If you grew up in the 1990s, you probably listened to Natalie Imbruglia’s massively popular song “Torn,” perhaps on a device called a CD player. “Torn” is one of the essential ’90s songs about heartache by a female artist. In the accompanying music video, Imbruglia looks directly at the camera and gives an emotional performance while wearing a hoodie. We believed her. We thought that she wrote (or possible co-wrote) this original song based on a personal relationship. But it was all a lie. Yesterday, one Twitter user decided to ruin everyone’s fond teen memories with this tweet:
https://twitter.com/VilinskiKonjic/status/900511297766387713
The reactions were a mix of shock and sadness as everyone discovered that Imbruglia’s song was actually a COVER, yes, a COVER of a song by the band Ednaswap (which itself is an English language cover of “Brændt” by Lis Sørensen).
https://twitter.com/VilinskiKonjic/status/900619482376265728
What?!?! https://t.co/dXAMqf81Y5
— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) August 25, 2017
https://twitter.com/Watdahel_Marcel/status/901024490577997825
https://twitter.com/jackeogh/status/901082633656029185
Soon everyone will know this and I will have no fun fact to say at parties https://t.co/ABx6Kt0LOz
— Bec Shaw (@Brocklesnitch) August 24, 2017
Our lives will never be the same.
I can only respect how he took joy away from so many with just one tweet. https://t.co/5B6LgeXSst
— Mercedes, Apparently (@mel_thegreat) August 24, 2017
Of course, a simple internet search would have confirmed this fact weeks, months, or even years ago. But we were naive teenagers in a smartphone-free era. We trusted our idols. We didn’t think we had to investigate the origins of a song by someone like Natalie Imbruglia.
Anyway, the original song by Ednaswap is quite good. Listen to it, even if it feels strange once you acknowledge that this is the first version of “Torn”.
Brb, investigating every other hit ’90s song.