James Blunt gets personal on new record with heartbreaking songs for his family
James Blunt has told of how he got even more personal on his new album, where he apologises to his wife, gives his sons a pep talk and pens a heartbreaking farewell for his ill father.
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James Blunt knew the exact location of the pants he wore diving off a cliff at the end of the You’re Beautiful video 15 years ago.
This shouldn’t be a surprise considering Blunt’s military background. He is a meticulous kind of guy.
So when the call came in to film a sequel to the video which launched Blunt to global stardom, he already had the wardrobe.
“Same trousers, same coat in the cupboard on the left hand side — I’ve always loved those trousers,” he says in his particular rapid, clipped speech.
“But I thought I would never wear them again because that would be weird.
“The call came in and I was able to say ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got them.’
“The idea for the video made so much sense because everything I talk about in Cold was launched off that cliff in You’re Beautiful. It went to No. 1 and changed everything.”
One of the most misunderstood pop hits of all time, You’re Beautiful, which has amassed more than one billion track and video streams, is pretty much a creepy, stalker song.
On the contrary, Cold is his apology to his wife, Sofia Wellesley, their two children, his family and friends, for his job taking him away from them in the wake of You’re Beautiful’s success.
Blunt describes himself as a “touring musician”, nominating performance as his passion as opposed to the writing and recording parts of the job.
Since marrying Wellesley and the arrival of their two sons over the past five years, Blunt has been on two extensive world tours, each stretching across the globe for more than a year when you also factor in his album promotional trips.
“If you go away, there are consequences to that,” he says.
“I choose to go on the road for 18 months at a time and leave people at home and young ones to be brought up without their father around and a wife to pick up the pieces. It’s a big ask.”
Cold isn’t the only song which pushes Blunt into the emo pop heartland on his sixth studio album Once Upon A Mind.
Like his debut record Back To Bedlam, Blunt has returned to mining his personal stories for his art.
You can hear his voice catch on Cold, also on the opening track The Truth about his wife and the closing number The Greatest, a sonic message for his boys.
But the song which will launch tears for Blunt and for the listener’s own experience of what to say to a loved one facing the fight of their life against disease is Monsters.
When we spoke, Blunt was about to perform it live for the first time, in front of the man who inspired it, his father Charles Blount, who has stage 4 chronic kidney disease.
“I’m not your son, you’re not my father, we’re just two grown men saying goodbye,” he sings. “No need to forgive, no need to forget, I know your mistakes, you know mine.”
The former army officer’s composure has cracked a few times talking about Monsters and his wish to give his father one of his kidneys. Unofurtntaely neither James nor his sister are a match for their father who is on a transplant waiting list.
As we joke about him and his wife being regulars at all the big English weddings over the past couple of years — Meghan and Harry, Eugenie and Jack, Ellie Goulding and her guy — he employs the dry, self-deprecating humour which has made him a sledge lord and troll slayer on Twitter.
“I’m not sure if there is a wedding song on here really,” he says about the new record.
“Maybe a funeral song. That’s a good market; everyone gets there … maybe I’ve cornered that market with this one.”
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His attempt at levity aside, Blunt father’s illness was a significant catalyst for Once Upon A Mind’s tracks reacting against the Ibiza-friendly, island electronica of his 2017 chart-topping record The Afterlove.
Instead of hiding behind rhyming metaphors and fun-loving beats, he needed to reveal what was going on in his life in his music, and ignore the pressures to produce commercial pop fodder designed for radio playlists and chart positions.
“I had a lot of fun on my last album; I worked with loads of different people, songwriters like Ed Sheeran and DJs like Robin Schulz and that album was a huge hit for me in many places,” he says.
“But I didn’t get into music necessarily for fun … I was an English man stepping out of the army, struggling to find my place in the world and I wrote that song (You’re Beautiful).
“Because of my father’s illness, because I have a new little family, these things really moved me and suddenly reminded me why I got into music in the first place.
“Before, I struggled to write from vulnerability because I always felt the audience was in the room.”
His strong game on Twitter, where he owns every insult ever levelled at his music or persona and retweets it with extra sweariness and self-denigration, has had an unlikely influence on his songwriting.
If he can accept the worst of what humans post about him on social media, then why not write whatever he wants to in a pop song?
“When you suddenly have an audience and people judging you and criticising everything you do, it is easy to take things personally. The first negative thing you read is the one that keeps you awake at night,” he says.
“I play concerts to tens of thousands of people, all of them positive and happy to be there so I realise there is nothing to be afraid of.”
James Blunt plans to return to Australia in early 2020. Once Upon A Mind out now.