I heard an interview with the indy-rock band Guster on a public station the other day. One of the band members mentioned that in their song "Satellite" the word "satellite" was originally a "place-holder" word. They needed a three-syllable word ending in "ite" to fit the rhyme scheme and, so, plugged "satellite" in on a temporary basis. Then, after trying every other imaginable word or phrase that would have worked, they decided that satellite was, in fact, the word that worked best.

I imagine the author of "They Call the Wind Mariah" auditioned a number of words that rhyme with "fire" before deciding that "Mariah" made more poetic and logical sense than "O'Dwyer", "McGuire", "Hair Dryer", "High Wire", or "Flat Tire".