James Blunt suggests The Rolling Stones are still looking for their "You're Beautiful"

The national barometer of boomer blood pressures reached ever new heights today, as James Blunt—best known for his massive 2004 single “You’re Beautiful”—suggested in an interview this week that The Rolling Stones are still looking for a similarly seismic cultural offering of their own. To be fair, the whole Esquire piece in question is mostly about Blunt’s own attitudes toward his life of pop culture servitude as the “You’re Beautiful” guy—he’s pretty okay with it, despite previous comments acknowledging its annoyingness—but the weirdest part is definitely when he suggests that Mick and Keith are still looking for a song with similar staying power, because apparently “Jumping Jack Flash” just can’t compare.

“I think most musicians and bands are searching for that one big hit,” Blunt says in the interview, which, so far, so good. “You know, I think The Rolling Stones are still looking,” he added, which, what, “And, and I’m just lucky enough to have it out there right now, at the top of my career.” (Hey, to each their own.) And, okay, if you really squint, you can kind of see half of what Blunt is saying, in so far as the Stones have never really been a band with a major focus on massive singles. But on the other hand, you know, “Satisfaction”—famously once voted the best rock song of all time by Rolling Stone (no relation) and its massive polling of critics. And also: “Paint It Black,” “Gimme Shelter,” “Start Me Up,” and any number of other massive Stones songs you might care to name, none of which, admittedly, dare to rhyme “face” and “crowded place.” (Although they do, now that we think of it, often have a similar attitude toward treating women as unknowable objects.)

Anyway, none of the members of the Stones have responded to Blunt’s comments yet, presumably because they’re all holed up in the studio, trying to make this whole “music career” thing finally come together at last.