Anytime You Need A Friend - Music Videos

Music Videos

The music video, directed by Danielle Federici, was filmed during the early summer of 1994. It was filmed in black-and-white, and features Carey walking along the streets of New York, watching several different people, ranging from a small child to an elderly man, lonely and in need of a friend. Additionally, aside from several scenes of Carey and a large church choir in a large antechamber, the video is known as the first video in which Carey appears with straightened hair. Throughout her career up until that point, Carey had famously sported long, auburn curls. However, the video presented Carey's first image makeover, where she appears with bangs and a long straightened hairstyle. The video begins with scenes of Carey walking down a long New York street, with the addition of close ups of Carey's face. As she stares down the road, she witnesses a small girl, sitting alone in an alley corner, glaring into the sky. As the first chorus begins, Carey enters a large foyer, with a choir dressed in black singing perched atop a large staircase. During the second verse, she similarly witnesses an older man, who it sitting on a withered stoop.

Consecutively, during the song's bridge, Carey watches as the small child's mother carries her to a nearby playground where her friends are frolicking and playing. Similarly, the elderly man is met with some other elderly citizens, who accompany him to another building nearby. During the song's climax, Carey joins the choir, flailing her hands wildly towards the sky, and smiling and gazing into the cloudy morning. Renee Graham from The Boston Globe gave the video two out of four stars. She complimented on the fact that the video captured the song's lyrical essence and how it managed to portray it in a clear and concise way. Although calling it "simple", Graham commented that "Videos have never really been Mariah Carey's thing, and frankly, they've never had to be. Carey has a killer voice, so the last thing she'd want to do is overshadow her singing with a lot of choreography, complicated story lines or explosions." Author Chris Nickson compared several parts of the video to religion and belief in God. During such scenes when Carey appears with the choir, he felt it seemed as though they were both channeling a common entity through music; God. Additionally, he claimed it was more evident with each passing scene of the video, as each of the lonely people in the video gaze up into the skies, possibly praying or searching for an answer to their lonliness. A video was commissioned for the C+C club mix of the song. Known as the C+C video edit, it was also directed by Danielle Federici and serves as a behind the scenes addendum to the main music video. It is also filmed in black and white, and is composed of clips of Carey and her friends during filming of the video, where they chat, laugh and enjoy time with each other. Carey's husband at the time Tommy Mottola made a cameo appearance in the video, appearing alongside Carey during the second verse.