1997Released
4:59

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about Honey. By Songfacts®.

This sweet love song was co-written and produced by Sean Combs, who was known at the time as Puff Daddy. Carey wrote the lyric, which finds her infatuated with some lucky dude … later revealed to be Derek Jeter. Much of the Butterfly album was inspired by Mariah's blossoming affair with New York Yankees shortstop. The singer's strained marriage to Sony Music executive Tommy Mottola was near its breaking point and she found herself sneaking away to Puerto Rico to spend time with the ballplayer. The song's "Hey DJ" reference (taken from The World's Famous Supreme Team's 1984 hit of the same name) was actually a covert message to her new man. "Little did they know it was a secret shout-out to Derek Jeter," she wrote in her 2020 memoir, The Meaning Of Mariah Carey. "'Honey' was a song about jonesin' for that DJ feeling."

This samples "The Body Rock" by the Treacherous Three. Carey explained to VH1: "The original loop on 'Honey' was from 'Body Rock' by the Treacherous Three. That was Q-Tip's idea. It was my idea to throw in the 'Hey DJ' part, because that was always one of my favorite songs."

Carey told VH1 that she was already thinking about the song's video when she penned it. She said: "I wrote the lyrics to 'Honey' in Puerto Rico on this boat. I kept rewinding the track and watching people jet-ski, thinking, 'That would be cool for the video.' I never think about the video when I'm writing the song, usually, but the whole atmosphere seemed right."

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of Honey.
C♯Key
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
96BPM

Album

The album Honey is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released Honey.
Columbia
(P) 1997 Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

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