Torn

"Torn" was written in 1991 by Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, and Phil Thornalley, but the song's journey to global fame took a winding path. It first appeared as "Brændt" ("Burnt") in Danish in 1993, sung by Lis Sørensen, then was recorded by the song's writers' own Los Angeles band, Ednaswap, in 1995. Norway's Trine Rein released a version in 1996 that reached number 10 on her home country's charts. None of these versions broke through internationally—that would take an Australian former Neighbours actress named Natalie Imbruglia.

Imbruglia's version, released on October 27, 1997 as her debut single from the album Left of the Middle, became a phenomenon. In the UK, the song spent three weeks at number 2 in November 1997, selling over a million copies. Canada saw it climb to number 1 for 12 nonconsecutive weeks. The US presented a peculiar quirk: "Torn" spent 11 consecutive weeks at number 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 Airplay chart—the chart for most radio plays—but since no physical single was released domestically, it initially remained ineligible for the main Hot 100 chart and ultimately peaked at only number 42. The result: one of the defining radio songs of the decade with almost no Hot 100 footprint. Over four million copies sold worldwide, and Imbruglia earned a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, though she lost to Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On."

The music video, directed by Alison Maclean and shot on October 25, 1997 with actor Jeremy Sheffield, became as iconic as the song itself. As Imbruglia sang, the crew visibly repositioned actors and dismantled the apartment set around her — the artifice falling away on camera. Imbruglia never had another hit of comparable scale in the US, and "Torn" settled into permanent rotation as one of the songs that simply is late-'90s radio.