FEATURE:
Too Good to Be Forgotten: Songs That Are Much More Than a Guilty Pleasure
Natalie Imbruglia - Torn
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I will head to the 1980s, perhaps, for my…
next instalment, but I have been listening back to a lot of songs from the 1990s. In some ways, it is nostalgia and looking back at a safer time but, mainly, it is to remind myself just what a broad and extraordinary decade it was for music! I think a lot of artists today have taken something from the 1990s, and there was a lot going on in every year. I have been thinking about songs from the 1990s that were played a lot then and we might not listen to as much now. I feel some people think of Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn as a bit of a guilty pleasure. It is one of those songs that was everywhere in the ‘90s - but there are some who feel it is was one of the weaker or more overrated ‘classics’. To me, it is a great song that should be played more. Natalie Imbruglia was not the first to get to Torn. It is a cover version and, prior to her recording it, it was performed by Lis Sørensen, then two years later by the American Alternative Rock band, Ednaswap and, in 1996, by American-Norwegian singer Trine Rein. Torn was Imbruglia’s debut single of 27th October, 1997, and it is the opening track to her debut album, Left of the Middle. I think this is one of the more undervalued debut albums of the 1990s, and there are so many great tracks on the album – including Big Mistake, and Wishing I Was There.
Torn was a huge success. Imbruglia's version was recorded with David Munday (lead guitar), Phil Thornalley (bass, rhythm guitars), Chuck Sabo (drums), Henry Binns, Sam Hardaker (Zero 7) (drum programming) and Katrina Leskanich (background vocals). It was mixed by Nigel Godrich. Imbruglia received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, losing to Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On. Recently, I put out a feature regarding the best one-hit wonders, and I included Torn. That might be unfair to Imbruglia, as she released quite a few other successful songs, but what I meant was that Torn was such a massive success that other songs released after that paled in comparison. Torn sold more than four-million copies worldwide, and it is the eighty-fifth biggest-selling single ever. In the United States, the song peaked at number-one on the Hot 100 Airplay chart for eleven consecutive weeks. Maybe it is because Torn was synonymous with the late-1990s that people do not revisit it much, and I think only certain radio stations play the song – those stations who cater for a slightly more ‘mature’ audience. So many people did not realise (in the ‘90s) that Torn was a cover, and years later, I think it is still providing revelation. It is a song that, as it was recorded by minor artists before it became a huge hit, was assumed to be an original.
In a decade that provides some of the greatest music ever, I think Torn is a song that sits alongside the best of them. I can appreciate how it might not be to everyone’s tastes, but listen back to it now and Torn will have an effect on you. The lyrics are really interesting, and I love lines like “So I guess the fortune teller's right/Should've seen just what was there and not some holy light/But you crawled beneath my veins and now”. The video is quite effecting and memorable, and Imbruglia’s vocal is incredible. I think she is one of those artists who was slightly dismissed because she was an actor – having appeared in Neighbours as Beth Brennan for a couple of years -, but she proved through Left of the Middle that she could mix styles and moods and pull them off – that entire album is worth checking out. Torn is a song that gets under the skin, and I don’t think that people should consider it to be a guilty pleasure or one of those songs from the 1990s that was a little bit cheesy and lame. It is a powerful song and, for Natalie Imbruglia, I think it set this impossible task of trying to follow it and get the same success with future singles. Her most-recent album, Male, was released in 2015, and I wonder whether she will put out more material. The popularity of Torn is clear and, whilst it divides some people, the fact a new generation are discovering the song and singing along shows that it is a powerful and captivating thing. One of the best covers of the 1990s, I really have a lot of time for Torn, and when it comes to me compiling my favourite tracks of that time, it is a song that I am…
PROUD to play and include.