My reflex reaction to this next number one is to wince and think ‘Oh God, no…’

You’re Beautiful, by James Blunt (his 1^st and only #1)

5 weeks, from 17^th July – 21^st August 2005

Such a kicking has this song, and its singer, taken in the public imagination. It is an uncool song – I’ve always viewed it as a ‘Lady in Red’ for the 21^st century – by an uncool (and rather posh) singer-songwriter. It is the softest of soft rock. It is middle-class mum rock. It is music for people who don’t actually like music…

But is any of that really fair? Once I get over myself, can I enjoy ‘You’re Beautiful’? Let’s see. The languorous acoustic guitar riff is on-hold muzak. James Blunt’s voice is reedy (and, yes, very posh), and the way he trills the title line is highly annoying. The lyrics are creepy, all about stalking a girl on the underground… She smiled at me on the subway, She was with another man, But I won’t lose, Won’t sleep all night, ‘Cause I’ve got a plan… And in the second verse there is the most incongruous example of swearing in a number one single, ever. Why did he have to be fucking high? It’s so out of place in a song this gentle, that it’s either terrible writing, or a terribly misguided attempt to add some ‘edge’, or both.

So, yes. Or I mean, no. This is crap. Still. It was crap then, and it is crap now. Bland, limp, lifeless sludge with lyrics that either creep you out, or that don’t make sense. I do think that the melody is nice, and that with different words, different production, and a different singer, this could be a decent song. But that it is a lot of ‘differents’… And then Blunt went and followed this up with the even drippier, and even more annoying, ‘Goodbye My Lover’.

But, here’s the thing. I really like James Blunt. He comes across as a down-to-earth, engaging person. He’s an ex-Army captain, who saw active duty in Kosovo, and seems to have his singing career fully in perspective. Once he’d made millions from this song, and the accompanying ‘Back to Bedlam’ album, he moved to Ibiza and started dating supermodels. He is well aware of his luck, and forms part of an interesting phenomenon involving British artists who record generally dull music but who are funny, engaging, and down to earth when not singing (see also Adele and Lewis Capaldi). 

Plus we do have to recognise that Blunt almost completely redeemed himself for inflicting ‘You’re Beautiful’ on us, by releasing the wonderful ‘1973’ a couple of years later. Since then he has only had one further UK Top 10, and that’s probably for the best, but I wish him nothing but happiness.

One final thing to mention about ‘You’re Beautiful’, and one of the reasons why it felt like it hung around for forever and a day, is its six week climb to #1. It was the slowest ascent to the top for over six years (since Steps’ ‘Tragedy’), and a sign that download sales – introduced three months or so earlier – were changing the way that the charts moved. During the remainder of the 2000s, records climbing to number one became much more common, in a huge shift from the ‘airplay for months then enter at the top’ days of the previous decade.