Behind The Beat: Britney Spears’ “Everytime”
“I mean you have to go through experiences in your life and go through day-to-day things to be able to write songs and to be able to express yourself and have something to be inspired to write about. So I think every song is a representation of me and like an art form. But it’s not completely too personal. Sometimes I write about fictitious things. You know, like I’ll make up a story in my head about someone going through an issue in life and I’ll be in the studio and we’ll have chemistry with people and we’ll go from there. So I think all of the songs are a representation of me.” — Britney Spears
Britney Spears will always be renowned as one of the defining artists of contemporary pop music. Taking the world by storm with her debut single, …Baby One More Time, she’d dominate the global charts with a plethora of iconic singles and multi-platinum albums. Throughout her career, Spears has continued to defy her critics, treating fans to an expansive body of work, from her debut smash, fan-favourite Blackout to her vastly underrated 2016 release, Glory.
With such colossal success, Spears would be the subject of immense scrutiny by the press, dissecting her personal life to the point of obsession, bordering on unethical. Britney’s artistic merit would often be drowned out by the noise of scandal and conjecture surrounding her personal life, relegating the work to that of an afterthought and her success falsely equivocated to simply studio puppetry and talented producers. The hauntingly beautiful ballad, Everytime written by Spears, is one of many examples that counter this notion and should silence any critics questioning her skill as a lyricist.
In this instalment of Behind The Beat, we trace the genesis of one of Spears’ greatest penned ballads, Everytime, released on her fourth studio album, In the Zone, while also examining this pivotal period in Spears’ creative journey.
After the immense commercial success of her first two albums, …Baby One More Time and Oops!… I Did It Again, Spears would continue to grow artistically as she became more confident as a lyricist, co-writing six tracks on her third studio album, Britney. During promotional interviews she’d elaborate further on the importance of taking creative control and self expression through writing, “This is the first album I have ever really written and taken my time on, so when I actually listen to the whole album, it’s just that much more special. I don’t know if I’m the best songwriter in the world, but I had a lot of fun doing it and hopefully I will get better and grow.”
This sentiment would continue to be evident as Britney began working on the follow up release, materialising into her fourth studio album, 2003’s In The Zone.
These sessions would be somewhat of a transitional period in Spears’ professional and personal sphere as she continued to shed the benevolent teen-pop image nurtured by the media, while also taking more creative control with her art. After a year of enduring relentless harassment and conjecture surrounding her personal life, coupled with a public break-up with then boyfriend Justin Timberlake, Spears would begin to look introspectively as she navigated through the next stage of her career. In an interview soon after the album was released, Spears elaborates,”Yes, I was going through a bunch of weird stuff. But I think, you know, everyone has that point in life where they go through this big transformation and it’s all on them. It’s all their journey. And sometimes you get overwhelmed with, you know, with being able to do whatever you want to do. And you’re just like ‘oh my gosh, what direction do I want to take? What path do I want to take?’ and, at the same time going through emotional stuff? So I think sometimes though when people are at that point in their lives that’s when they’re the most creative in a weird way kind of dark in way.”
Once again, Britney would take her time with the recording of the album, often booking studio time when she felt the need to work as opposed to a regimented schedule in the hopes to slowly cultivate the next release, “When you grow as a person and having those two years to really do the kind of album that I wanted to do, inevitably it’s going to change just in itself. … And I think that’s the big transition there, just me making it my project and my baby and making it so special, that’s the big transition thing for me.” She’d be heavily involved in all aspects of the album’s development including enlisting the producers she wanted to work with, “Being in the studio for a while and really figuring out what I want and working with the people I want, I think it’s kind of helped me understand music better.”
Collaborators would range from Swedish production duo Bloodshy & Avant (who’d also produce a number of tracks on various succeeding albums including Blackout and Circus), Tricky Stewart and writing/production group, The Matrix. The final result would build on the genres Spears had explored on previous efforts, tinged with hard-hitting urban beats, ((I Got That) Boom Boom) elements of ambient dance and house music (Breathe On Me) and reggae (The Hook Up). Scott Spock of The Matrix would elaborate on the sessions during an interview with MTV, “She’s taking it to the next level in her career…Madonna constantly takes what’s in the club and puts what she does on top of it and makes it mainstream. I think Britney is starting to embrace that concept where she’s looking to work on different stuff, instead of using the same familiar, and applying it to her.” Spears would share a similar sentiment, “I’d describe it as trance-y, kind of vibe record — something you could listen to that’s no so song-structured […] Of course I’m not doing ‘…Baby One More Time’ and those massive hits anymore.” Furthermore, she’d take more of an active role in contributing ideas during production, “It’s personal to me in the fact that I wrote the melodies, it’s the fact that I’m putting myself out there on the musical element of it in a huge way.”
