Songoftheday 7/22/24 - I can't believe I believed everything we had would last, so young and naive of me to think she was from your past...
"Me, Myself and I" - Beyonce
from the album Dangerously In Love (2003)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 19
Welcome back to song of the day - thanks for hanging in whilst I was in my happy place for a week.
Today's song is from Beyonce, whose debut solo album apart from Destiny's Child, Dangerously In Love, had already scored a pair of #1 pop and R&B hits with "Crazy In Love" (with Jay-Z) and "Baby Boy" (with Sean Paul). As the latter was climbing the charts, one of her contributions to her starring movie The Fighting Temptations, "Summertime" with Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, went to #35 on Billboard magazine's R&B Singles chart and "bubbled under" the Hot 100 at #108. For the third single from the album, Bey went with the self-empowering "Me Myself And I". Written and produced by the singer with Scott Storch, the lyrics put her in the position of a woman leaving a cheating lover who fooled around repeatedly and lied. But instead of wallowing in sadness Beyonce is using it as a learning tool for herself as she strengthens her defenses for the future. And self-reliance is the key (I really should be taking lessons from her), though in real life as we know with Lemonade that things have a way of repeating themselves. The production is a loose neo-soul jazz-funk in the Jill Scott/Angie Stone vein which is a refreshing change of pace from her brash pop offerings to kick off the album. Beyonce's vocals are controlled and even but still seething in the betrayal she feels. The music video plays the plot out in reverse like a cheaters version of Memento...
"Me Myself and I" reached the top five on Billboard's Hot 100 in February of 2004, while spending a week at #2 on their R&B Singles chart. On the radio, the song stopped at #18 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart (blame pop station's aversion to neo-soul), hit #2 on the Mainstream R&B airplay list, went to #3 on the older-skewing Adult R&B station tally, and peaked at #8 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. The dance remixes, done by Junior Vazquez and Bama Boyz among others, helped the song go to #3 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart. Internationally, the single crested at #7 on the Canadian sales chart, and made the top-40 in the United Kingdom (#11), Australia (#11), the Netherlands (#14), New Zealand (#18), Ireland (#21), Italy (#25), and Germany (#35). A live version of the song from Beyonce's Experience Live album was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2009, losing out to Alicia Keys for "Superwoman".
Both Beyonce and the album will be back to the series.
(7/10)
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's Beyonce performing the song on Top Of The Pops...
Next up, here's the Junior Vasquez remix that helped the song reach the top-5 on the dance chart...
Beyonce sang the hit at the Billboard Music Awards in 2003...
This is the Grammy-nominated live version from 2008...
And lastly, on her Formation tour in 2016...
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