When You Believe by Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston

Album: The Prince of Egypt: Original Soundtrack (1998)

Charted: 4 15

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Songfacts®:

This song is a duet between two superstar divas: Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. The song's message is that when you have faith and believe, miracles can happen. It doesn't specifically mention God, but that can be implied by its use in the movie The Prince Of Egypt, which is based on a story told in the bible.
"When You Believe" is the main theme of the 1998 DreamWorks movie The Prince Of Egypt. It was written by the song's producer, Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, along with Stephen Schwartz, who has been the lyricist for several movies, including Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1996) and Enchanted (2007). The Prince Of Egypt was the first movie he contributed toward composing as well as the lyrics.
In the film, this song was performed by Michelle Pfeiffer and Sally Dworsky (dubbing for Sandra Bullock) as their characters Tzipporah, wife of Moses and Miriam, respectively. The song appears at the film's climax just before the parting of the Red Sea.

This version of the song was produced by Hans Zimmer, who composed the score for the film. It also appears on the soundtrack along with the Whitney/Mariah version.
According to Babyface, there was tension between Carey and Houston, so they ended up recording separately.

"They both asked for me and neither of them were going to do it from what I understand unless I was the producer," Babyface shared with Vulture. "Mariah's producer was Walter Afanasieff at the time and did most of her stuff and Whitney's was David Foster. So neither one of them trusted those producers; Whitney wouldn't have trusted Walter and Mariah wouldn't have trusted David."
This was a global hit, placing high on the charts in many countries and helping The Prince Of Egypt soundtrack sell over a million copies in America. Whitney Houston was a soundtrack superstar in the '90s, contributing hits to Waiting To Exhale (1995), The Preacher's Wife (1996), and most famously, The Bodyguard (1992), where she sang what became her signature song, "I Will Always Love You."
"When You Believe" won the Oscar for Best Original Song, beating out "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing," a #1 hit for Aerosmith from the movie Armageddon.
A few weeks after this song appeared on The Prince Of Egypt soundtrack, it was included on Whitney Houston's My Love Is Your Love (her first non-soundtrack album since 1990) and on Mariah Carey's compilation Number 1's.
In 2007 Leon Jackson, the fourth winner of the British talent show The X Factor, recorded this song as his debut single. It was released a few days after he was announced as the winner. The song's co-writer Stephen Schwartz tweaked the lyrics for Jackson's version.

Jackson listed the song as a bonus track on his debut album, Right Now. He explained to the Daily Record October 10, 2008: "I didn't include it on the album proper because it was then and this is now. It was made for four people who could have been the winner of X Factor and I did the best I could with it."

Comments: 4

Waney Kurr from New YorkThat song is less Christian than a song about killing people. At least the song about killing people ignores God. This song straight up confronts the notion of a God and replaces it with the notion the we the people have the power to do anything. The song gives off Tower of babel vibes where man can do anything they set themselves to.
All “” are lyrics of the song.
Jesus said that IF you have faith in God, THEN you can move mountains, The song confront that by advising the listener that he/she has already been moving mountains LONG before they even heard that faith in God concept and the song even adds that “prayers often prove to be vain” anyway. “YOU can do miracles when you believe”. At no point are we relying on an outside force in this song, all help comes from within “though hope is frail, its hard to kill” its all about human resilience. “A small but still, resilient voice, says help is very near”. Resilience is not a needed character of God, since he cannot lose a battle. This song is ALL about human beings creating our own miracles APART from any God. We are the God and the only thing to look toward is ourselves.
Kato from Belgrade, SerbiaI absolutely love this song, though I prefer the original voices. I loved that this movie and this song appeal to a very large audience: you can be Jewish, Muslim, Christian, whatever and still enjoy this. It’s hard to do and all of the singers did a great job!
Christopher from Charlotte, NcReliable sources say that Michelle's and Sally's vocals were recorded earlier than those of Whitney and Mariah who sang the pop version during the closing credits. So even though both versions are on the soundtrack and in the film, Since Michelle and Sally recorded theirs earlier, the Mariah/Whitney version is considered a cover. So this song need to also go into the
category of "More Songs Originally Recorded By Other Artists. Personally I like the original Pfeiffer/Dworsky duet better.
Jazzz from FrankfurtPretty good song, but it's one of those "God is light and love and happiness" kind of messages. They clearly tried to appeal to the biggest audience possible. Christianity has started to sell well. Oh, ok, in this song, Christ isn't even the topic, so even a happy Muslim or Jewish person will sing along. Let's all chime in "When you ..." Sorry for the sarcasm.

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