For some the world seems to have come to a near standstill; Torn, the song that Natalie Imbruglia made into an international hit in the 90’s, has somehow after all of these years been discovered to be a cover song – that is written by a person other than her, and even previously recorded and performed by someone other than her. Oh Heavens – how the twitter world has come apart. Imbruglia’s fans seem to have thought for some reason she had written the song regardless of the fact that the writers names, Scot Cutler and Ann Preven, are clearly shown to be the writers. There are even previously recorded versions on Youtube.
Here is the first version by Ednaswap
And one from Lis Sorenson
It is a bit amusing that Natalie Imbruglia’s fans would take such an ownership of a song to the point that they are disappointed that she did a cover of it.
For what it is worth the Imbruglia version is really much better produced and performed than by the previous versions. The thing about doing covers, and everybody does them, (I mean did Frank Sinatra ever write a song in his life?), and please remember that the Beatles always had covers on all of their albums right up until “Hard Days Night.” The thing that really makes a cover work is when a singer can make it their own. This is probably why Imbrulia fans have gone a bit berserk, she was so good at making “Torn” her own, and it had deep meaning to her fans, that now that they have read the fine print they are shocked. I am a great believer in doing covers and here is a recent cover I did also of a song from the 90’s, “All That She Wants” it is available on our album “Money.”
Here is another cover I did of a song written in the 1920’s, “Minnie The Moocher.” This brings up another aspect of doing covers; it is a great opportunity to do the song in a completely different style. Cab Calloway did the song in a big band style, I did the song in a ska reggae style. In this way songs and our great songwriting tradition in America keeps spanning the generations.
So all you Natalie Imbruglia fans please don’t despair. her version of Torn is her own, and if it created deep meaning for you, then nothing has changed.