To be able to say to him, ‘I’m not your son, you’re not my father/We’re just two grown men saying goodbye/No need to forgive, no need to forget/I know your mistakes, and you know mine.' I idolised this man throughout my childhood, but as we grew older, I realised that he had his own fallibilities, and that’s an awesome thing to see because you suddenly can become friends then. And I suppose for me, the positive is that I have a chance to say the things I would never have otherwise said. “My dad, he needs an O+ blood group kidney donor, and it’s a long wait, and life gets pretty shit in the meantime.

This is that I’m away a lot, and it can be really difficult, but we're worth the fight, and we can be the greatest.” So, there are consequences to that, and therefore lots to write about. I’m away on tour, and I leave that little family behind, and then my wife has to pick up the pieces. It says, ‘Without you, I’m just cold.’ There’s definitely risks in saying such things, but the point of music is to be moved by it.” “I leave behind for 18 months at a time, and the song talks about there being an ocean between us-in the physical sense whilst I’m away on tour, in America, or Asia, or Australia, or wherever. I’m very happy with that, and that's the truth.” But all of it has brought me to the person I’m with now.

And I’ve lived a very lucky and fun life as a single man. For much of that, I was a single man with a band, travelling the world, having an incredible time-a roller coaster of a ride. It’s turned out into something that is bigger and better than I could have expected.” Here, he takes us through every emotion and event, track by track. On this, I’m writing the truth and I think people can hear that it is genuine. “I think people have realised that that’s a bit disingenuous. “I’d been writing songs in the hope that other people might like them, writing words that I thought you would like to hear,” he says. I’ve just had to describe how I feel about specific things that are going on.” “Monsters” is the centrepiece-an aching piano ballad that addresses his father and the changes in their relationship that illness has fuelled-while the first three songs are unfiltered expressions of thanks and love to a wife left at home “to pick up the pieces” when Blunt disappears on tour. “This has been one of my easiest albums to write because I’ve had really clear things I’ve needed to say. “I’m seeing that circle of life playing out in front of me,” he tells Apple Music. As he and his wife coped with all the joy and tumult of raising a young family, Blunt’s father was diagnosed with stage 4 chronic kidney disease. James Blunt’s sixth album emerged from a period of heavy emotional turbulence for the singer-songwriter.

Story behind james blunt monsters