Composition
"Cry Me a River" is a pop ballad, whose composition consists of clavinet, beatobox, guitars, synthesizers, Arabian-inspired riffs and Gregorian chants. According to Alex Needham of NME, Timberlake manages to mix the instrumentation "into something infinitely graceful and mysterious". Entertainment Weekly's David Browne called the song "a haunted, pained farewell". The single has also been described as a "gospel-meets-opera track" by Jane Stevenson of Jam!. Billboard magazine critics called "Cry Me a River" a "bittersweet, funk-fortified" song, in which Timberlake's "familiar tenor belting is tempered with a palpably soulful falsetto and a convincingly aggressive rock-spiked baritone rasp."
"Cry Me a River" was written in the key of B major, in common time with a moderately slow 72 beat-per-minute tempo. Timberlake's vocal range spans from the low note of C#4 to the high note of B5. Tyler Martin of Stylus Magazine concluded that the song is made up of "surprisingly experimental sounds placed together in thrilling new ways". According to Martin, the wave synth comes close to the real strings and creates a strange dissonance. The chorus of the song is disintegrated into a choral reading in which Timberlake pleads "over the group". "Cry Me a River" finishes with a Timbaland vocal sample, which was labeled "bizarre" by Martin.
Lyrically, the song is a "haunting tale of a man whose heart has been broken but he refuses to look back." A reviewer of Rolling Stone called the song a "breakup aria". According to Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian, "Cry Me a River" "stands out for its slow-building sense of drama, which highlights Timberlake at his husky best." The song begins with the lyrics "You were my sun, you were my earth", which according to Timbaland were Timberlake's inspiration to write the whole song. Tanya L. Edwards of MTV News wasn't sure if the song is about Spears, but according to her, "someone certainly did wrong" on Timberlake, which is demonstrated by the lyrics: "You don't have to say whatcha did / I already know, I found out from him / Now there's just no chance." The single's chorus contains the lines: "Told me you loved me, why did you leave me all alone / Now you tell me you need me when you call me on the phone." Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani called Timberlake's 2007 single "What Goes Around... Comes Around" an "ostensible" sequel to "Cry Me a River" in both lyrical and musical way.
Read more about this topic: Cry Me A River (Justin Timberlake Song)
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