The Dave Meyers-directed clip for "Through the Rain" is based on the singer's own life story.

"Originally it wasn't going to have anything to do with that, but people were looking through my photo albums this year," she explained. "My father and I had made some photo albums together of his relatives and different people in the family. A couple people saw [the albums] and they were like, 'This is amazing that you have this.' I guess everybody was like, 'How would you feel about this type of concept [for a video]?' So I guess I thought if someone's going to do it might as well be me.

"The story line [of the video] is about an interracial couple," she continued. "It's sort of Romeo and Juliet but it's set in the '60s and they're kind of torn apart. It's about their struggle and I'm sort of the narrator. I don't want to give too much away about it, but it's nice. Something I could relate to, being the product of an interracial union, though [my parents] did not wind up happily ever after standing in church together."

Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who plays Meadow Soprano on "The Sopranos," gives Mariah a helping hand in the video.

"We just got a call a few days ago and they said, 'You know Mariah would like you to play her mom in her video,' " Sigler explained. "I was like, 'What? Okay!' Not a phone call you expect to get. It's a bit surreal as I grew up being a big fan of Mariah, and to be playing her mother ... it's a very exciting week for me. It's fun for me - I get to be in '60s garb and have old-school hair. I look a little like my mother - a little too much.

"With my character, she's basically going against her parent's wishes to be with this gentleman," she continued. "She's pregnant with a baby, which is Mariah, and they run away together. So it's kind of an epic love story, it's nice." All except the rain, Mariah noted with a laugh.

"We're on day two of the shoot," she said. "Yesterday was me walking randomly through the streets singing. But then there was, of course naturally, the rain shower, which they told me, 'Oh, you're not going to get that wet.' I got completely soaking wet in this rain, but it looked really cool because it looked like the hugest rain storm New York has seen, ever. And it felt like it too. But it was good."