as a lead single for McEntire's twenty-fourth studio album Reba: Duets. This version reached number 36 on the Canadian Hot 100. "Piece by Piece", the title track from Clarkson's seventh studio album, serves as the canonical sequel to "Because of You". Background and writing "Because of You" was written by Clarkson alongside its producer, David Hodges and Ben Moody. They also wrote and produced another track, titled "Addicted", that appeared in Clarkson's album Breakaway (2004). Clarkson originally wrote "Because of You" when she was 16 years old as a means of coping with the emotional distress caused by the divorce of her parents. She wrote the lyrics of the song in less than 25 minutes. In an interview with The Guardian, Clarkson said that she wanted to include the song in her first album, Thankful (2003), but she was laughed at. Then she took the initiative to polish the song by sending a tape to Moody and Hodges, with whom she later worked, and received co-writing credit of the song. Clarkson explained, "Hearing the Evanescence album, you can obviously tell that David and Ben have a real passion for music and that big kind of background. And I have a big voice and I like the music to match it, so it was a real dream team." According to Moody, he was very impressed with Clarkson and the song itself, saying "She had these ideas already in place for songs; all I really had to do was build music around them and develop them. It was quite easy." Clarkson also admitted that "Because of You" is the most depressing song she has ever written. Despite the revelation, she told Entertainment Weekly in August 2011 that she wanted to be remembered for the song because she had to work hard to get it on Breakaway (2004) when everyone was against it. She added, "I think I’m most proud of that song – just getting it on an album because no one liked it until it hit no. 1 worldwide and everybody was on board." Composition "Because of You" is a piano-driven pop ballad with a length of three minutes and 39 seconds. It is set in common time and has a moderate tempo of 69 beats per minute. The song is composed in the key of F minor, and then modulated to the key of G minor, with Clarkson's vocal range