“We Belong Together” by Mariah Carey

"We Belong Together" was the second single from The Emancipation of Mimi, Mariah Carey's tenth album, out on Island in March 2005, and critics hailed it as her comeback after a lean stretch from 2001 to 2004 that had many writing her off. She wrote it with Jermaine Dupri, Manuel Seal and Johntá Austin and produced it with Dupri and Seal, borrowing lyrics from Bobby Womack and the Deele along the way.

The setting is spare, piano over a low-key backbeat, leaving her all the room she needs to plead for a lost lover's return. It sat atop the Hot 100 for fourteen weeks, not all in a row, and took Best R&B Song at the 48th Grammys. The video finishes the story "It's Like That" began: Carey weds a powerful older man, then bolts with her younger ex, played by Wentworth Miller.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.