Lyrically, In The Zone would showcase Spears’ frank and honest exploration of sexuality to a more explicit extent than her previous work. One of the earliest recorded tracks for the album and co-written by Spears, the sensual Touch Of My Hand depicts masturbation as the artist sings, “Imagination’s taking over, Another day without a lover, The more I come to understand The touch of my hand”
Tracks like Showdown and Early Mornin’ cast the artist in the role of an assertive unapologetic sexual being, embracing her natural, carnal desires further exemplified by the hard-hitting dance beats and sensual RNB sonic landscape. Britney would discuss the overall theme of the album further, “I think this record is where I am at right now in my life. It’s sensual, it’s sexual. I’m probably writing about that subconsciously because I don’t have that right now.” Spears would incorporate these fictitious elements into her lyrics as a form of fantasy and escape; a means of visualisation to contrast with the heavily scrutinised nature of her reality, “I think sometimes when you are going through a lot of stuff, subconsciously you write about — you want to write about light stuff because that’s what you need at that point. So yes, this process is very cool because there was just — you know it was such an emotional journey doing the whole record. But it’s like therapy being able to put it out there right now, you know, seeing it and share it with people. And it’s like being able to release a lot of stuff.” Lauren Christy of The Matrix would note how Spears would value authenticity in her song-writing as paramount, tailoring lyrics written by others to be an accurate representation of her own state of mind, “Lyrically, it’s a little deeper, just a little more grown up, but not trying to change the world or anything,” Christy said. “The great thing about Britney is she really knows what she wants. She knows if she’s trying something on that doesn’t fit right for her. She’s like, ‘No, that’s not me.’ She’s not one to strap on some sort of fake image.”
Spears would also touch on heavier subject matter, exploring themes of unrequited love, heartbreak and the aftermath of a fractured relationship. In Shadow, she contemplates if the feelings she feels for her partner are reciprocal, using his shadow as a metaphorical device to convey the ambiguity of his character and actions. The closing track on the album however, Everytime would be where Britney truly excels at conveying the feeling of emptiness that comes with the realisation that a once blossoming relationship has been lost.
Everytime would be one of the first tracks written for the album and recorded in late 2002 under the working title Everytime I Try. In July 2002, Spears would play her final show on the Dream Within A Dream tour in Mexico City, supporting the release of Britney. During this time, she’d strike up a friendship with her backing vocalist Annette Stamatelatos who would come to stay with Spears’ at her LA residence after the tour ended. Stamatelatos elaborates. “Basically, we commiserated because she, at that time, had broken up with Justin [Timberlake]. Maybe like nine months before, but of course it was really fresh in the media. I was just breaking up with this guy, so we kind of like–I think we kind of needed each other… I was staying with her in her house in LA for a few weeks…she had a piano in the middle of her house, so, of course, we’d sit around and start writing.” While on a vacation in Lake Como, Italy, the pair would continue to write music with the accompaniment of a piano to develop their ideas further. While Spears’ was not versed in music theory, she was proficient enough to conjure some initial ideas using root chords as she elaborates, “Sometimes when I get kind of bored, I come behind here and play the piano… There’s a piano in the hotel room, so I was really excited. I don’t know what ‘C’ is or, like, all that, but I do my own thing.” It’d be during these impromptu writing sessions that Everytime would initially be conceived with Spears writing the lyrics alongside contributions by Stamatelatos.
Britney would recollect on how the track developed, ”I wrote the whole thing from scratch on the piano. Musically there was no track or anything. I was just at my house and I did the whole thing by myself.”
On Everytime, Spears recounts the crippling ramifications of heartbreak and the torment that comes with the realisation that a fractured relationship can’t be repaired, “It’s about heartbreak, it’s about your first love, your first true love.” While Spears had touched on similar themes previously on a number of tracks including Born To Make You Happy and From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart, Everytime would be considerably darker sonically and more intimate, a consequence of Spears writing the track herself.
In the first verse she pleads for her lover to return, reflecting on their intense devotion while questioning the cause of the rift, “Why are we strangers when our love is strong, Why carry on without me.”The implications of this split are insurmountable as Spears equivocates her emotional state to that of a flightless bird, trapped in her own bereavement and unable to move on as the memory of her lover infiltrates her dreams.
Once again, she escapes into her own fantasy as a means of comfort and stability, a world in which her companion has not parted, in an attempt to attain clarity. Returning to reality, she once again questions her role in the dissolution. “I make-believe that you are here, It’s the only way that I see clear, What have I done, you seem to move on easy.”
What have I done? could be perceived as an expression of confusion or a rhetorical statement, a stark realisation that we may have played a part in the divorcement. This is further exemplified during the bridge in which Spears’ recounts, “I may have made it rain, please forgive me. My weakness caused you pain and this song’s my sorry.” Everytime is akin to that of a reconciliatory olive branch or final attempt at recovery through art. What makes the sentiment of the track so powerful is that there is no resolution to her suffering, as Spears instead pleads for the memory of her lover to dissipate in the hope that this will bring some form of closure, “At night I pray that soon your face will fade away.”
