"Hands Clean" is a song recorded by Canadian singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette, for her fifth studio album, Under Rug Swept (2002). It was written, composed, and produced by Morissette and released as the album's lead single in January 2002. It features a shuffling, largely acoustic-rock framework. Lyrically, "Hands Clean" caused controversy, since it is reportedly the singer's recollection of a forbidden sexual relationship she shared with a much older man when she was approximately 14 years of age. The song received generally positive reviews from music critics, some of whom immediately chose the track as an album standout compared to some of her previous material. "Hands Clean" did well on the music charts, reaching number 23 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number three on the Billboard Adult Top 40. It topped the charts in New Zealand and Canada, where it became her sixth and most recent number-one single. An accompanying music video was released in 2002 for the single. Background and release After Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie – the 1998 follow-up to her 1995 breakthrough Jagged Little Pill – Morissette joined MTV for an unplugged album, released in 1999. Subsequently, she neither wrote nor composed for a few months, before developing a new album, through 2000 and 2001. During that period, she acknowledged she had learned, "That men in positions of power were not to be entirely trusted with my body and soul just because they were older than me." According to Jennifer Vineyeard of MTV News, the new album's topic was "love, sex, cruelty – with the added vantage of years spent growing up and getting over the man who vexed her so." Morissette wrote, composed, and produced Under Rug Swept by herself, claiming to have been inspired by events in her life, such as a break-up with her boyfriend and her contract renegotiation with Maverick. "I started writing alone," she said, "and within the first week I'd written seven songs. So it was all really fast and accelerated, and I think 'Hands Clean' was maybe the tenth song that I wrote and I just wrote it with a guitar in a room." Of the 27 songs written for the album, "Hands Clean" was picked to be the first single and was released on 8 January 2002. Before its official release, the song debuted on German radio on 24 December 2001. Composition and lyrical content "Hands Clean," written,