probably didn't want out there, and in front of her little sister ... I remember her sister being mortified and her being mortified. I'm sure that that really hurt her." The song was also speculated to be a reply to Timberlake's "Never Again", a ballad which appeared on his debut solo album Justified. "Everytime" was recorded at Conway Studios in Los Angeles and mixed at Frou Frou Central in London, England. During an interview with Hip Online, Spears commented about the recording sessions, saying, "... Like with 'Everytime' 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. And then I went and I played it for [Guy Sigsworth] 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. And so that song specifically, you know, I did everything." "Everytime" was one of the first songs finished for In the Zone, previewed on May 30, 2003, to Quddus Philippe of MTV at Battery Studios in New York City. It was registered with the U.S. Copyright Office on April 26, 2003, under the title of "Everytime I Try" and SRU000530591 registration number with a given recording year of 2002. Spears named it the most personal song on the album along with "Touch of My Hand", explaining, "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." Composition "Everytime" is a pop ballad. It begins with a music box introduction accompanying Spears's breathy vocals, which build from soft to strong through the song. According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Universal Music Publishing Group, "Everytime" is composed in the key of E major, with a tempo of 110 beats per minute. Spears's vocal range spans from the low note of A3 to the high note of E5. "Everytime" lyrics are a plea for forgiveness for inadvertently hurting a former lover. In the song, the singer explains she feels unable