My favourite fun fact to tell is that Natalie Imbruglia’s iconic song Torn is actually a cover. It’s a pretty Australian-centric fact, I told a Canadian once and there wasn’t even a flicker of recognition, but for most Australians it’s mind blowing.
The song has once again been covered but by an even more unlikely duo – Waleed Aly and Jimmy Barnes.
Imbruglia was on The Project and the chat turned to twentieth anniversary of the hit song from her debut album Left of the Middle.
As Barnes joked he would be up to cover the song one day, Aly pulled out a guitar and started to strum out the chords. Barnsey immediately jumped in and gave a growling version of the chorus.
“It’s a different experience with Barnesy. Hearing him sing, ‘I’m cold and I’m ashamed laying naked on the floor’. It feels like a different vibe,” Aly joked.
“Now Nat will do Khe San,” co-host Peter Helliar added.
WATCH: Sophie Monk’s hilarious appearance on The Project.
The song was originally sung by a US band called Ednaswap in 1993 – four years before Imbruglia’s version.
The co-writer Anne Preven told news.com.au it was actually the third cover of the song and they didn’t think much of it at first.
“Until, all of a sudden, we get a call saying it’s number one in the UK,” Preven said. “For Scott [Cutler, the co-writer] 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.”
Cutler told the publication that even twenty years after her cover, they make about $150,000 each year purely in royalties.
