridge to shift the lyrics towards an uplifting and aspirational tone. A "peaceful, political anthem," the theme of social activism can be heard in the lyrics "There's got to be a way/ To connect this world today/ Come together to relieve the pain/ There's got to be a way/ To unite this human race/ And together we'll bring on a change."[5] Carey goes on to suggest that we should be more tolerant of each other and not resort so readily to war in the lyrics "Couldn't we accept each other / Can't we make ourselves aware."[6]

Performance

Carey performed a couple of lines of the song for the first time in a short video on May 30, 2020, in response to the killing of George Floyd, an African American man killed during his arrest by Derek Chauvin, a White American police officer, in Minneapolis on May 25. Carey posted the video clip online, singing the lyrics "I don't understand how there can be regulated bigotry. There's got to be a way to connect this world today," focusing on its lyrics denouncing racism. She captioned the video with "I wrote this song for my first album. Still looking for answers today. We have to make a change. We can't be silent," followed by the hashtag Black Lives Matter and an encouragement to her fans to donate to the Color of Change campaign to prohibit the officers involved from working in law enforcement in the future and to be prosecuted for Floyd's death.[7]

Reference

  1. "Mariah Carey - There's Got to Be a Way". Discogs. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  2. Chris Nickson. Mariah Carey Revisited: An Unauthorised Biography. 25 November 1998. St. Martin's Press. p. 29. ISBN 0312195125. Retrieved from Wikipedia, February 5, 2021.
  3. "Mariah Carey". 12 June 1990. iTunes Store. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  4. Trevor Anderson. "Mariah Carey's Self-Titled Debut at 25: Classic Track-by-Track Review". 12 June 2015. Billboard. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  5. Paris Close. "Mariah Carey Sings 'There's Got To Be A Way' In Honor Of George Floyd". 31 May 2020. iHeartRadio. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  6. Robert Christgau. "Robert Christgau CG: Mariah Carey". The Village Voice. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  7. Peters Mitchell. "Mariah Carey Sings 'There's Got to Be a Way' in Response to George Floyd's Death: Watch". 30 May 2020. Billboard. Retrieved February 5, 2021.