April 19, 2026

The Greatest Cover Songs of All-time: 8. Natalie Imbruglia - "Torn"

Show Notes
Transcript

Ednaswap's 1993 "Torn" was unknown alternative rock—good song, zero commercial success. Writers shopped it: Danish singer Lis Sørensen recorded it in Danish (1995 hit in Denmark), Norwegian singer Trine Rein did English pop version (1996 Scandinavian success). Then 22-year-old Australian actress Natalie Imbruglia needed debut single. Producer Phil Thornalley (co-writer) brought her the song. October 1997: #1 in multiple countries, #1 US Airplay, 11 weeks UK top 10, multi-Platinum globally, most-played song on Australian radio 1998. Launched her career, won MTV VMA. Most people don't know it's a cover. Ednaswap's original has fraction of streams. Garrett Fisher explores the ultimate cover replacing original in cultural consciousness.

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WEBVTT

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Caaloroga Shark Media. I'm Garrett Fisher and this is the

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Hit Maker Chronicles. We're at number eight on our countdown

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of the top ten best cover songs of all time,

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as voted by the staff at Kalaroga Shark Media. Last

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week we talked about Soft Cells Tainted Love, a cover

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so successful that most people forgot the original existed. This week,

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we're looking at a cover that goes even further, a

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cover so successful that most people don't even know it

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is a cover Torn by Natalie Imbruglia. If you were

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alive in nineteen ninety seven or nineteen ninety eight, you

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know this song. That opening guitar riff, that massive, soaring chorus,

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the music video with Natalie and a white tank top

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in front of a white wall, singing directly to the

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camera with that perfect combination of vulnerability and attitude. The

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song was everywhere. It defined nineties pop, It launched Natalie

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and Bruglia's career, and for twenty seven years, millions of

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people have believed it was her song written for her.

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An original composition, It Wasn't Torn was written and originally

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recorded in nineteen ninety three by a Los Angeles alternative

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rock band called Edna Swap, and when they released it,

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nobody noticed. This is the story of how a completely

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unknown song by a completely unknown band became one of

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the biggest hits of the nineteen nineties when someone else

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sang it, and why most people still have no idea.

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Let's start with Edna Swap. The band was formed in

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Los Angeles in the early nineteen nineties by Ann Previn

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and Scott Cutler. Anne was the lead singer and co

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wrote most of their songs with Scott, who played guitar.

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They also worked with producer Phil Thornelly, who'd been the

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bass play for The Cure and had produced records for

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bands like The Psychedelic Furs. In nineteen ninety three, the

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three of them wrote a song called Torn. It was

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an alternative rock song about a relationship falling apart, about

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feeling disillusioned with someone you thought you knew about the

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moment when you realize the person you're with isn't who

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you thought they were. The lyrics captured that specific kind

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of heartbreak where it's not that the person changed, it's

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that you finally saw them clearly. Edna Swap recorded Torn

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and included it on their nineteen ninety five self titled

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album on East West Records. The album came out, the

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song was there, and almost nobody heard it. Edna Swap

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wasn't a commercial band. They were too alternative for mainstream radio,

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too polished for the grunge scene, too earnest for the

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irony drenched indie world. They had a small following in

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Los Angeles, played clubs, made music they believed in, but

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they weren't breaking through. Torn wasn't a single, It wasn't promoted.

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It was just track seven on an album that got

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some nice reviews and sold a few thousand copies. That

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should have been the end of the story. Edna Swap

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wrote a good song, recorded it, released it, and it

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disappeared into the void, like thousands of other songs every year.

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But here's where it gets interesting. Phil Thornally, the producer

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and co writer, was still well connected in the international

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music industry, and in nineteen ninety five he pitched Torn

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to a Danish singer named Liz Cirnson. She recorded it

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in Danish, called it Brent which means burned, released it

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as a single in Denmark, and it was a hit,

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A legitimate hit. It charted in Denmark. People in Denmark

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knew the song. Then, in nineteen ninety six, a Norwegian

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singer named Tryne Rhine recorded it in English. Her version

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was closer to what would eventually become the Natalie Imbruglia version,

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more pop, less alternative rock built around that soaring chorus.

