Wiki
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Release Date
November 2002
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Length
4 tracks
"Cry Me a River" is the second single from Justin Timberlake's solo debut album Justified. Released on December 17, 2002, the single, which features guest vocals and production by Timbaland & Scott Storch, won Timberlake a Grammy Award for "Best Male Pop Vocal Performance" in 2004. The song title comes from "Cry Me a River", written in 1953 by Arthur Hamilton and sung by Julie London in the cult Jayne Mansfield movie The Girl Can't Help It.
The song is supposedly a re-telling of Timberlake's split with Britney Spears. Including accusations of her infidelity with lyrics like, "You don't have to say what you did/I already know, I found out from him/Now there's just no chance, for you and me, there'll never be/And don't it make you sad about it." The music video, directed by Francis Lawrence, depicts him exacting revenge upon Spears, portrayed by Lauren Hastings, by breaking into her house and filming himself with another woman kissing passionately, and watching as she returns to find the video playing on her television. The video's success started a feud between producer Timbaland and Scott Storch, who claimed he was uncredited for producing (the booklet credits him as clavinet player and writer). Also, even though publicly uncredited, Benjamin Wright did string arrangements in this song.
Rumors of Britney Spears cheating as the underlying reason of their breakup eight months before had been surfacing for a while, and for many, the song and the music video confirmed their beliefs. US Weekly ran a cover story, titled "Britney Vs. Justin: The War Is On", immediately after the release of the video. Timberlake, however, said, "The video is not about her. The video is about me."
Yet according to Spears' account in an October 2003 Rolling Stone interview, she received a call from Timberlake saying he supposedly wanted to get back together with her and craftily added on that she was in a music video with him saying, "Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal." Spears, who had not seen the video, admits to naively allowing him to do so and became infuriated after watching the video upon its promotion. When she later asked about why he made such a defaming video of her, Timberlake replied according to Spears, "Well, I got a controversial video." She retorted, "You did. Yay for you." She acknowledged it was a great publicity stunt commenting, "So he got what he wanted. I think it looks like such a desperate attempt, personally. But that was a great way to sell the record. He's smart . Smart guy."
In 2003, it was rumored that Britney supposedly responded by the single "Everytime" from her album In the Zone and that the song lyrics indicate that the song is a sorry gesture with the lyrics "please forgive me, my weakness caused you pain, and this song is my sorry". However, Spears denied this rumor and commented that there was no response track to Timberlake's "Cry Me a River" in this album.
The song was very well received by fans and critics alike. Aside from all the allegations that the song and video were about his split with Britney Spears, the song became Timberlake's breakthrough track and helped propelled him to individual mainstream success. Cry Me A River became hit very quickly and a classic almost instantly. It would also lead Timberlake to his first of many individual grammy awards. It is often considered by fans his finest work.
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