Anastacia's "Left Outside Alone" Was My First iTunes Purchase
20 years ago today, I legally bought my first song.
Twenty years ago today, on March 9, 2004, I legally downloaded my first song on iTunes, Anastacia’s then-brand-new single “Left Outside Alone.” It was the first taste of her much-anticipated third LP, Anastacia, which she recorded in the wake of her 2003 breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. The song was digitally released the previous day on March 8, 2004. Okay, I’ll be honest. I didn’t so much purchase it as I did redeem a free song code I’d gotten from a Pepsi bottle cap, but it was my first legal download, and my first on the iTunes Music Store.
Pepsi was running a promotion which, if I recall correctly, promised 1 in 3 bottle caps to have a free song code. An October 2003 press release didn’t specify the odds, but did announce that Pepsi was giving away 100 million free songs as part of the promotion. I remember excitedly finding my first free code on a Pepsi bottle cap while on a school trip at a bowling alley. The hitch to redeeming it was that a credit card was required to create an iTunes account. I wasn’t even 14 years old at the time, so I certainly did not have a credit card yet.
After some convincing, my parents finally gave me one of their credit cards and I was granted purchasing access to the iTunes Music Store. In researching this article I was thrilled to learn that if you have the same Apple account you did when you first signed up, you can go into your Purchase History and still see the exact dates you made your first purchases.
The funny thing is, I was compelled to download “Left Outside Alone” legally because I thought I was being faked out when I downloaded it from a file-sharing program, either Morpheus or Kazaa. The song’s ethereal, yet haunting introduction, which has been compared to something you might hear from Evanescence’s Amy Lee, sounded nothing like Anastacia. Every time I downloaded the song from the file-sharing program and heard that, I thought it was a prank (which were all too common during those early file sharing days of the 2000’s) and deleted the file. I can’t remember if I’d heard a clip of the chorus beforehand or not, but either way I was certain that this was the wrong song. I’d hear the introduction, delete it, and try again. This went on a few times with the same results until I decided it was time to use my iTunes free song and get it right.
I also remember the confusion surrounding my first full listen to “Left Outside Alone” after buying it on iTunes. When that same ethereal introduction and voice came through the speakers, I was beyond confused. “What the fuck?!” I thought to myself. “How could someone upload the wrong thing to iTunes?” I decided to let the record keep playing and finally heard Anastacia singing in her standard range (which doesn’t happen until around the :40 second mark). I won’t lie, I felt bamboozled and it took me a few minutes to process the different voices she was using. I was FINALLY hearing this song though, and I loved every second of it, even that seemingly deceptive introduction.
“Left Outside Alone” is a driving, dark yet fiery pop-rock track with an anthemic hook amplified by Anastacia larger-than-life vocals. The song is about her estranged father, who walked out on the family when Anastacia was a child. He suddenly tried to reinvolve himself as soon as she gained some fame, but was nowhere to be found during her 2003 breast cancer battle. A “a careless, helpless little man,” she calls him in the song as she ponders whether he comprehends the feelings of abandonment and loneliness he created in her.
As pointed as she is at times, the lyrics can easily apply to adjacent situations such as the hopelessness of a doomed relationship and absent partner. It can also be about any type of relationship that’s soured and leads to one party feeling abandoned. I’ve found myself wallowing in the song at moments when I’m feeling excluded or lonely. The core of the song is universally identifiable.
“Left Outside Alone” isn’t as heavy as an Evanescence record, but it’s also not as confectionary as, say, an Ashlee Simpson record from Autobiography, which was released the same year (and whose collaborators, Kara DioGuardi and John Shanks, worked on other tracks on Anastacia). Anastacia’s singular voice is part of what makes this record stand apart from the rest.
Anastacia’s vocals burn through the track while it melts around her like wax from a candle. She sings with such authority and a soulfulness that’s raw, gritty, and real. She sounds authentic, effortlessly; a hallmark of a good, true singer.
Her voice is multifaceted: it can be smooth like in the introduction when she sings in her head voice, but then defaults into a heavy, soulful rasp for the rest of the song. When the unique facets of her voice converge, especially in the doubled vocals of the verses, it’s dynamite. She branded the Anastacia album as her own mix of soul, pop, and rock (“sprock,” as she dubbed it). It’s a term that’s complimentary to her voice and often serves as a unifying force between these genres (and then some).
Despite most of my friends (still to this day), and most of my fellow US natives not knowing the song, “Left Outside Alone” is one of Anastacia’s biggest hits. It hit number one in seven countries, and cracked the top 10 in a dozen others. Even though it didn’t chart on the US’s Billboard Hot 100, it did top the US Dance Singles Sales chart. The US release of the album was pushed back countless times until finally being canceled in 2005, but not before new single artwork and a new music video for “Left Outside Alone” were shot to try to give her both a sexier look and more gothic, Evanescence-esque edge.
Anastacia, which turns 20 years old later this month, remains one of my all-time favorite albums. More on that soon!