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Originally written August 13, 2005.
Most songs are worked up in the studio by a collaboration of everyone present - that’s why simple songs seem to have so many writers. And that’s why Britney had so many co-writing credits before “Everytime”. But “Everytime” was the first song she wrote in the traditional fashion of bringing it to the studio as a finished item. The song was written while she was on tour in 2002, and her co-writer was Annette Stamatelatos, one of her backing singers during that period. Annette’s role in the writing process was that Britney bounced ideas off of her, but she got a writing credit anyway.
When Britney first began promoting the song, she made a half-hearted attempt at concealing the fact that its subject was her devastating break-up with Justin Timberlake, but her fans were never in any doubt about the source of its inspiration.
The first most of us heard of it was when she gave an emotional performance on Saturday Night Live. It’s generally accepted that this was her best live performance of the song. There were quite a few others, but when she decided to sing it live on the Onyx tour she found that some of the lower notes were getting lost in the crowd noise, so she reworked the melody to bring it into a range where it was easier to make herself heard, and some fans simply don’t like the artist to depart from the familiar.
As with “Shadow”, the Showtime performance of “Everytime” was controversial. Again there seemed to be problems with sound balance and equalisation and an intrusive microphone hum. Britney’s improvised version of the amended melody sounded tremendously alien to listeners familiar with the recorded version, and a great deal of largely undeserved criticism followed.
Listening to it again as I write, I would have to defy the consensus and say that her performance is actually rather good. It isn’t an easy song to sing live, and requires Britney to slip in and out of falsetto. Furthermore, it’s almost an a cappella performance because the backing music for “Everytime” doesn’t support the singer. When I heard her sing it live on the Onyx tour she changed the melody yet again but sang with such strength and emotion that the crowd went wild.
The “Everytime” video was also controversial. Early treatments found their way to the press, who were universally shocked and horrified to discover that Britney planned to commit suicide in the video. She was panned as cheap, tacky and desperate. The treatment was changed, and Britney issued a statement emphasizing her view that suicide wasn’t the answer to anything. Nevertheless, director David Lachappelle later revealed Britney’s one instruction to him - she had to die in the video.
The finished promo is still deeply disturbing, not just for its content but for the fact that a seemingly healthy young woman should even want to make it. UK’s Teletext reviewer called it a true video horror. Every time I see it, I find myself on the edge of my chair with my mouth open and tears welling in my eyes. The alternate version on the GH DVD, where Britney cavorts humorously in the corridor and does a little curtsey, doesn’t entirely dissipate my anxiety about Britney’s state of mind in that period of her life.
The song itself, in the album version, is also extremely touching and disturbing. Some non-fans have said “Wouldn’t it be great to hear a really good singer do it?” No. It wouldn’t, if that means someone with a confident, powerful voice. Britney’s version is incredibly edgy and fragile - the perfect vehicle for a song of emotional devastation, confession and self-abasement. I still find it difficult to speak after hearing it. That doesn’t mean she conveys her damaged soul with some fractured singing. The Dotmusic reviewer of GH:MP noted that it actually illustrated the underappreciated qualities of Britney’s “delicately nuanced voice”.
Guy Sigsworth was an inspired choice as producer. At times one half of Frou Frou, along with Imogen Heap, the handsome but scholarly Guy was always a studio boffin who wrote, produced and played all the instruments himself - as he does on Everytime. What brought him to Steve Lunt’s attention was his spare, sensitive work with Bjork and the innovative images he had begun to create with the Tassman sound-modelling program. The “music-box-meets-harp” sounds on Everytime come from Tassman.
It seems like sacrilege to make dance remixes of such an ethereal and heartfelt composition, but the results weren’t all bad. The Hi-Bias mix seems to me to trample the song underfoot, but the Scumfrog mix is - in its own way - as disturbing as the album version. It’s long, but it’s an emotional journey through some bleak inner landscapes, punctuated by some heartbreaking little sighs and groans from Britney. Near the end, where the beats stop and we are left with Britney almost sobbing “Oh.....oh......oh......” I end up speechless again.
A lot of us, myself included, thought “Everytime” was an extremely hazardous follow-up to “Toxic”. It seemed to blow Brtney’s cool, alter perceptions from those of a powerful performer back with a bang to those of a Prozac-loving train-wreck. It seemed a horrible tactical mistake. But it got Britney a second consecutive No.1 single in the UK and in many other countries around the world, and brought her lots of new fans. It showed her mastery of the entire spectrum of pop.
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