Everytime We Touch by Cascada

Everytime We Touch is a 2005 Eurodance single by the German trio Cascada. Natalie Horler sang it. The producers DJ Manian and Yanou made the track. It borrowed its chorus from a 1992 Maggie Reilly song of the same name. Robbins Entertainment released it in the United States in August 2005. It reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, number one in Ireland and Sweden, and number two in the UK.

Reilly's original was a soft rock song. The Scottish singer is best known for her vocal on Mike Oldfield's 1983 hit Moonlight Shadow. She wrote her Everytime We Touch with Stuart Mackillop and Peter Risavy for her solo debut album Echoes. It spent eight weeks at number one in Norway and reached the top 20 in Germany.

Manuel Reutier and Yann Pfeifer, who record as DJ Manian and Yanou, kept Reilly's refrain. They wrote new verses around it. Reilly and her two co-writers share the writing credit with the Cascada producers. The two men produced and arranged the track at Studio Plazmatek in Cologne. Some of the work was done at the studio's second location in Erkrath.

Horler had only just started doing studio work. The Cascada project began soon after she met the producers. She has said she was "very green" and "very young" at the time. She has also said that Everytime We Touch "was the second or third track that we recorded, and it went through the roof within that year."

Horler sings the opening verse over little more than soft synth pads. The chorus adds a pounding kick drum, a pulsing synth and airhorn stabs. A short techno section follows, driven by a clipped keyboard riff and programmed drums. The track sits at roughly 142 beats per minute in F minor. Song IQ has the full key and BPM breakdown for Everytime We Touch. The arrangement skips the slow build and big drop common in dance music. The verses drop to almost nothing between choruses.

US pop radio rarely played straight dance tracks. Yanou made the Candlelight Mix for those stations. It drops the trance beat. A piano sits under Horler's voice. That version went to top 40 stations in December 2005. The single entered the Hot 100 at number 86. It reached its peak of number 10 in March 2006. It also topped Billboard's dance airplay chart and reached number seven on pop airplay. The RIAA certified it gold in May 2006 and platinum that November.

Zooland Records, All Around the World and Universal Music Group released the song across Europe and beyond through 2006. The UK release came in July 2006. The single entered the top five in its second week. It peaked at number two. It reached number one in Sweden in September 2006 and number two in France. It replaced Shakira's Hips Don't Lie at number one in Ireland in August 2006. Justin Timberlake's SexyBack took the spot for a short stretch. Everytime We Touch then returned to the top for three more weeks. It made the top five in Germany as well.

The single is now certified triple platinum in the UK and double platinum in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and New Zealand. Cascada named its 2006 debut album after it. Entertainment Weekly called the song generic but catchy. The New York Times described it as more shameless than earnest.

The music video shows Horler in a library, trying to reach a man she likes. Two uploads of the video on YouTube have each passed 40 million views.

The Duke University pep band started playing the song in the mid-2000s. The band was adding newer songs to its playlist at the time. Band students suggested Everytime We Touch during an officer meeting. The Duke Chronicle dates its first appearance in Cameron Indoor Stadium to 2006. The Cameron Crazies had a routine for it within a few games: slow claps during the verses and frantic fist pumps during the chorus. Greg Caiola, then the band's secretary, later said nobody expected it to stick. The band still plays it at home games. Older students teach the routine to new ones. It is now played at Duke football games too.

Mike Krzyzewski danced to the song as he walked into the press conference about his coming retirement on June 3, 2021. Horler made a virtual appearance at the commencement ceremony for Duke's class of 2020.

The song was a lip sync number on the second season of Drag Race UK vs the World. An instrumental version has played comedians onto the stage of Kill Tony. Styles and Breeze remixed it, as did Flip and Fill.

Horler had no touring experience before the single. She toured the US and other countries within a year of its release. She has said of the song, "it made my career. It changed my life."