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Tran's version was released in Norway and several other European countries.

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It charted. It was successful in Scandinavia. The song was

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starting to prove itself, starting to show that it had

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hit potential if it was arranged correctly and sung by

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the right person. But it still wasn't a global phenomenon.

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It was a Scandinavian success. Most of the world had

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never heard it. And then Phil Thornalley got a call

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about a young Australian actress who wanted to become a singer.

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Natalie Imbruglia was twenty two years old. She'd been acting

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on the Australian soap opera Neighbors, the same show that

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had launched Kylie Minogue's career a decade earlier. She'd moved

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to London in nineteen ninety six and signed with RCA Records,

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looking to transition from acting to music. The label was

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looking for songs for her debut album. They wanted something

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that would work at radio, something with a big chorus,

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something that could make her a star in a market

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that was extremely skeptical of actresses t trying to become singers.

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Phil Thornalley played them Torn, not the Edna swap version,

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the trin rain version, which had the pop arrangement, but

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still felt like it needed something, a different vocal approach,

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a different energy. They thought Natalie could sing it. She

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had the voice for it. Young, vulnerable, but with enough

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power to sell the emotion. They brought her into the

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studio with Phil Thornally producing, and when Natalie Imbruglia sang Torn,

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something click. Her voice had this quality, part fragile, part

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defiant that made the song feel personal in a way

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the previous versions hadn't. She wasn't over singing it, she

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wasn't trying to belt her way through it. She was

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just telling the story of someone who'd been blindsided by

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seeing the truth about someone they loved. The arrangement was perfect,

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acoustic guitar opening building to electric guitars and drums, that

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massive chorus that felt both intimate and huge at the

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same time. The production was polished but not overproduced. It

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sounded like a hit. RCA released Torn as Natalie im

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Bruglia's debut single in October nineteen ninety seven. It entered

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the UK Singles Chart at number two, then it climbed

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to number one in multiple countries around the world. In

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the United States, it peaked at number one on the

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Billboard Hot one hundred airplay chart and number forty two

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on the main Hot one hundred, which at that time

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was still heavily weighted toward physical sales and import singles

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were expensive, but on radio it was number one. It

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was the most played song in America, and it stayed

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on the charts for months. In the UK, it spent

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eleven weeks in the top ten. In Australia, her home country,

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it was number two for six consecutive weeks. The song

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was certified platinum in the US, multi platinum in the

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UK and Australia. It became the most played song on

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Australian radio. Nineteen ninety eight, it won an MTV Video

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Music Award for Best New Artist. It was nominated for

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multiple brit Awards and ARIA Awards, and everywhere you went radio, MTV,

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VH one parties, clubs, shopping malls. You heard Torn, that

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opening guitar line, that voice, that chorus. Natalie Imbruglia became

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a household name overnight. Her debut album, Left of the

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Middle went multi platinum. She was on magazine covers, She

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was a pop star, and almost nobody knew she was

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singing someone else's song We'll be right back. Here's the

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thing about Torn that makes it number eight on our countdown.

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It's not just that Natalie's version became more successful than

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the original. It's that the original was so unknown that

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her version replaced it entirely in the cultural consciousness with

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Tainted Love. Most music fans eventually learned it was a cover.

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With MadWorld, people who cared enough could find the Tears

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for Fears original and understand the transformation. But with Torn,

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most people never even questioned whether it was original. Why

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would they. It was Natalie and Bruglia's debut single. It

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launched her career. It sounded like it was written specifically

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for her. The emotion in her voice, the way the

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lyrics matched her public persona as this young woman navigating

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heartbreak and self discovery. It all felt authentic and original.

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The fact that Scott Cutler and Previn and Phil Thornally

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had written it four years earlier for a different band

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that nobody had heard of. Was trivia a footnote something

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you'd learned from VH one's pop up video or from

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reading album liner notes, if you were the kind of

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person who did that. For most listeners, Torn is Natalie

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and Bruglia's song, not because she wrote it, but because

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she made it hers. Her voice defined it. Her performance

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became the definitive version. When people think of the song,

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they think of her. And here's what's complicated about that.

