Britney Spears' biggest hit wasn't supposed to be sung by her.

It’s the song that introduced Britney to the world.

Can you imagine a world in which Britney Spears, in the year 1998, had not danced around school corridors wearing fluffy hairbands in her pigtails singing, “hit me baby, one more time” with her signature vocal fry?

Can you imagine if actually, girl group TLC had sung those immortal words instead?

Would Britney be performing in Las Vegas right now if she hadn’t become a cultural icon, largely thanks to that song?

Would TLC’s version have gotten the same reception Brit’s did?

So many questions, so few answers.

See, it turns out that …Baby One More Time was originally written by Max Martin and Rami Yacoub for T-Boz, Left Eye and Chilli from TLC, but they turned it down.

“I was like, I like the song but do I think it’s a hit? Do I think it’s TLC? I’m not saying ‘hit me baby.’ No disrespect to Britney,” T-Boz has said of the song.

“It’s good for her. But was I going to say ‘hit me baby one more time’? Hell no!”

The group sang excellent ’90s and early 2000s songs such as Unpretty and No Scrubs. They didn’t want to be associated with a song exhorting someone, presumably a lover, to hit them, one more time.

Brit had no such qualms 17 years ago, though, and it made the former Mouseketeer’s name. But it turns out, the song’s lyrics weren’t intended to be so controversial.

Relive it… Post continues after video.

The writers and producers of the song Max Martin and Rami Yacoub are Swedish. The lyrics were referring not to literal hitting, but to a phone call or a page.

The Swedes believed that “hit” was American slang for “call”.

Pop history mystery: solved.