Brave New Girl, or Same Old Spears?

July 22, 2008 — -- She wants a good time
No need to rewind
She needs to really really find what she wants
She lands on both feet
Won't take a back seat
There's a brave new girl
And she's comin' out tonight

It's no Fiona Apple or Emily Bronte. But the lyrics to Britney Spears' "Brave New Girl," a song she put out in 2003, years before her life spiraled out of control, may finally be coming true now.

Sure, the headlines have been splashed across the Internet and tabloid magazines before ("Britney's New Act!" "Spears Insider: Brit Back on Track!"), only to be replaced the following week by photos of her crying into a cup of Starbucks and flipping off the paparazzi.

And Spears most recently made the papers by getting snapped last Sunday while smoking cigarettes in front of her two-year-old son, who was trying to play with her pack of Marlboros. But that lapse in parental judgement aside, Spears' behavior in the past few months suggests that, finally, she may really be poised to return to her pop star status of yore.

In March, she made her first high-profile, sans-paparazzi appearance in months, guest starring as a dermatologist's receptionist on CBS' "How I Met Your Mother." While her acting abilities, like her lyrics, aren't going to make it into the annals of cultural history, she proved she could show up to a set and get a job done without incident: A far cry from her disastrous 2007 MTV Video Music Awards performance. She followed it up with a second guest stint on the sitcom in May.

Also in May, Spears was granted more time with Sean Preston and Jayden James, her sons with ex-husband Kevin Federline, and praised by the judge hearing her child custody case for trying to get her personal life back under control. On Friday, she gave up her custody fight, but gained more visiting time with the boys, quite possibly the best play she could've made, according to lawyers.

"This is probably the best solution for the kids," Paul Talbert, family law attorney at Chemtob Moss Forman & Talbert, a Manhattan matrimonial law firm, told ABCNews.com last week. "For Britney, it allows her to shrink from the spotlight a little bit -- she doesn't have to go to court every month and endure that circus. That circus can't make it easier for her to stay on the straight and narrow."