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Edna SWAP's version is good. It's a well written, well

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performed alternative rock song. If it had gotten the right promotion,

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if it had landed at the right radio station at

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the right time, if any number of factors had broken differently,

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maybe it could have been a hit. But it wasn't

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arranged as a hit. It was arranged as an album

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track for an alternative rock band. The tempo was slightly different,

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the production was grungier, rougher around the edges. Anne Previn

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sang it beautifully, but she sang it like someone in

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an alternative rock band in the mid nineties with a

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certain detachment, a certain coolness. Natalie sang it like someone

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who was living through the heartbreak in real time, like

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she just realized she'd been lied to, just understood that

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the person she loved wasn't real, just felt the floor

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drop out from under her. That vulnerability made all the difference,

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and the arrangement. Phil Thornelly knew how to produce a hit.

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He'd been learning from the Trine Rain version, understanding what

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worked and what didn't. By the time they got to

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Natalie's version, he knew exactly how to build it. Start intimate, Build, gradually,

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hit that chorus like an emotional release, pull back for

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the verses, build again, make the whole thing feel like

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a journey from confusion to clarity. That's the craft of

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pop songwriting and production. The song was always good, but

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it took the right arrangement and the right voice to

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unlock its potential as a global hit. Edna Swap continued

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making music for a few more years. They released more albums,

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they toured, but they never had a hit of their own.

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The closest they came was writing a song that someone

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else turned into a phenomenon, and Preven has talked about

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it in interviews Over the years, She's been gracious about it,

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acknowledging that Natalie's version introduced the song to millions of

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people who never would have heard it otherwise. She's collected

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substantial royalties from it. Torn became one of the most

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played songs of the late nineties, which means significant performance

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writes income for the writers. But there's also a bittersweetness

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to it. You write a song, you record it, you

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believe in it, and then you watch someone else sing

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it and become famous for it while your version remains unknown.

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That's the strange economics of songwriting. You can be wildly

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successful financially while remaining completely anonymous artistically. Natalie Imbruglia has

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always been upfront about Torn being a cover. She's never

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claimed to have written it. She's credited the writers and

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interviews in liner notes. But the reality is that for

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most casual listeners, the question never even comes up. They

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hear the song, they associate it with Natalie, and they

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move on. That's not deception, that's just how pop music works.

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Most people don't read credits. Most people don't think about

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who wrote what. They hear a song, they connect with it,

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and they associate it with whoever's singing it. In the

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streaming era, you can actually see this play out in

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the data. Natalie and Bruglia's version of Torn has hundreds

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of millions of streams on Spotify. Edna SWAP's original has

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a tiny fraction of that. Most people clicking on Torn

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don't even know there's another version to choose from. The

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song has been covered dozens of times since Natalie's version

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became a hit. There was a viral clip in the

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two thousands of a guy named David Armand doing a

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literal interpretation of the lyrics in a comedy sketch, which

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introduced the song to a new generation. The song remains

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a karaoke staple, a nineties nostalgia classic, a song that

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defines a particular moment in pop music history, and that

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moment belongs to Natalie Imbruglia, not to Edna Swap. The

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song exists in two completely separate contexts, the original, which

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is a piece of nineties alternative rock history that almost

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nobody knows, and the cover, which is one of the

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defining pop songs of the late nineties. That's why Torn

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is number eight on our countdown, because it represents the

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ultimate example of a cover completely replacing the original in

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popular culture, because it proves that the best version of

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a song isn't always the first version. Because it shows

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that sometimes a song is waiting for years for the

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right voice, the right arrangement, the right moment to unlock

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its potential. Edna Swap wrote a great song in nineteen

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ninety three. Natalie Imbruglia made it a timeless classic in

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nineteen ninety seven. Both things can be true, but only

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one of them is remembered. This is Garrett Fisher, and

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this is the hitp Maker Chronicles. Join us next Sunday

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for number seven on our countdown of the top ten

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best cover songs of all time.