At the 20th Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 2013, James Blunt played a landmark gig so legendary that it would spend the next 10 years racking up an incredible 41M YouTube views. For this two-song set, James took to the stage with his ‘one-hit-wonder’ pop classic, “You’re Beautiful” alongside the brand new single, “Bonfire Heart,” taken off his 2013 record, “Moon Landing.”
James Blunt, who confesses in his Twitter/X bio “that one song is all you need,” performed his legendary 2005 single, “You’re Beautiful” with a four-piece band, backed by a majestic orchestra on the sidelines for that extra special award show glaze, setting this gig far apart from the rest. Nine years on from the studio recording, James matches the power of the original, his voice like a flashback without aging a day.
The Nobel Peace Prize of 2013 was awarded to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), an international effort to eliminate chemical weapons across the globe. James Blunt’s “Bonfire Heart” hits close to home, opening on the war-like lines, “Your mouth is a revolver, firing bullets in the sky,” whilst keeping all irony intact to honour the OPCW’s world-inspiring stance, spearheading the destruction of chemical weaponry.
It was the perfect Blunt song to pick for the Peace Prize, its lyrics transferring so seamlessly they could have been written for the cause: “People like us, we don’t need that much, just someone that starts the spark in our bonfire hearts.”
But an even wilder level of irony tops James Blunt singing for the Nobel Peace Prize. James was a “NATO peacekeeper in Kosovo,” according to the BBC, who dedicated six years of his life to the Army. His service even entailed standing guard while the Queen Mother lay in state after her death in 2002.
The Hampshire-born singer-songwriter later shot to fame in 2005 with the release of his debut album, “Back To Bedlam.” The record peaked at #1 on the UK album charts, where it stayed for a shocking eight weeks on the trot, from July straight through to September, and remained in the Top 40 for 62 weeks total.
As the best-selling UK album of 2005, “Back To Bedlam” made history that even James Blunt can’t compete with, professing himself a ‘one-hit wonder’ despite all seven of his studio albums peaking in the UK Top 10. “You’re Beautiful,” which spent 12 weeks in the Top 10 Singles chart, won two MTV VMA Awards in 2006, alongside three Grammy Award nominations in 2007. Meanwhile, James Blunt landed two Brit Awards during his debut year on the Brit pop scene.
This 2014 performance comes the same year as James’ marriage to Sofia Wellesley. Their first son is godfathered by Ed Sheeran, and godmothered by Carrie Fisher, with whom James lived during the recording of his debut album in the US.
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