People like us don’t need that much, just some one to light the spark in our bonfire heart.
James Blunt.
I had to go find that precise moment where James Blunt's song lights the spark in my bonfire heart.
It happens at 1.58.
That scene. Those mountains. The roadtrip. I miss New Zealand (even if this isn't New Zealand, it was close enough to explode my soul.)
There's an interview with James Blunt, confirming that the music video is all that it seems and more. He explains: Then the most amazing bit of it was pulling up to a car park in the end and not realizing in the bar in the car park a wedding was taking place and the wedding party saw us and spilled out to see what was going on and so to the bride and groom I got out my guitar. I played them songs in the car park, I played them ‘Bonfire Heart’ and spontaneously surrounded by their friends and family the bride and groom had their first dance, in the car park and that is what we filmed that is the ending of my video. That’s what you see on YouTube now. Absolutely incredible, you could not have scripted it and it looked amazing. She was crying her eyes out, the crew were crying their eyes out too (I wasn’t crying because I’m a man, obviously!) so it was a huge honour to be part of and it became their wedding video!
But to start at the start, he explains ... and it kind of made sense because the song is about no matter who you are no matter where you’re from it’s about the human condition which is we need to connect with people.
The lyrics are simple "people like us don’t need that much, just some one to light the spark in our bonfire heart.” And the video just really tied in with that, the video was really fun to make. I love motorbikes and so I went to Wyoming and Idaho and we went travelling across hundreds of miles across these two states. You don’t have to wear a helmet there, which was cool for that and with an amazing back drop to that part of the world and me on my bike it was ‘Top Gun’ meets ‘Brokeback Mountain’ and we used real people not actors because we wanted the song to be as honest and genuine as we could and we wanted a video to match that.
About people, of course, but sometimes, surely, the 'spark' can be all about lighting that bonfire of memories and places much loved. Much-missed.