. Britney Spears' three-year relationship with singer-songwriter
Justin Timberlake ended in 2002 after months of speculation. In November 2002, Timberlake released the song "
Cry Me a River" as the second single from his debut solo album
Justified. The song's music video featured a Spears lookalike and fueled the rumors that she had been unfaithful to him. "Cry Me a River" is often credited as being the song that propelled
Justified onto the charts. In September 2001,
Annet Artani accepted an offer to become a
backing vocalist for Spears's 2001–02
Dream Within a Dream Tour. Her interactions with Spears during most of the tour were limited to small conversations at the gym and vocal warm ups. Artani had begun a relationship with the show's musical director during 2002; however, it was not working out well by the end of the tour. Before the final date in
Mexico City, Spears called her and asked about the relationship. Artani told her they were going to break up, to which Spears responded, "Don't worry about it, you're going to hang out with me." Concluded the tour, Spears and Artani began to forge a friendship. Spears invited Artani to her house in Los Angeles. According to Artani, their relationship grew out of their shared romantic experiences at the time. She explained, "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." Artani stayed at Spears' house for a few weeks, in which they started writing songs at the piano. Shortly after, they traveled to
Lake Como in
Lombardy, Italy. Artani added, "It was me and her, her stylist and Felicia, and we had this humongous house to ourselves, and they had a piano there as well." 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." Sigsworth was introduced to Spears by
Max Martin, whom
Robyn had previously introduced to Sigsworth after they worked together on her 2002 album ''
Don't Stop the Music. Martin liked the songs Sigsworth had produced for Robyn and suggested inviting Spears to the studio. Sigsworth told Consequence'', "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." "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==