James Blunt - “You’re Beautiful”

Well, now. This is one cheery-ass video.

We start out with James apparently facing out to sea while snow is falling and the water looks gray and foreboding. His back is to us, and he’s wearing a jacket with the hood pulled over his head. Absolutely nothing else is going on.

James finally turns to face us, and then walks toward the camera until his face is right there. The snow continues to fall and he continues to sing. After a bit, he pulls his hood off so we can see that his hair is all wet, so either he either sweats a lot or he’s been out here messing around in the snow for quite some time. In either case, there’s still not a whole lot happening.

As he breaks into the chorus, with that almost alarming falsetto that makes me think of unsavory things being done to a man’s private bits, James unzips the jacket and takes it off. Then he takes the first of two shirts off, and pauses. Well, at least we have a small amount of dramatic tension. Will he take the next shirt off? Will he?
 
No, instead he looks up at the sky, and the camera follows. We see a few lonely birds circling in the whiteness, then the camera pulls back down as James is taking off the second and final shirt. I feel a bit cheated. There’s so little happening, that it’s not right to pan away if James is actually doing something.

Now the camera is pulling back, so we can confirm that James is indeed shirtless, because I’m sure there are quality-control people that need to confirm the shirts have been removed per the script. James sits down and takes off his shoes. He’s not wearing socks, even though he’s in the middle of a small blizzard. I’m going to take this as a sign of possible mental instability.

Then James begins taking things out of his pants pockets, lining them up with his shoes in front of him, and I start to get an inkling of where this is going. (Really, producers? You want to go there?) James also takes a ring off one of his fingers (but does not, interestingly enough, remove the Madonna-tribute rubber bracelets on his other wrist). The camera zooms in so we can review the line of treasures. Yep, pocket things: watch, money clip, matchbook, guitar pick, and… some other something. (We all have one of those.)

The camera pans up so we can see there is now only one bird in the sky. (Can you blame the others that left? There’s got to be something more intriguing further down the coastline.)

Camera comes back down, and we’re further away from James than we were. He stands sideways as the camera zooms toward him, then he begins running away.

Then James leaps as we learn that he was actually on a high cliff, and falls a long way down to the sea. As the final line of “I will never be with you” is sung, James disappears beneath the water.

Great. Can’t be with the one you love? Find a cold cliff with inclement weather, partially strip, arrange your personal inventory in a nice line, then make sure you will never be with that one you love by taking yourself out of the picture.

Don’t believe it, kids. This is NOT the answer. Just say no.

And stay away from high places where it snows. Nothing good can come of that.
　

Click Here to Watch the Video on YouTube.