"Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia

Birthday wishes go out today to Natalie Imbruglia, whose song Torn was the big song the week I moved to Vancouver, in June 1998; despite its semi-saddo lyrics, the track has always imbued me with the hope I first had in moving here. Well, that initial hope is long gone, but the song - and its video - are still here!*

Imbruglia came to fame** on the Australian soap opera Neighbours, playing Beth Brennan Willis; despite the wooden melodrama favoured by that show, Imbruglia's performance in this video is anything but (even though, technically, it has been known to inspire wood).

Torn originally appeared on the 1997 album Left of the Middle, which was such a monster hit that its successors White Lilies Island (2001) and Counting Down the Days (2005) couldn't possibly measure up - and they didn't. In the years since, Imbruglia has busied herself by appearing as Rowan Atkinson's love interest in the 2003 film Johnny English***, as well as being spokesmodel for cosmetics giant L'Oréal. She also married and divorced Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns before releasing her fourth album, Come to Life, in October 2009.

*Kidding! Kinda... Anyway, these days there's a new kind of hope, at least.
**As did Russell Crowe, Jason Donovan, Guy Pearce, Holly Valance, and of course Kylie Minogue!
***A copy of which, naturally enough, finds itself in the permanent collection here at the Pop Culture Institute.
*