While secretly songwriting and cutting demos, Natalie Imbruglia finally landed her first record deal. Embarrassed to again follow too closely in the steps of her Neighbours co-stars before her, she tried to spin her album in a new way and decided in the end it was worth a shot.

The money received from the record deal went straight towards a flight home to Australia, the very week that she’d be kicked out England for lack of visa.

Though the timing was perfect, she was left in Australia and in a state of panic about actually recording her first album. A year after signing, she began cutting tracks for ‘Left of the Middle.’