Dusting off the lesser tracked annals of pop history, we bring to you another of our faithful retrospectives that are Pop Essays. This week: another track from the “Difficult Second Album” files from 2001…
- Artist: Natalie Imbruglia
- Song: That Day
- Released: 29/10/2001
- Writers / Producers: Natalie Imbruglia / Patrick Leonard / Ian Stanley
- Highest UK Chart Position: #11
- Chart Run: 11 – 27 – 41 – 65 – 77 – 66 – 86
As we discussed with The Feeling a few weeks ago, the second album is often the difficult one for many reasons. For starters, when an artist has had practically a lifetime to write, record and deliver a debut album, suddenly there is a pressing need for a follow up, sometimes in a matter of months or even weeks.
Add in the pressure of expectation for sales and instant critical and commercial adoration that wasn’t there on the last album, and it’s not hard to see why it is the “terrible twos” of the music industry. In fact, it is easier to count the second albums that were successful over the ones that weren’t.
For Natalie Imbruglia, making a second album was possibly a little more loaded a task. And it would be for you too, if, like her, your debut album (1997’s seven million selling Left Of The Middle) contained the gargantuan worldwide hit “Torn”, a song which even now is still a firm airplay staple.
By her own admission, she was almost in a paralysis by analysis situation. Even though Left Of The Middle had provided her with that iconic first single and three more top 20 hits – two of which made the top 5 – she knew that there was a high probability that almost anything else could seem insignificant to, and would be judged against its success, hence why the first year of its genesis was spent in denial.
Which goes some distance to explaining why her second album, released in 2001, took three years to write and record. White Lilies Island – so titled after the private island community on the River Thames in Windsor where she lived – had one clear objective at least; to be an album that she was happy to fall on her sword for, so to speak.
“It was important for this record that I was a part of every song,” she said in a promotional EPK interview ahead of the album’s release, “and that it was so me, instead of doing someone else’s song and having as much success as the last album. I’d rather the ship sink knowing it’s my ship, so that’s how I played it.”
Those who remember our blog on her second single, “Big Mistake“, that we wrote for The Story of Pop: 1998 last year, will remember the minor press furore around the origins of “Torn”, and how it had tainted her enjoyment of her initial success and stunted her desire to be seen as a credible artist, so it is perhaps no surprise she took this more firmer stance on the writing and recording of White Lilies Island.
Indeed, no song on the album reaffirms that more forthright creative approach, or indeed could have been its first single, quite like “That Day”. Written towards the end of making the album, it saw Natalie collaborate with Patrick Leonard, Madonna’s long time collaborator on all her big hits and albums.
It is certainly not the obvious commercial choice, not when you listen to it anyway. It is less a contemporary pop song, more a free verse composition sung against crunching yet melodic guitars, without any distinct verses or even much of a chorus: “That day, that day, what a mess, what a marvel / I walked into that cloud again and I lost myself / And I’m sad, sad, scared and small and alone / Craving purity, a fragile mind and a gentle spirit / That day, that day, what a marvellous mess / Well this is all that I can do / And I’m done being me / Sad, sad, scared and small and alone / It’s supposed to be like this, I accept everything, it’s supposed to be like this”.
On that same EPK interview to launch the album, you understand why the song is structured like it is when she spoke of its creation: “I was flipping through my notepad and had this stream of consciousness, like a diary entry that I’d been saving up, which I thought was really interesting, and he (Patrick) really loved it, and we decided to go with it.”
It was on the same day after recording and laying down vocals for the song that she got the sad news that her grandfather had passed away, which gave the song an entirely different meaning, about the confusion and panic and denial of a stressful or emotional situation. So Natalie was to be surprised even more when her label, RCA Records, elected it to be the lead single. “It’s funny because I’d hoped… secretly… that [it] would be the first single. But the last song I thought the record company would choose was “That Day” … I think it’s great that they were brave in choosing a song like that.”
But whilst it was indeed a bold move, and one to be rightly praised in an industry that seldom takes risks, it did present a problem for RCA in how the song would be showcased visually. Hence why, if you look on YouTube, there are two versions of the video. The first earlier version is a big budget affair, with Natalie captured in a series of erratic sequences as she has what looks like a breakdown in the middle of a busy cafe, to the total lack of acknowledgement by its patrons, even during one sequence where an intense shower of rain teems down.
Visually it’s actually quite the most fitting to the song. But for one reason or another – that no one’s quite sure of to this day – it was scrapped and replaced at the eleventh hour with the version that is still attached to her official channel on YouTube and is the one you see above, walking slowly through a dimly lit subway full of passers by, eventually reaching its end and walking into the sunset.
Even the White Lilies Island album cover changed from its initial concept; it was a more grainy, craft effect artwork with old effect typewriter font, which didn’t feature Natalie on it at all; it was eventually replaced with the shot of her reclining on a white sofa in a white tutu, wearing a T-shirt that bears the name “Elvis” written in the style of the Levi’s Jeans logo.
It could well be that whatever courage in their conviction RCA Records had in the vision for the album and after choosing “That Day” evaporated once they started assessing the situation on their hands from a marketing point of view. It was therefore surprising but equally expected when it was finally released in October, and just missed out on debuting in the top 10 by a whisker, peaking at #11 before it began a rapid descent out of the chart, taking the White Lilies Island album (which entered and peaked at #15 in early November) with it.
Of course, once 2002 arrived, the reset button was pressed and the album did return to the chart for a longer run, thanks to the success of its more instant second single and eventual top 10 smash “Wrong Impression”, and the top 30 follow up “Beauty On The Fire”, eventually reaching total sales in the UK of just over 200,000 copies. But it did ultimately prove that Natalie refused to be an artist that was defined by her biggest success; in fact she pulled the challenge off, certainly musically if not commercially. In fact, that a song like “That Day” got that far at all is to be commended, because even today you would struggle to find a song like it on the radio. That is its strength and appeal.
Don’t forget to follow our Pop Essays playlist on Spotify, which includes this and all the songs we’ve written about. What are your memories of this week’s featured song or band? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or message us on our Instagram.
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