A Los Angeles producer named Lukas Burton is claiming he wrote six songs on James Blunt's debut album Back to Bedlam, and is suing Blunt over ownership of the songs.
The songs Burton claims to have co-written are "Goodbye My Lover," "No Bravery," "Cry," I Don't Believe," "I Really Want You" and "Don't Lose Yourself." Burton is accusing Blunt of signing with a management company, cutting ties, and taking the songs without giving Burton proper credit and/or money. Blunt maintains that he wrote these songs himself, either while serving with the British Army in Kosovo or at his house in England.
Burton wrote this scathing message on his blog:
His stuff was crude, occasionally laughably direct, and betrayed his relative lack of musicianship or discernible influence... it would probably be an overstatement to say that in terms of his professional musical aspirations James had nothing going on, but he definitely had next to nothing going on.
I simply couldn't believe that the universe was going to repay me with such abject treachery.
Well... this is the best thing to happen to James Blunt in two years! Here we thought James Blunt was writing a bunch of crappy songs and unleashing them on the public, but if this is true, then he was just playing someone else's crappy songs. James Blunt, we owe you an apology; maybe you're not such a bad guy after all.
Oh, and Lukas Burton: you suck.
(Oh wait, "You're Beautiful" wasn't on that list? Alright, nevermind. Regardless of who wins this case, the money should be divided up and given to everyone who listened to the radio in 2006.)
