Imbruglia's music video for Torn is rated one of the most iconic of all time. Photo / YouTube
Imbruglia's music video for Torn is rated one of the most iconic of all time. Photo / YouTube
"Every 90s kid comes of age three times: Eighteenth birthday. Twenty-first birthday. The day they find out Natalie Imbruglia's version of Torn is a cover," Twitter user @VilinskiKonjic reminded the world at the weekend.
Although it's a fact diehard music fans who study the liner notes of every album they've ever owned might already know, it came as a shock to a lot of people who struggled to wrap their heads around the pop culture tidbit.
"It's funny, if I didn't know Sinead O'Connor didn't write Nothing Compares 2 U and then I found out it was a Prince song, I might have my mind blown," Anne Preven, Torn's original writer and singer told news.com.au following the revelation.
"I can't believe anyone cares - it's so shocking to me," co-writer Scott Cutler added.
In 1997, Imbruglia was making the leap from soap opera actress on Neighbours to singer and recorded Torn as her debut single. The song was a phenomenon and shot the then-22-year-old to worldwide fame.
The song sold 250,000 copies in the UK in its first week alone and was nominated for a Grammy.
Since then, it's sold more than four million copies worldwide and holds the record for the most played song on Australian radio since 1990.
But the song had a previous life. It was actually written by Los Angeles musicians Anne Preven, Scott Cutler and producer Phil Thornalley in 1993 - and later released by their band Ednaswap. It had been covered twice before Imbruglia recorded it.
Preven and Cutler formed Ednaswap in 1993 and released Torn in 1997. Photo / YouTube
"Our original demo version that we recorded in London was pretty much exactly Natalie's version," Preven said, recalling the day they wrote it.
"It was very quick and I remember it really well because we were in London and I was very jet-lagged. And we had this music and I went upstairs by myself to kind of scribble down some lyric ideas. I was really into Joni Mitchell at the time and I wanted to try and write something as descriptive and that had as much of a story as she seemed to be able to do. I was trying to be Joni Mitchell basically."
Although the song is seen as one of the ultimate breakup anthems, Preven - who was dating Cutler at the time - said it wasn't about anyone in particular.
"I was jet-lagged so maybe that had something to do with the sad tone of it. It wasn't about a particular person," she said.
She added: "The original chorus was very different."
After recording Preven's original lyrics, the band came back the following day and decided to change it.
"It was too wordy, too busy," Preven added. "And I went on the mic and sang the current chorus. Slowed it down, took out some words. And that chorus came out."
When the pair recorded the song with Ednaswap for their 1995 debut album, it went through several incarnations and became darker. Different variations later appeared on several of their other albums.
During this time, other artists had started releasing covers of it - including Danish singer Lis Sorensen.
By the time Imbruglia recorded the song, it had already been covered twice. Preven and Cutler didn't think anything of it.
Phil Thornalley, who was a co-writer and produced the original demo, had started working with Imbruglia on her debut album and suggested she record a version.
"We didn't think anything of Natalie's version - [we thought] it's just another European cover. And we really didn't give it another thought," Preven said. "Until, all of a sudden, we get a call saying it's number one in the UK. For Scott and I it was obviously a mixed bag. We were thrilled to have a hit. But it was also bittersweet because it wasn't our band."
Remembering the first time he heard Imbruglia's version, Cutler admits: "Honestly, I didn't love it."
"Natalie's version was very much the version we wrote. It was just a couple beats per minute faster. And a little bit higher, I think. In the moment I thought it was little light. I love it now - when I hear it I get it.
"[Seeing] the video I remember thinking, 'Oh she's really got it made. She just looked cool - she had the jumper on, there was just something about the video. I got the video."
Despite the massive success the song brought Imbruglia, Preven and Cutler didn't know her until a few years later when she started writing the follow up to 1997's Left Of The Middle. Imbruglia has candidly admitted she struggled with her sophomore, 2001's White Lilies Island, and suffered writer's block.
"About three years later I think she was trying to make a second record and somebody convinced her maybe she should meet Anne and I and write," Cutler said.
"And we spent a day or two with her and then that was it - she didn't come back for the third day. We were very much writers and I think we had a very high expectation with how to follow that song up."
Perhaps the thing that surprised Preven and Cutler most about the little song they wrote in London was the "massive financial windfall" that came following Imbruglia's cover. "It's just some phenomenal amount of money. For one song," Cutler said.
"It comes in spits and spurts, but it starts out slow and then one day you get a check for like $300,000 or some crazy number. And you think it's a mistake. Like, I have a check here for $297,000? [You think] someone added one zero too many and some day they're going to come ask for their money back. And then it starts doing this crazy thing for about a year or two. And then it just becomes this yearly thing where every year you get a check every quarter and it stays up in a decent number - it's not ending."
Twenty years after Imbruglia's cover, Cutler says he, Preven and Thornalley would each receive about $150,000 a year in royalties.
"The first couple of years, it's just a waterfall of money," he recalled.
These days, Preven and Cutler own music publishing company Pulse and, in 2007, co-wrote the Beyonce song Listen for the Dream Girls soundtrack.
Together, they've written hits for some of the biggest artists in the world. But do they ever wish they released their very first version of Torn - the one that sounded like Imbruglia's?
"We didn't want to be a little pop act," Preven said, reminding that this was the time of Nirvana and Pearl Jam. "So we were overly self conscious about it. And in retrospect, now that I'm older and I can see, I think God we're such idiots.
"[But] I don't regret it now at all. The song changed both Scott's and my life in terms of everything. It showed us we should stick to song writing and not waste too much time in the band. And that all worked out great for us."
