OK...I THINK James Blunt would be considered alternative music (that's the type of station I hear him on), but maybe pop? Regardless, I got the CD for Christmas and I really like it, favorite song on it I think would be High (first heard by me on Gray's Anatomy), but I digress...

I had heard and really liked the song "You're Beautiful" and notice that on the radio, you hear..."she could tell by my face that I was flyin' high"...but on the CD, the flyin' was replaced by a totally different word starting with the first letter, totally annunciated all the way through the final g...like it was the key word in the entire song. I actually liked the song less...

My question is - - what, if anything, do you really think was the point of that - or was there a point ~ more than just the fact that he was feeling "artsy" and thought that would add something?

The word you're looking for would be the f word. Here's the album lyrics from his official website. So of course, it was changed to flyin' for radio and TV play.

Both pop and alternative work in this case actually. Alternative could refer to his sound which feels kind of light alternative singer-songwriter, and pop could refer to the fact that he's mainstream popular. People use them in many different unofficial connotations. Whatever official meaning they've had has pretty much been lost.

Too funny Jusork - - I wasn't looking for the word...I could hear as plain as day what the word was. My question/comment had more to do with what was the point of that? To me, changed the song alot - and not for the better. I'm not a prude and it wasn't just about using profanity in the song - it seemed to be a really nice ballad, but using the word in place of flyin' just seemed to lessen it for me...especially since he so strongly annunciated the word, probably more so than any other word in the entire song. Seemed pointless to me.

Oooh. Heh, sorry about that. Yeah I guess an annunciated word would be one that's easy to hear, huh.

I see what you mean, I think. But when you think about it, they both kind of imply two different things. He's talking about this amazing experience that occured when he saw her. But is flying high really an expression that you see on your face that shows how exulted one is? F'n high, possibly as in a natural high, probably seemed more reasonable, or at least thought it was good when he wrote it. It's possible that he didn't even think of making the changed word 'flying.' It could been just put on by a record executive or something. As for why he choose f'n in the first place instead of any other word, that's a good question. I'd guess that he's was trying to get across that it felt like pure happiness and making an anaglogy to being high works, I guess. Thoughts?

Actually, I think it's safe to assume that the word "flyin" was the replacement word and it was the artists original intention to use the "F" word.

Well I look at it this way. The artist knows that when they use the "F" Word in a song that it wont get radio play unless they put out a cleaner version. I go with the artists original intent when I like a song. That's why I only listen to Satellite radio where there is no FCC interference for the artist to deal with.

Ani Difranco has a good song called "Untouchable Face" that pretty much centers around a word starting with the letter "F". There's a live recording where she is told to clean it up right while she was in the middle of the song. All she did was emphasized the word even more. So some artists don't appreciate their work being censored.

But like I said, if they want to make money off of it they pretty much have no choice. Some artists will leave the song as is and not allow a cleaner version to be recorded. The rest in my opinion are sell outs.

quote:

Originally posted by RoverRoad:
Actually, I think it's safe to assume that the word "flyin" was the replacement word and it was the artists original intention to use the "F" word.

Oh yeah, I definitely think so, too.

I agree about the reason it was changed to "flyin"...no question about that. Each time I play the CD though, I can't understand why he originally had the other "f" word...it just doesn't seem to portray the same feeling that it does with "flyin". I think of "flyin' high" as being happy, on-cloud-nine so to speak. With the original version on the cd...I think of it as his just having smoked a joint or having done a line...that kinda "high".

I just feel like he thinks he's "being cool"

quote:

Originally posted by Lydia:
I agree about the reason it was changed to "flyin"...no question about that. Each time I play the CD though, I can't understand why he originally had the other "f" word...it just doesn't seem to portray the same feeling that it does with "flyin". I think of "flyin' high" as being happy, on-cloud-nine so to speak. With the original version on the cd...I think of it as his just having smoked a joint or having done a line...that kinda "high".

I just feel like he thinks he's "being cool"

Lydia, I'm with you there ! My own guess was that the f word was in his first draft, as an obvious intensifier, and so that's how it stayed. 'Flyin' seems to me a better word, simply because it conveys something of a man or boy's feelings in those circumstances.It seems likely that it was chosen by another writer; recorded songs of James Blunt have been edited in their creation, by a woman lyricist (whose name I forget); which was necessary in any case for airtime on mainstream stations in daytime. The F word before 'high' is no more than 'very' or 'extremely'; it is used unthinkingly, by the less literate, for every single case where any intensifier would serve. There are plenty of people around who use it all the time where others might use 'bloody' or some other expletive,at almost every other word. That being so it adds nothing to the lyric.
(Almost needless to say, junior Puli, just 18, says she is of another opinion )

quote:

Originally posted by Lydia:
I agree about the reason it was changed to "flyin"...no question about that. Each time I play the CD though, I can't understand why he originally had the other "f" word...it just doesn't seem to portray the same feeling that it does with "flyin". I think of "flyin' high" as being happy, on-cloud-nine so to speak. With the original version on the cd...I think of it as his just having smoked a joint or having done a line...that kinda "high".

I just feel like he thinks he's "being cool"

Yeah, I definitely agree with you though. It does feel unnecessary in the first place. As if it's just an easy filler word to make the line work right.