time now for our series morning's mixtape where we highlight nostalgic musicians and songs we just can't get out of our heads today we're talking to singer songwriter James Blunt he's marking the 20th anniversary of his first album this year listen you're beautiful you're beautiful you're beautiful it's true we're all singing it at a very high pitch that only birds can hear uh BL into Fame with the release of his album back to bedum which included chart topping hits like the one you're listening to now you're beautiful and Goodbye My Lover now the five-time Grammy nominee
is back with his seventh studio album perhaps his most personal one yet and he kicks off his European tour today Christina rafini spent a day with James Blunt in New York City where he revealed a side of himself we rarely see James Blunt has performed to soldout crowds all over the world when was the last time you were in New York oo I can't remember it was a little while ago before the pandemic I think but when he's in the US the British born blunt has a very American Obsession are you scared yes really spicy
hot wings little bit of pain in your life is good maybe that's because over the past two decades blunt who cheekily calls himself a minor pop Star has gotten used to taking heat both about himself without you on my I'm sorry and his music I thought I'd be a rock star playing rock songs with big hair and electric guitar and a band but you really need friends to per form a band and I've ended up really with an acoustic guitar in hand writing miserable songs beautiful but blunt made Bank off that misery his first record
2004's back to [Music] bedum was one of the biggest selling albums of the decade with its now Infamous single you're beautiful beautiful beautiful reaching number one in 10 countries and seven on Rolling Stones list of most annoying songs I don't quite understand the hate it seems like it's at one point it was just something that people did for sport I think the song was played so much um with such ubiquity that eventually you know some people are going to say look I'm just tired of of that song and and you know and I get that
it's just a really great commercial success and thatal sucess a littleit that people have overheard It Goodbye part of the problem he says was people taking him much more seriously than he's ever taken himself is it true that the original words to Goodbye My Lover were goodbye my liver obviously yes and that you're beautiful was originally these drugs are brilliant these drugs are pure I saw angel of that I'm sure totally yeah [Music] correct you're beautiful is I'm a guy who's High stalking someone else's girlfriend on the Underground and that guy is me this is
a guy who needs to be locked up and arrested and put away for everyone else's safety his new book A Memoir and his recent documentary one Brit Wonder All I need to do now is die and this documentary is going to go through the roof are laced with Blunt's signature self-effacing humor as well as Tale from an unexpected lifeair from owning a West London pub to his accidental friendship with the late great Carrie Fisher and his time in the British army where he once served alongside Prince Harry let me show you around the vehicle and
even won a bravery medal for helping deescalate a potential conflict with Russia during the Kosovo war did you James Blunt stop World War II yes I did okay great that's it I have no more questions but as all young soldiers and pop stars must blunt grew up and so did his [Music] music my place in the world has changed like my parents are getting old I'm married and I've got young children and so ra my concerns my fears in life aren't for me he talks about the realization of one of those fears pregnancy loss in
his new studio album in a heartbreaking track called the girl that never [Music] was I'm wondering how you first showed it or played it for your wife uh yeah uh very tough moments really um I suppose with all the songs I write to when I bring them back home it's a nerve-racking moment and obviously that was you know quite a tearful moment for us the album also includes meditations on midlife monotony and missed opportunities wish you had call somebody people are really great at write sing songs about fast cars and uh and expensive jewelry and
I just don't do that very well um I write songs about pretty uncool things about what it is that normal everyday people deal with darling I and when he has to deal with less normal things like some very public haters he approaches at all with the usual blunt wit I'm a musician I'm not a doctor and a nurse I'm not saving the world and if you get cut down a little bit occasionally that's only a healthy thing if you could flip a switch and have your music career without being famous would you make that choice
yeah it's a good question isn't it really I mean I've had great fun along the way my ambition and a really at the first place was just to be allowed to get into nightclubs for free I think I achieved that um and uh yeah so I've Had A real blast with it it's been great great fun all I know is I want to get that album right away who we used to be that song You're Beautiful I always was drawn from the first lyrics yeah my life is brilliant my love is pure I saw an
angel of that I'm sure I just thought it was such a pretty lyric and made me want to know what's going to happen right his voice is so ethereal and the other thing that I I wonder if a lot of the uh hate that he does get from critics is because his music Cuts very close to the Bone often times you don't want music to strike you right here in your heart and your soul and when it does you T you tend to sort of push it away I think he was on to something though
Vlad where he said they just played it so much people got sick of it but I always like that song and like him too gets old to me yeah no me neither right it's just like you can listen to it like you're hearing it for the first time congrats James congrats
