"Spending My Time", written by Per Gessle

Per Gessle

Per Håkan Gessle is a Swedish pop singer-songwriter, guitarist, and harmonicist. He is the lead singer of the Swedish pop group Gyllene Tider and formed Roxette with Marie Fredriksson...

, was the fourth single released from Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 pop duo

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 Roxette's

Roxette

Roxette are a Swedish pop music duo, consisting of Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle . Formed in 1986, the duo became an international act from the late 1980s, when they released their breakthrough album Look Sharp!...

 1991 album Joyride. It peaked at #32 on Billboard's Hot 100. A remix was created by MC King Carli and Dr Renault at EMI

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

 Studios in Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, in July 1991, and was included on the single. A Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 version of the song, called "Un día sin ti" ("A day without you"), was released as a single from the album Baladas En Español

Baladas En Español

Baladas en español is a Spanish language album by Roxette, released on December 2, 1996."Un día sin ti" and "No sé si es amor" were released as singles, though almost every song was frequently played on Latin American and Spanish radio. The album was certified 2xPlatinum in Spain, platinum in...

.

"Spending My Time" was a sizeable hit in Brazil, due to extensive airplay, as well as being part of the Brazilian telenovela "Outrageous Preppy Women" soundtrack (Perigosas Peruas – Trilha Sonora Internacional - 1992) by Globo TV.

Music video

The video was directed by Wayne Isham

Wayne Isham

Wayne Isham is an American music video director who has directed music videos of many popular artists; such as Bon Jovi, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Roxette, Mötley Crüe, Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, Whitesnake, David Cook, Simple Plan, Avenged Sevenfold, Pantera, *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys,...

, who has worked on other music videos for other popular artists.

Track listing

1. "Spending My Time" (electric dance remix)
2. "Spending My Time" (album version)
3. "The Sweet Hello, The Sad Goodbye" (non-album track)
4. "Spending My Time" (electric dance remix/instrumental)

Musical analysis

An acoustic guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 based ballad, sung by Marie Fredriksson

Marie Fredriksson

is a Swedish pop singer-songwriter and pianist, best known for forming one half of the pop duo Roxette, which she created together with Per Gessle in 1986...

. The verse is in the key of F#m, while the chorus is in E, later transposing to F#.

Charts

This song reached the top 10 in Canada and Germany, and was a sizeable hit in many other places worldwide. In South America, the song became as successful as "Joyride" or "It Must Have Been Love", especially in Brazil, where it reached #1 in the charts. In 1996 - sung in perfect Spanish and called "Un día sin ti" - it was the first single released from Baladas en Español, reaching #1 in Mexico, top 3 in Chile, Argentina, Spain and many other Latin-American countries.