A soul song, "Looking In" portrays Carey as an isolated, misunderstood diva, struggling with youthful fears and insecurity and draws inspiration from her childhood and marriage to Tommy Mottola.
[1] The creative choices for her previous two albums had been heavily controlled by her label Columbia Records, as well as her husband and the company's CEO, Tommy Mottola.
Music Box went on to sell over 28 million copies worldwide and earned its place among the best-selling albums of all time.
Gary Cirimelli and Dan Shea programmed the song; Dana Jon Chappelle, Mike Scott, Andy Smith, Kurt Lundvall, Jay Healy, and Brian Vibberts handled engineering; and Mick Guzauski mixed it.
[10] Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker believed the song was a great example of expansive ballads with intricate orchestrations that populated Daydream and enveloped the gospel-inspired melodies.
[11] Stephen Holden of The New York Times called it a "slow piano-and-voice ballad" that perhaps "drag[ged] a bit".
[14] Carey eventually comments on people's perception of her, "You look at me and see the girl / that lives inside the golden world / But don't believe that's all there is to see / You'll never see the real me.
"[15] In his book titled Mariah Carey Revisited, author Chris Nickson described Looking In as "Sinewy than previous ballads."
Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani believed the song "Twister" from the 2001 Glitter soundtrack was autobiographical in the same vein as "Looking In" and "Petals" from her 1999 album Rainbow.