Welcome back to Hot Takes and Deep Dives, and today I am joined by one of the most prolific songwriters and producers in the history of pop music.

Not only has Walter Afanasiaf written for Beyonce, Destiny's Child, Ricky Martin, Josh Grobin, Barbara Streisand, and produced part of the Bodyguard soundtrack with Whitney Houston.

But he is perhaps most notable for his 28 songs

co-written with Mariah Carey. I'm talking about the enormous hits from our early albums,

including One Sweet Day, My All, Hero, anytime you need a friend, plus deep cut fan favorites

like forever, whenever you call. But Walter, would you say, all I want for Christmas is you will be your lasting legacy?

I would say, yeah, all I want for Christmas is you is the most reoccurring chart positioning over and over over the last 25, 26 years.

You know, occasionally somebody will put on an old Mariah Carey record or a Celine Dion record or

whatever, but it isn't the same as having a radio blasting for literally six, seven weeks straight, this very famous Christmas

song. My kids can be very grateful because they all went to college on that song.

You know, there's been a lot of a very, very genuinely and we're all very grateful. I'm always

grateful to Mariah for having the wherewithal and the power and the

sort of the staying power to be the Christmas Queen every year.

And certainly, you know, there's a lot of people out there writing great Christmas songs

and the original Christmas song is something that I am very, very in favor of people doing,

not because I want to dethrone the song that I had co-written,

but because it's really, really a wonderful subject matter

and really brings out a very beautiful side of songwriting,

and it could be fun, it couldwriting. And it could be fun.

It could be religious.

It could be classical or pop or rock or whatever you want.

And there's no rules or regulations when it comes to Christmas songs.

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