Love Takes Time

Infobox Single
Name = Love Takes Time


Artist = Mariah Carey
from Album = Mariah Carey
B-side = "Sent from up Above" (U.S.)
"Vanishing" (UK)
"You Need Me" (UK)
Released = September 9, 1990 (North America)
November 1990 (UK)
Format = CD single, cassette single, 7" single
Recorded =
Genre = Pop, R&B
Length = 3:49
Label = Columbia
Writer = Mariah Carey, Ben Margulies
Producer = Walter Afanasieff
Certification = Gold (RIAA)
Last single = "Vision of Love"
(1990)
This single = "Love Takes Time"
(1990)
Next single = "Someday"
(1991)Extra tracklisting
Album = Mariah Carey
Type = studio
prev_track = "Prisoner"
prev_no = 10
this_track = "Love Takes Time"
track_no = 11
next_track =
next_no =Extra tracklisting
Album = #1's
Type = compilation
prev_track = "Someday"
prev_no = 14
this_track = "Love Takes Time"
track_no = 15
next_track = "Vision of Love"
next_no = 16Extra tracklisting
Album = Greatest Hits" (CD #1)
Type = compilation
prev_track = "Vision of Love"
prev_no = 1
this_track = "Love Takes Time"
track_no = 2
next_track = "Someday"
next_no = 3

"Love Takes Time" is a pop song written by Mariah Carey and Ben Margulies, and produced by Walter Afanasieff for Carey's debut album, "Mariah Carey" (1990). It was released as the album's second single in the third quarter of 1990 (see 1990 in music). It was the first of several adult contemporary-influenced Carey ballads to be released as a single, and its protagonist informs others to take things easy in a relationship as "love takes time". It became Carey's second number-one single in the United States and Canada, but was only a moderate success elsewhere.

Recording

Mariah's debut album for the label was completed and being mastered when she wrote the song with Ben Marguiles. "It was sort of a gospelish thing I was improvising, then we began working on it," Marguiles relates. "It was on a work tape that we had...and we recorded a very quick demo. It was just a piano vocal demo - I played live piano, and she sang it."

Mariah was on a mini-tour of 10 states, playing acoustically with a piano player and three back-up singers. While on a company plane, she played the demo of "Love Takes Time" for Columbia Records president Don Ienner. "All the important guys were on the plane," Marguiles recalls. "(Tommy) Mottola, Ienner, and Bobby Colomby." Mariah was told the song was a "career-maker," and that it had to go on the first album. Mariah protested - her album was already being mastered, and she intended this ballad for her next release.

The demo was sent to producer Walter Afanasieff. When Mariah flew west to work with Narada Michael Walden on some tracks for her first album, Tommy Mottola and Don Ienner were impressed with Afanasieff's work and gave him an executive staff producer job with the label.

"I guess to see if he made the right choice, (Tommy) called me up one day," remember Afanasieff. "He said, 'We've got this Mariah Carey album done, but there's a song that she and Ben Marguiles wrote that is phenomenal, and I want to try everything we can to put it on the album.' I said, 'What do you want me to do?' and he said. 'You only have a couple of days, but are you ready to cut it?' I couldn't believe the opportunity that it was. I'd never produced anything by myself up until that time."

The demo was very close to what Mottola wanted the finished produce to be, according to Afanasieff. "We cut the song and the music and the basics in about a day - and the only reason is this deadlinel. It was do it or we were gonna miss out on the whole thing. We got the tape and recorded everything and we got on the plane and went to New York (and) did her vocals. She did all the backgrounds, practically sang all night...We came back to the studio that afternoon, and we had to fix one line very quickly, and then (engineer) Dana {Jon Chapelle) and I got back on the plane with the tape, went back to the studio in Sausalito, and mixed it. So it was a three-day process: a day and a half for music, kind of like a day for vocals, and a day for mixing."

Afanasieff heard from Columbia executives as soon as they received the mix. They wanted Mariah's vocal a little louder, so a remix was quickly completed. The producer asked if the song would still make the debut album, and was told, "We're going to do our best."

When the album was released, "Love Takes Time" was not listed on the cassette or compact disc. "(On) some of the original first copies of the record, they didn't have time to print the name of the song," Marguiles laughs. "And so the song's on there, but it doesn't say that it's on there. It was a song that actually was strong enough to stop the pressing...I don't know if they had to throw away a few hundred copies." [ [http://www.mariahdaily.com/infozone/storybehindno1s.shtml#ltt "Hero" inside story ] ]

Reception

"Love Takes Time" was another success like Carey's debut single "Vision of Love" in the United States: it reached number one in its ninth week on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and spent three weeks at the top of the chart, from November 10 to November 24 1990. It spent seventeen weeks in the top forty and the RIAA certified it gold. It topped every other "Billboard" chart for which it was eligible (including the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and Adult Contemporary charts). Because its success was divided over two calendar years it did not rank high on "Billboard"'s year-end charts, making seventy-sixth on the 1990 chart and sixty-ninth on the 1991 chart.

However, "Love Takes Time" failed to emulate its US success in any other market except Canada, where it topped the singles chart for one week, and the Philippines, where it became Carey's second number-one single. "Love Takes Time" reached the top ten in New Zealand and Israel. It did not make much of an impact elsewhere, becoming a moderate top twenty hit in Australia, and top forty hit in the UK and the Netherlands, but failed to reach the top forty in Germany.

The song did not receive as many awards as "Vision of Love", but it too managed a BMI Pop Award for "Song of the Year" and a "Songwriter Award".

Music video and other versions

The single's video, directed by Jeb Bien and Walter Maser, features Carey walking around a beach after a man walks away with luggage. The video is not included on the DVD/home video "#1's" (1999) because she was ashamed of it.

Kelly Clarkson did a cover of this song while performing at a mini tour in 2003.

Track listings

;U.S. CD single (cassette single/7" single)
#"Love Takes Time" (album version)
#"Sent from up Above" (album version)

;UK CD 5" single
#"Love Takes Time" (album version)
#"Vanishing" (album version)
#"You Need Me" (album version)

Charts

ee also

*Hot 100 number-one hits of 1990 (United States)