The flagship track, setting out Blunt’s emotional stall, is first single Cold. It’s an irresistible Celtic rush of a song, yet one whose feel belies the message at the heart of it - an acknowledgement to his wife that the life of a touring musician is brutal on those they hold dearest.
In a nod to Carrie Fisher - his great friend and champion who he lived with while he recorded Bedlam and three subsequent albums - her ceramic pill that adorned the CD on Back To Bedlam is back on the disk of Once Upon A Mind. Fisher would also surely have loved the songs on Once Upon A Mind and she’d have appreciated the deeply personal resonances - and the circularity - in Cold.
