Ten years (and some odd weeks) ago, Britney Spears sat down at her pia-na and wrote a song from the bottom of her no-longer-broken heart.
She was feeling some type of way at the time — that way being pregnant, even though she didn’t know it yet — and so, she decided to write a song about her future child. Two weeks later, she would come to find out she was, in fact, pregnant with her baby boy (REFERENCE), Sean Preston.
“It’s kinda like a prophecy. When you’re pregnant, you’re empowered,” she told USA Today. Nostradamusney is very real.
This summer (today technically, if we’re going by the first official European release date for the song), “Someday (I Will Understand)” turns ten. And while it never really became a career-defining song for Britney, it’s still an interesting, and certainly personal offering to explore from the canon of the Holy Spearit.
After all, Britney actually wrote this one herself — and she’s credited as the piano player on the song.
Produced by Guy Sigsworth, the same talented producer behind Britney’s devastating signature break-up ballad, “Everytime” (another song she wrote herself at the piano), and featuring lush background vocals by the enchanting Kate Havnevik, “Someday” was the most openly spiritual (Spearitual) song Britney had ever recorded at that point: She reveals herself to be a woman of faith, and God even gets several direct shout-outs throughout the song.
And remember, this was nearly a full decade before the release of Her Most Personal Album To Date, Britney Jean, an album half rooted in religious undertones. (“Brightest Morning Star,” anyone?)
“Someday I will understand in God’s whole plan, and what he’s done to me/Oh but maybe, someday I will breathe and I’ll finally see/I’ll see it all in my baby…”
In keeping with Britney’s most self-aware moments (“Lucky”, “Mona Lisa”), the track is prophetic, both in terms of predicting her pregnancy and foreshadowing the Living Legend’s rough relationship with the “shallow” side of fame. As with many of Brit’s introspective and vulnerable moments on and off camera (For The Record), there’s a hopeful optimism — and a lingering sadness.
“Nothing seems to be the way that it used to/Everything seems shallow/God give me truth in me/And tell me somebody is watching over me…” she prays.
Later on, those tears that came at night during “Lucky” make a subtle cameo: “Don’t you run too fast, my dear/Why don’t you stop?/Just stop and listen to your tears…they’re all you’ve got.”
At this point in her career, Britney was running too fast, then on her fourth studio album promotional round: Her global Onyx Hotel Tour (and a planned MTV documentary called OnTourage) was cut short after a knee injury on the set of her video shoot for “Outrageous,” she married Kevin Federline in a whirlwind, highly publicized (and controversial) love affair, and she started recording Original Doll, an album that would ultimately never see the light of day. By the beginning of 2005, Britney slowed down significantly — in order to start a family.
That said, she still managed to deliver Britney and Kevin: Chaotic that year, which served as both a cringeworthy ode to a failed relationship and an incredible source of quotables from a goofy, sassy and head-over-heels in love Britney — all leading up to the premiere of her unexpectedly sentimental new single.
As if to further drive the point of the song home, Britney bared her very obvious baby bump for the world in what was the most grown-up visual of her career at that point.
As opposed to the sweat-drenched, belly-baring temptress of “I’m A Slave 4 U” or the “Toxic” flame hair and diamond suit goddess looks synonymous with Britney’s career, “Someday” sees a very different side to Britney: It’s Momney, bitch. (Well, MILFney, really.)
Dressed in silky loungewear — clearly a nod to her future Intimate Britney Spears collection — the Kabbalah string-wearing pop princess thoughtfully wanders through her windy, angel-filled black and white abode, rubbing her swollen belly while staring pensively into mirrors (a “Slave” reference?) and out toward the sky above her leaf-filled pool (a “My Prerogative” reference?). At one point, a paper falls down the stairwell: The sheet music for this song? (Or is it her grocery list?)
Her most action-packed video? Hardly, but suitable enough for the song, and a captivating glimpse — especially now — of a pre-birth Britney eager to begin motherhood.
Ultimately, Britney got her wish: Sean Preston was born a few months later in September, and Jayden James followed a year later. And today, we all know that B loves nothing more than her babies.
As for what’s in God’s plan? Someday, we’ll understand too.
Oh, and the 9-minute Leama & Moor trance remix is positively transcendent.