Absolutely awful number-one songs of the 2000s

7. “You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt (2006)

Since I’ve already mentioned “Fireflies,” I feel the need to say this upfront. I’ve got nothing against whiny-voiced guys getting emotional. When Neil Young or Passenger does it, I’m all in. There’s a new country artist from my part of the country named Jack Wharff with a similar scratchy tenor who I think will be huge. But those guys tend to write really incisive songs and never let their flirtations with emo pathos turn bathetic. “You’re Beautiful” is bathos turned up to eleven.

The verse is harmless enough. Blunt’s off-center delivery actually helps sell some ordinary lyrics. But then he gets to that chorus – "You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful it’s true – I saw your face in a crowded place and I don’t know what to do.” Blunt’s voice flirts with falsetto. The music lazily plods along beneath him and he keeps slipping up into that upper range, each time causing another splinter in the eardrum.

If you listen to the words, and there’s really no reason you should, you might get confused. This starts out like a love song and morphs into a heartbreak song about acceptance. But there’s really no story. It would appear to just be about some loser seeing a hot girl at random and self-flagellating himself because she’s way out of his league.

That’s depressing enough on its own, but there are hints that maybe there’s more to this – like maybe there’s a past relationship at play here which might add something. You know, like an actual story. But those hints are just tossed away as lyrical filler so that Blunt can keep reminding … who?  - the woman, the listener, himself? – I’m not sure because of the inconsistent shift between the second and third person that a high school English teacher would mark in red.

Look, I’ve already said that Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day,” which I’m led to believe is genuinely hated by plenty of folks, is not on my list. I don’t mind high-pitched whiny guys. I mind bad songs.