Natasha Bedingfield: I felt my music wasn't wanted in England
Natasha Bedingfield returned to the UK charts in January after an absence of 17 years
- Published
A wise woman once said: today is where your book begins, the rest is still unwritten.
"People have really held on to it and it's become kind of like a motto," says Natasha Bedingfield, 20 years after first staring at the blank page before her.
After returning to the charts this year, Natasha tells BBC Newsbeat: "I didn't even know Unwritten would be the song that would have the staying power".
"Because there were cooler songs. It's very hard to write positive songs without being cringey."
Unwritten, with its ethos of releasing your inhibitions and feeling the rain on your skin, managed to avoid the cringey pitfalls and has become Natasha's most streamed song by far.
By this point, you should be fully earwormed.
The track, taken from her debut album of the same name, peaked at number six in the UK charts almost exactly 20 years ago.
Recently though it's been having another moment, spending 20 weeks in the Top 40 since January after an absence of 17 years.
That's thanks in part to being featured in 2023 movie Anyone But You but - and this won't surprise anyone - TikTok also had a hand in its renewed success.
Almost 700,000 videos have been uploaded using Unwritten as the soundtrack - everything from GRWMs to proposals.
"We worry about technology but sometimes there's some good things that come from it," says Natasha.
"I think the fact that it's connecting everybody is amazing.
"It's given people a lot more power to talk to their fans directly."
For Natasha though, the song is nothing new - fans are just catching up.
"I've been singing it all along," she says. "The new thing is being back in England."
The singer-songwriter now lives in New York and says she's better known in the US after her releases since Unwritten struggled to break through in the UK.
"I kind of got a message that people didn't want me in England," she says, even though she says she'll always consider the country home.
"My music didn't get heard in England anymore."
So she was surprised when, in 2022, Lewis Capaldi asked her to open for him at the O2 in London.
"Everyone was singing along to every word of every song," Natasha says.
Unwritten was taken from Natasha's debut album of the same name in 2004
It's not the first time the power of social media has given a new lease of life to an old track.
Think back to January when Sophie Ellis-Bextor's Murder On The Dancefloor - first released in 2001 - was storming the charts thanks to a Saltburn-inspired TikTok trend.
"Because of social media, the whole world is united in such a great way," says Natasha.
On Thursday night, she worked with TikTok on a performance alongside Cat Burns for the Team GB athletes in Paris which was later shared on the app.
TikTok is an official partner of Team GB and broadcast Natasha and Cat performing for the athletes to fans around the world.
The platform says more than a million users have engaged with the Olympics hashtag - almost a 2,000% increase compared with Tokyo 2020.
TikTok says that so far 43,590 creators have made Olympics-tagged content for Paris, up from just 3,151 by this point in Tokyo.
Natasha told Newsbeat she was excited to gig for the athletes - especially knowing the impact music can have on their performances.
"I actually get a lot of feedback in my DMs from athletes that songs like Unwritten or Pocket Full of Sunshine really help them," Natasha says.
She says she met Team GB canoeist Kimberley Woods who told her she listened to Unwritten before bagging a bronze medal.
"That's so cool," Natasha says.
"Those are some of the songs that people like to listen to to recentre themselves.
"You really have to keep giving yourself pep talks and you have to be in the right mindset," she says.
"Being a winner is actually very psychological."
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- Published5 January
