Tim Mosenfelder/Getty ImagesNatasha Bedingfield opened up about her 2004 hit “Unwritten” by revealing some interesting facts about how the song came to be.
She opened up about the surprising backstory of “Unwritten” during a Billboard Live-At-Home concert on Monday to raise money for BYP 100, otherwise known as Black Youth Project, which aims to end gender violence in the Black community.
Bedingfield opened up about her top-10 hit during the live broadcast, saying, “One thing that people might not know about this song is it was actually inspired by many things. For some reason I crammed every little wise saying I heard or I thought of into one song.”
However, when it came to crediting what inspired the uplifting single’s opening melody and chant, the Grammy nominee disclosed, “One of the things that inspired us for the verse was this kind of thing that was a bit like The Beatles.”
The 38-year-old went on to reveal that her single was actually fashioned after the British band’s “Norwegian Wood.”
“You know how The Beatles use a lot of almost-like Indian, Hindi-like chanting, sitars,” The Australian singer explained. “So in yoga, you have — you know — this note that kind of, and in a lot of music from India, it has this note that runs through it.”
That element was used in the Beatles’ 1965 influential single, which marked the first time a rock band played a sitar — or any Indian instrument.
Bedingfield dedicated her performance of “Unwritten” to the “incredible change that’s happening in the world” saying that she is “daring to hope that” the younger generation will succeed in bringing meaningful change to the planet, “which makes me feel so excited” for the future.
“Unwritten” peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100.
By Megan Stone
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