Britney Spears’ “3” Lyrics Meaning

The lyrics of “3” find Britney Spears trying to persuade her lover to indulge in a threesome with herself and another person, seemingly to spice up their sensual life. She references the folk trio, “Peter, Paul and Mary” as a way of saying that the threesome will involve herself, her partner and another guy.

Since she is unsure of her partner’s reaction to her awkward suggestion, she keeps asking while trying to make the idea sound appealing to this person. She even goes to the extent of describing it as ‘living in sin’, alluding to the guilt it may bring, while suggesting that it is the new trend.  The singer uses several descriptions to make her request more appealing while claiming that there will be no harm.

In the bridge however, she gives her partner the option to choose to decline by saying that if he isn’t comfortable they can just maintain their intimacy.

Summary

“3” simply details Britney’s attempt to convince her partner to join in a threesome.

Facts about “3”

Britney Spears released this song in October 2009 from her compilation album dubbed “The Singles Collection”. It was the compilation album’s only single.

Britney Spears didn’t compose this song. The official writers are:

• Tiffany Amber
• Shellback
• Max Martin

Shellback and Martin also joined forces to produce this classic.

Immediately after Britney’s team released the song, it became a hit in the United States. Here, it debuted at the top spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.

Its performance in other countries was also very encouraging. It was a top-10 hit on the UK Singles Chart. In Canada, it even performed better as it shot straight to number 1.

It also reached number three on the European Digital Songs chart which is prepared by Billboard.

The video, which has been uploaded on the singer’s self-named YouTube channel, has gained over 91 million views as of October 2020. Diane Martel, director of the video, explained that working with the singer was fun which brought the best out of them.

Spears has performed this songs at a number of her musical concerts including “Britney: Piece of Me” and “Femme Fatale Tour”.

In 2011, Lee Soon-kyu, professionally known as Sunny, from the Girls’ Generation music band did a cover of the song during the group’s tour.