Vision of Love - Lyrical Content

Lyrical Content

The song's lyrics have subject to various interpretations and suggested relationships by critics. Some have noted the relationship in between Carey and God, while other point out one with a lover. Carey has yielded to both, while claiming them to have a connection to her childhood and obstacles growing up. Michael Slezak wrote "Though it's not clear if she's celebrating a secular love or her relationship with a higher power, this exuberant ballad is a near-religious listening experience." In an interview with Ebony in 1991, Carey spoke of the song's lyrics and success.

"Consider the lyrics: Prayed through the nights/Felt so alone/Suffered from alienation/Carried the weight on my own/Had to be strong/So I believed/And now I know I've succeeded/In finding the place I conceived. Well, just because you are young doesn't mean that you haven't had a hard life. It's been difficult for me, moving around so much, having to grow up by myself, basically on my own, my parents divorced. And I always felt kind of different from everyone else in my neighborhoods. I was a different person – ethnically. And sometimes that can be a problem. If you look a certain way everybody goes, 'White girl,' and I'd go, No, that's not what I am."

According to Nickson, Carey chose to express her innermost feelings in her songs rather than becoming depressed and bitter throughout the hardships in her life. "You really have to look inside yourself and find your own inner strength, and say, `I'm proud of what I am and who I am, and I'm just going to be myself."