instruments. He described the changes to Bronson in an interview: "Mariah and Dave did this loop thing which was new to us pop producers at the time. Their version of 'Dreamlover' was missing a lot of stuff. The spirit of the song was up but it wasn't hitting hard enough. I re-worked the drums, organ and keyboard. The organ and hi-hat part I changed made it a bit more swinging and a little bit more driving. I put a whole new shade of colors to it." Composition and lyrics "Dreamlover" is a mid-tempo pop and R&B track with hip hop influences. The song begins at a moderate pace of 100 beats per minute before moving to a "pop-rock groove" of the same tempo after the introduction. It has the sequence of Fmaj7–Gm7–Fmaj7–Gm7 as its chord progression. Carey's vocal range spans three octaves and seven semitones from the low note of F3 to the high note of C7. The song was written and produced by Carey and Hall, with additional work done by Afanasieff, who added a slightly altered instrumentation. "Dreamlover" samples the hook and a musical loop from "Blind Alley" by R&B group The Emotions. The sampling provides a "backbone" for the instrumentation and production, as well as being inter-looped in the bridge. Carey uses a whistle register to introduce the first verse. In his review, Jozen Cummings from PopMatters described the song as "pure, frothy pop." Cummings felt Afanasieff's usage of the Hammond B3 organ added "an old school vibe" to "Dreamlover", as it harmonizes with the "extremely catchy musical hook." Cummings describes the theme of the lyrics: "... the lyric is a description of, and a call for, the mythic Dreamlover; someone to take her away, to 'rescue' her. Fluffy-seeming stuff, to be sure (and possibly cringe-inducing for some folk), but very possibly also an expression of the simplest of romantic dreams: to find the 'right' person; someone who makes you feel taken care of, loved, safe." Cummings called the second verse's first lines "Don't want another pretender / To disillusion me one more time / Whispering words of forever / Playing with my mind" an "interesting mix of innocence and very grown-up cynicism and world-weariness." Wayne Robins from Newsday compared the vocals to "Motown and Philly soul singing," while praising Afansieff's inclusion of the Hammond B-3 for the way the "riffs provide a nice organic contrast to