Background and Composition
"Hurt" originated out of Christina Aguilera's desire to record a song about losing someone. She asked collaborator Linda Perry to help out, and Perry developed the first draft of the song. Christina Aguilera rewrote some of the lyrics, but the final version is a tribute to the pair's symbiotic teamwork. Originally Aguilera did not want "Hurt" to be the second single from Back to Basics. Prior to this decision, "Candyman" was planned as the second single and even was confirmed by Aguilera during several different interviews. However, RCA felt that, with the holiday season coming up, it would be safer to release "Hurt", as it would become a big holiday power ballad, comparable to how Aguilera's "Beautiful" performed commercially back in late 2002.
"Hurt" is a ballad song set in the key of E minor. Its slow melody is paced at 72 beats per minute and set in common time. Aguilera's voice range spans from G3 to E5. Its instrumentation comes from bass, cello, contrabass, drums, guitar, piano, viola and violin. String instruments used in the melody were arranged by Eric Gorfain. The song makes an homage to Rachmaninoff's Vocalise towards its conclusion.
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