Hero (Mariah Carey Song) - Writing and Recording

Writing and Recording

Aside from her work as a vocalist and record artist, Carey was becoming known as a songwriter, having penned and produced all of her own material throughout her career. During the production of Music Box, she was approached by Epic Records to write and record a song alongside Afanasieff, and release it on the soundtrack to the 1992 film Hero, featuring Dustin Hoffman and Geena Davis. While Carey was interested in the project, Mottola was very adamant over allowing Carey to take part in anything involving film, fearing it would run the possibility of hurting her career. Additionally, Columbia felt uneasy about allowing their highest selling recording artist contribute to another label, even though a branch of the same parent company, Sony. Afanasieff recalled, "The people over at Epic Records were going to do the soundtrack for the film. They wanted to have Mariah sing the theme to it, but they didn't really think they could because at that time you couldn't get near Mariah to do anything film-wise. So they wanted to try the next best thing, which was to have us write something." Still interested in working for the film, Carey agreed to pen the feature song for the film, intended for fellow female singer, Gloria Estefan. Carey and Afanasieff sat together in a studio in New York, and over the course of two hours, composed the song's melody, lyric and concept. In an interview with Fred Bronson, Afanasieff discussed the process in which they had completed the rough version of the song:

I went to New York and we were in the studio and came to a break. I was sitting at the piano and told Mariah about this movie. Within two hours, we had this incredible seed for this song, 'Hero'. It was never meant for Mariah to sing. In her mind, we were writing a song for Gloria Estefan for this movie. And we went into an area that Mariah didn't really go into—in her words, it was a little bit too schmaltzy or too ballady or too old-fashioned as far as melody and lyrics.

As they completed the song's demo, Tommy Mottola, CEO of Sony Music Entertainment and Carey's fiancé, and soon to be husband, walked into the studio. After hearing the rough version of the song, on which they were still working on, he became interested in it, asking what project the song belonged to. Carey explained to him the concept and how the song would be used for the film Hero. Mottola immediately took an intense liking to the song, responding, "Are you kidding me? You can't give this song to this movie. This is too good. Mariah, you have to take this song. You have to do it." Initially, Carey was guided by the subject of the film, but Afanasieff acknowledged that the she made it a very personal song after deciding to keep it, altering some of the lyrics, key and instrumentation. After their decision to keep "Hero", Afanasieff went back to the staff at Epic and told them that they had failed to come up with a song for the soundtrack. Estefan never heard the tune was originally meant for her, and the song that ended up in the soundtrack was "Heart of a Hero", written, produced and recorded by Luther Vandross. In the following weeks, after completing the song, Afanasieff spoke with Bronson about its recording, and how Carey created several versions of the track:

There was a simpler performance on tape and a more difficult one, with Mariah singing out more, with more licks. But we chose a happy medium. The song really calls for not anything really fancy. But she's always fighting the forces inside of her because she's her own devil's advocate. She wants to do something that's so over the top and use her talents and the voice she has. But she also knows she has to restrain herself and do what the music really calls for.