8 Radio Edits That Completely Changed The Song's Meaning

8. James Blunt - "You're Beautiful"

The Song You Heard On The Radio: It's the quintessential cheesy love song. Everything about it says "I would like very much to touch the delicate parts of your body and will sing whatever I need to in order for that to happen. Also, do you mind if I weep at this photo of a half moon?" The melody is frail, his voice is quivering, and the lyrics are so light that they could be blown away by the small amount of air it takes to sing them.

The story in the song is a little hard to track since it flitters back and forth in its chronology, but it's essentially about an unrequited love, and the longing and fantasizing that comes with it.

The Edit: The line "She could see from my face that I was flying high" is originally "She could see from my face that I was f*cking high." That one, falsetto-sung swear word changes everything. When the story is infused with the simple fact that the guy in it is stoned, it takes on whole new levels of lethargy.

In a few dozen lines, Blunt goes from meeting this beautiful woman and coming up with a plan to woo her away from her apparent beau, to then immediately recoiling and giving up on executing said plan, to then believing an angel or the cosmos or whatever had some grand plan for the two of them to be together, to then simply "facing the truth" and moving on.

That's the laziest non-love story ever, and it makes perfect sense that he was high when he was fantasizing about it.