After the release of the single, there was speculation that Britney wrote Everytime as a response to her breakup with Justin Timberlake. Though she’s never definitively confirmed or denied this, it’s not particularly necessary to understanding the pathos of the song, after all most people have at one point experienced the type of visceral heartbreak expressed so eloquently on the ballad. As Spears attests, “That’s something all people can relate to, because you all have that first love that you think you’re going to be with the rest of your life.”
After completing the lyrics, Spears would take the basic idea for the composition to producer Guy Sigsworth to flesh out the arrangement further. Sigsworth, an immensely talented multi instrumentalist, writer and producer had previously worked with a number of successful artists including Madonna, Bjork and Seal. He would recollect on how he came to collaborate with the artist, “I did a couple of songs with Robyn, and she was mates with the whole Swedish crowd around Max Martin. She played them the tracks that we’d done, and they really liked them, and said, “Hey, we should bring Britney around.” She just came around to the place where I’d worked on the Frou Frou material, and initially I wasn’t quite sure what to do because she’s famous for her more dance-y songs, and I’m not. But it all turned out great. She had the root idea for “Everytime” (on her album In the Zone), and I could really tell that her heart was in it. I knew what my mission was. I could see the picture. She believed in the song, and I had to find a way to present it that was true to the simple emotion of it. It was a joy to do.”
Spears would elaborate further on the result of the partnership, “I went and I played it for (Guy Sigmouth) and I just basically told him exactly how I wanted the song to sound. And he was so amazing because there’s a lot of producers you tell them things and they don’t get it. And you’re like oh, that’s not the right way. He got it just right. He was amazing.” Sigsworth similarly recalls, “At the time, Britney had started to play the piano a bit, and she could certainly play well enough to spell out the root chords. She’d show me what she had, and I would say, “Well, here’s how we could fill this out.” We both knew where it needed to go, so I could color it in after she’d sung the main vocal. I love it when I get the vocal very early on, and I’m free to experiment with arrangement ideas while always hearing that final vocal. I love it when it can happen that way, though not every time is like that.”
With each note, Spears perfectly emotes the futility and sorrow of the lyrics with complete conviction. Her vocal delivery is as captivating as it is expressive, dramatic yet completely authentic with a hint of fragility and airiness. To compliment this sublime vocal performance, Sigsworth would create a subtle yet haunting sonic landscape, enveloped with piano, synths and swelling strings with faint percussion emerging as the song builds in intensity. He’d note the importance of producing an understated composition to compliment Spears’ visceral vocals and opaque lyrics, “We both knew we had to avoid all the cheezy power ballad cliches. No windchimes into the chorus. No giant snare drums. I loved it.” Britney would recall her thoughts on the completed track, “Everytime” is just a really nice song because it’s just, you know, it’s kind of personal in a weird way. I just think the song — it’s one of the songs that when you hear, it’s like the kind of song when you go to heaven. It kind of takes you away. You know, it takes you in to a very cool consciousness I think.”
Everytime would be released as the third single from In The Zone, following Spears’ duet with Madonna, Me Against The Music and Toxic as the first two singles. The track would perform moderately in the US, peaking at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100, but would have considerably more success in other territories, hitting the top spot in the UK, Australia and Ireland. Critically, the track would be heralded as one of the highlights on In The Zone, particularly for it’s subdued composition and Spears’ vulnerable lyrics.
Everytime would be written during a pivotal point in Britney’s creative journey as she continued to push herself as a lyricist and progressively take more artistic control with each new project; a tangent example of her songwriting ability as she conveys the perils of heartbreak in a compelling and vulnerable manner, coupled with an understated, spectacular vocal performance. With an abundance of iconic dance hits and irresistible pop masterpieces to her name, Everytime is an example of a ballad that soars.
“If anyone says that they’re completely full grown, what’s the fun in that? Every day you want to learn something new. Every day you want to challenge yourself and get better. I’m not grown up and I’m not a little girl. I just am.’’ — Britney Spears
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Citations:
Corey Moss (2001) “Britney Says Britney Reflects Who Britney Is” –MTV Music | Colleen Maree Quill (2003)“A Brave New Woman: Britney Spears” — Hip Online |Binelli, Mark (2003). “Sometimes It’s Hard To Be a Woman”. Rolling Stone | Stern, Bradley (February 2010). “Annet Artani: From “Everytime” to “Alive””.MuuMuse.com. Bradley Stern | Phillips, Lior (September 2017). “From Björk to Britney: Songwriter and Producer Guy Sigsworth on Being a Kindred Spirit in the Studio — Consequence Of Sound |
