The organ and hi-hat part I changed made it a bit more swinging and a little bit more driving. I re-worked the drums, organ and keyboard. The spirit of the song was up, but it wasn’t hitting hard enough. Their version of ‘Dreamlover’ was missing a lot of stuff. Mariah isn't waiting for a 'Dreamlover' to come rescue her on this song because she's her own hero.She explained in a promo video for the album: ''Hero' is a song that's basically about looking inside yourself and being your own hero, like not always having to look for some kind of hero to come along and save you, but you can save yourself by looking inside yourself and trying to making it. Mariah and Dave did this loop thing which was new to us pop producers at the time.

In an interview Afanasieff described the alteration: Mariah Carey - HERO Theres a hero if you look inside your heart.You dont have to be afraid of what you are.Theres an answer if you reach into your soul,An. Music executive Tommy Mottola, Carey’s fiancée at the time, didn’t like the initial outcome of “Dreamlover” so he had producer Walter Afanasieff change the instrumental. Then we started listening to a lot of different and old loops and we used the ‘Blind Alley’ loop and I started singing the melody over it So he said, ‘Oh, you want to do that happy stuff? All right, all right.’ He was not into doing it. I wanted to do something that had a happy feeling, something that was more open and released, and that’s really not Dave. In an interview with Fred Bronson, Mariah described the recording process:

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