Blunt & Beautiful JAMES' FAMILY TRIBUTE

THE SINGER REVEALS WHY MORTALITY IS ON HIS MIND

- Louise Gannon

James Blunt is not a man who cries easily. He may have made millions from one of the world’s most sentimental love songs, You’re Beautiful, but James is an army man whose stiff upper lip was formed at birth. Yet right now there are tears in his eyes.

He’s talking about his new album, Once Upon a Mind, in particular, one poignant piano ballad, Monsters. It’s a very different sort of love song, about age, loss and the pain of a son saying goodbye to his dad at the end of his life.

It’s about James’ own dad, Charles, a former cavalry officer in the 13th/18th Royal Hussars, helicopter pilot and colonel in the British Army Air Corps.

The song is difficult for James (45) to talk about because his dad has stage four chronic kidney disease and needs an O positive organ donor. None have been forthcoming so far, and the family have been shown an NHS timeline of life expectancy.

“I wanted to give him my kidney,” says James, “but I wasn’t a match. My sister wasn’t a match either. And so we are waiting, because all we can do is wait. The NHS has very strict criteria for who is at the top of the list and all the various placings on the list, and because of reasons of age and so on my dad isn’t a priority.”

He pauses, struggling to contain his emotions and averting his gaze to the wall to stop the tears from falling.

“We have no complaint about that. It’s absolutely right that younger people are given a priority, that is the way it should be. But, it is on your mind all the time and there is nothing you can do but wait and try to accept what may happen.” He pauses again, then says with heartbreaking understatement, “It’s just a bit difficult.”