Over (Lindsay Lohan song)

Composition

"Over" was written by Kara DioGuardi, John Shanks, and Lohan, produced by Shanks and DioGuardi, with Shanks playing the bass, guitar, keyboards, and doing the audio mixing, while DioGuardi provided background vocals for the song. Jeff Rothschild was responsible for Lohan's vocal recording, which occurred at the Henson Recording Studios in Hollywood, California. He also handled the song's mixing, programming and engineering. Other engineers involved were Dave Audé and Mark Valentine. "Over" is written in the time signature of common time with a moderate tempo of 90 beats per minute. It is composed in the key of C minor with Lohan's voice spanning from C⁴ to C⁵. According to Spence D. of IGN, "Over" begins like a song by The Cure, complete with a "mournful acoustic guitar" and a "haunting piano-tuned synth". He wrote that since the song was not penned by Robert Smith, "it quickly turns into a slow rocker in which Lohan returns to her 'can't live without you' love torn subject matter". In an interview with The Ellen DeGeneres Show on March 28, 2014, Lohan told DeGeneres the song was about her break-up with Wilmer Valderrama.

Reception

"Over" received positive reviews from music critics. While responding negatively to a majority of Speak, John Murphy of MusicOMH cited "Over" as being "actually rather good" and noted similarities between the song and the works of Michelle Branch. Nicholas Fonseca from Entertainment Weekly considered the track a "tween-slumber-party-friendly" which "is perfect for singing into your curling iron in front of the mirror". Sputnikmusic called "Over" "awesomely catchy", and complimented its guitar tone.

"Over" achieved moderate commercial success worldwide. In the United States, the song reached on Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart for three weeks, and reached number 39 on the Pop Songs component chart. In the United Kingdom, the song reached a peak of number 27 on its singles chart. In Australia, "Over" debuted at its peak of number 27 on the ARIA Charts, falling out of the chart seven weeks later. The song also attained the top thirty in Ireland, peaking at number 19. On the European Hot 100 Singles, "Over" managed to reach number 79.

Music video

The accompanying music video for "Over" was directed by Jake Nava in Los Angeles, California, who also directed the video for her previous single "Rumors" (2004). It was inspired by the 1999 film American Beauty. In the video, Lohan is walking home, when she sees her love interest (played by Drew Fuller) looking out of a window in his house as his mother sets the table behind him. Then his father comes up to him, and they begin to argue. The curtains close and Lohan continues on to her house, next door to her boyfriend’s, and runs up to her bedroom. Looking out her window, she sees that he is looking back at her. As noted inside Lohan’s bedroom, she is starting to experiment with rebellious adolescence. There are Teletubbies and stuffed pandas, but also posters of bands such as L7, the Dead Kennedys and CBGB. These imagery are intercut with shots of Lohan and her band playing in a garage, a pool party, and also her love interest destroying his father’s car in the family garage.

The video received positive reviews from critics. IGN's Spence D. commented that "you've got a somewhat cliched, but nonetheless hit-worthy video montage". Justin Moran, while ranking Lohan's best music videos in Paper magazine, stated,

"In the video for angry rock-pop track "Over," Lindsay stares at a neighbor boy from her bedroom window, wears too much black eye makeup, hooks up with said boy in a random trailer and cries... a lot. This video has a completely over-the-top dramatic ending with Lindsay doing donuts with the neighbor boy in a vintage car (amazing), only to be interrupted by his abusive father. Lindsay cries more, breaks through a window with her heel and shatters a lamp on the ground. Yes, Lindsay, yes. We love it when you're angry."

Live performances

In order to promote the single, Lohan appeared on Sessions@AOL on December 2, 2004, where she performed "Over". Her first televised appearance was on Good Morning America, four days later, as a part of the Women Rule Concert Series, where she sang "Over" accompanied by a performance of "Rumors". While she sang "Over" with no problems, her mouth was not moving for a second during the performance of "Rumors", leading the media to accuse her of lip synching. Lohan denied that she was lip synching, claiming that there was a background track because she had fallen ill recently. Kim Jakwerth, of Casablanca Records, supported this statement by saying, "Yes, on the first song there were background tracks, which were not on the second song." In addition to these performances, she sang the song on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on December 16. In January 2005, Lohan performed "Over" and "Speak" at Yahoo's Live@Launch, where she also gave an interview.

Credits and personnel

Credits are taken from Speak liner notes.