An entertaining trip through drug-addled noughties
For someone who had the best-selling album of the noughties, with Back to Bedlam, James Blunt rather modestly describes himself as a one-hit wonder,
However, it is difficult to take anything at face value in this hilarious, fascinating and unputdownable autobiography.
If it is an autobiography? While the author mischievously suggests in the title itself that it is all made up, the reader is left in little doubt that this drug-addled, highly unfashionable, but irritatingly talented and very funny raconteur experienced most of the bizarre and outrageous experiences he describes. Drugs, sex and all.
When he says survival expert Bear Gryyls advised him to eat his own poo when it wouldn’t flush and claims that he did just that, it seems that James Blunt either has an outrageous imagination. Or is just naturally outrageous?
Right at the start comes the disclaimer: “Nothing herein should be construed to represent a true or accurate recreation of the actual events that transpired. The stories, conversations and relationships between the persons depicted have been fictionalised. Basically, I made this shit up,” Blunt informs his reader.
If you are offended by the previous four-letter word, you might wish to pass on his volume. Blunt informs us of his pride that James Blunt is now cockney rhyming slang for an expletive referring to a part of the female anatomy.
His big hit is the slightly soppy-sounding, but haunting, and poor Blunt often has passers-by shouting the phrase at him, while he murmurs to himself the word that sounds a lot like his surname.
“Whilst my crimes against music are well documented, I’ve got some stories that are not, and so I thought I’d write them down for your amusement and my parents’ horror,” he explains.
“Bearing in mind, much of this happened back in the musically utopian, drug-addled haze of the greatest decade in the history of mankind — the noughties — and so, as Big Liz [the late queen] would say, recollections may vary.”
Blunt was nominated for five Brit awards in 2006, at the height of his success, but he was already regarded as too posh and too naff, so he was subjected to some really nasty abuse.
“In the run-up to the awards, Paul Weller issued a statement saying he’d rather eat his own shit than work with me. This caught me by surprise. I’d never asked to work with him — so it seemed more an excuse for him to eat his own shit rather than anything to do with me,” he writes.
Blunt came to music after studying at Bristol University and joining the British army.
He experienced the twin horrors of actual war and meeting a young journo called Boris Johnson while on active service in the Kosovo conflict and he provides unsentimental but moving insight into the awfulness of that conflict, especially the toll on civilians.
Later he joined the Life Guards, part of the Household Cavalry regiment, where he rode on horseback as an escort to the late queen, and stood vigil over the coffin of the Queen Mother as she lay in state.
On a lighter note, he opened an escort agency, pimping out his fellow guardsmen. It closed not for moral reasons but because he had created the design for his website by copying the website of another business.
The biography tells how Blunt moved into Carrie Fisher ’ s Beverly Hills home and lived with this troubled, but fascinating actress.
We also hear tales of his extensive tours, including the faux pas when he said “it’s good to be in Dublin” when he was actually in Belfast.
The style of this autobiography is chatty, the message is that however unfashionable some may consider you, there is still no shortage of pranks, sex and drugs in the life of a successful recording artist.
Names are dropped by the dozens along the way, from Cher to Elton John, and from
Lionel Richie to Paris Hilton and Lindsay Logan.
The amusing anecdotes come thick and fast from James Blunt (who changed his surname from Blount).
He writes: “In 2000, the law banning homosexuality in the Armed Forces was repealed. As the senior officer present, my father, Colonel Blount, made the announcement to us from the start gate of the Downhill Race in Verbier, Switzerland.
“‘Listen in!’ he announced. ‘You’ll all be pleased to hear that homosexuality is now allowed ... but is not mandatory!’”
We learn that Blunt’s big hit, You’re Beautiful, is not a soppy love song, despite its wistful tone and melody. It’s about someone who is high on drugs in a subway, stalking someone else’s girlfriend.
Blunt enjoys the spoils of his success and has moved with his family to the Spanish party island of Ibiza.
“When he heard I’d moved to Ibiza, Noel Gallagher sold his house and left the island, saying he couldn’t live there any more in the knowledge that I was down the road writing my shitty songs. House prices rocketed and everyone who was anyone flooded to the island, but I honestly couldn’t say if that was because I’d arrived, or because Noel had left. But I get his point, and although my music is as limp as lettuce, I actually love dance music and nightclubs,” Blunt informs his readers.
SA features in this memoir, but not in a good way. He tells of an ill-fated Christmas family holiday in Plettenberg Bay, where the rented house was a target for robbers.
“It rained for 15 of the 17 days. Of the two sunny days, the beach was closed on the first because of a shark attack, and closed again on the second because there was raw sewage being pumped onto the beach,” Blunt recalls.
“‘We normally stay in Hermanus’, my brother-in-law told me. ‘It’s much nicer there.’
“‘Why are we here then?’I asked. He didn’t know.
“And then we flew home to Ibiza, where everything worked, and the sun shone, and the beaches had neither shit nor sharks, and we only got burgled occasionally. Perhaps I’ll just stay here from now on.”
So, we now can be fairly certain that if James Blunt writes a song recalling his SA holiday, the word “beautiful” is unlikely to feature.
‘YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL’ IS ABOUT SOMEONE WHO IS HIGH ON DRUGS IN A SUBWAY, STALKING SOMEONE ELSE ’ S GIRLFRIEND