Natalie Imbruglia

When Natalie Imbruglia recorded "Torn" in 1997, the song was four years old and had three released recordings. Two of them had worked: one played on Danish radio in 1993 and another reached number ten in Norway in 1996. The story that keeps getting repeated — that it was a forgotten song waiting for the right voice — is false, and the true one is more interesting. The strange thing is not that nobody had made it a hit before. The strange thing is that it had already been a hit twice and nobody remembers that.

From Sydney to a contract in England

She was born on 4 February 1975 in Sydney, into a family with Italian roots. As a teenager she joined Neighbours, the Australian soap opera that years earlier had launched Kylie Minogue, and for a couple of seasons she played Beth Brennan. When she decided to devote herself to singing, she went off to England to look for a record deal.

That path, from soap opera to pop, had an enormous precedent in her own country and a prejudice of the same size: it takes no effort to imagine the scepticism of the music press towards an afternoon-television actress who fancied singing. The difference was made by the song she turned up with, and that song had been going around for a while.

Three recordings before hers

"Torn" was written by Scott Cutler, Anne Preven and Phil Thornalley in 1993. The first to release it was the Dane Lis Sørensen, with lyrics in Danish and under the title "Brændt": that same year it played on the radio in Denmark. Which means the song was born working, only in another language and in a country the Anglo-Saxon account does not look at.

The second recording, Ednaswap's in 1995, is the only one that genuinely went unnoticed. And it is worth knowing who they were: Ednaswap was the band of Cutler and Preven, two of the three writers. The version that did not work is the one by its own owners. The third was by the Norwegian Trine Rein, in 1996, by then sung in English, and it reached number ten in Norway.

So when Imbruglia recorded it, she was not rescuing anything from any oblivion. Thornalley, the third writer, produced her version. What she brought was not the discovery but the performance, and the result says something fairly blunt about how collective memory is manufactured: the public does not file away songs, it files away versions. Three before her had been recorded and released; one had played on the radio of one country and another had entered the top ten of another. None of them left a trace outside home.

The radio phenomenon that was not a chart hit

Left of the Middle came out in 1997 and sold around seven million copies. "Torn" reached number two in the United Kingdom and number two in Australia. In the United States, by contrast, it stopped at number 42 on the Hot 100, and the reason is technical before it is artistic: it was not released as a commercial single, and the chart back then weighted physical sales heavily.

What it did do in the United States was rule the radio: eleven weeks at number one on the Radio Songs chart. There is the nuance the myth skips over, and it is stranger than the myth: it was a gigantic radio phenomenon without having been a chart hit. The record that is on the books, and that almost never gets quoted, is Australian: "Torn" is the most played song on Australian radio since 1990, with more than 300,500 broadcasts counted.

In 1999 she received three Grammy nominations. Afterwards she went on releasing records, went back to acting — she appeared in Johnny English, in 2003 — and was a judge on talent shows. She did not end up trapped in a single track, even if that track is the one everyone names first.

What to remember

Natalie Imbruglia did not rescue a failed song: she was the fourth person to record it and the first to make it unforgettable outside Scandinavia. The facts that hold the matter up are these: "Torn" is by Scott Cutler, Anne Preven and Phil Thornalley; it was released before by Lis Sørensen in 1993, Ednaswap in 1995 and Trine Rein in 1996; two of those three recordings worked in their countries.

That makes her performance bigger, not smaller. A song can be finished, released and even playing on the radio of two countries and still be waiting for the voice that makes it definitive for the rest of the world. And when that voice arrives, it takes the whole memory with it: number two in the United Kingdom, number two in Australia, barely number 42 in the United States, and the most played song on Australian radio in thirty-five years. Performing is also a form of authorship, even if it pays no royalties.

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Sources

Natalie Imbruglia was born on 4 February 1975 in Sydney, Australia, of Italian descent, and was an actress in the Australian soap opera "Neighbours", where she played Beth Brennan, before moving to the United Kingdom to devote herself to music. "Torn" was written in 1993 by Scott Cutler, Anne Preven and Phil Thornalley. The first released recording was by the Danish singer Lis Sørensen, with lyrics in Danish and the title "Brændt" (1993), which played on the radio in Denmark; the second was by the American group Ednaswap (1995), a band that Cutler and Preven were part of, and which had no impact; the third was by the Norwegian Trine Rein (1996), in English, which reached number ten in Norway. Phil Thornalley produced Imbruglia's version, released in 1997 and included on the album "Left of the Middle", which sold around seven million copies. "Torn" reached number two in the United Kingdom and number two in Australia, and number 42 on the Billboard Hot 100, as it was not issued as a commercial single in the United States; it remained eleven weeks at number one on Billboard's Radio Songs chart. It is the most played song on Australian radio since 1990, with more than 300,500 broadcasts recorded. Imbruglia received three nominations at the 1999 Grammy Awards. She subsequently released new albums, took up acting again — she appeared in the film "Johnny English" (2003) — and served as a judge on television talent shows. Profile compiled for Rebobinados with fact-checking; interpretations of the meaning of the work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Billboard, The Guardian, ARIA, Official Charts Company, Wikipedia and other coverage.