"Wisemen" | ||||||||||
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Single by James Blunt | ||||||||||
from the album Back to Bedlam | ||||||||||
Released | 7 March 2005 | |||||||||
Format | CD single | |||||||||
Recorded | Los Angeles, California | |||||||||
Genre | Pop rock | |||||||||
Length | 3:42 | |||||||||
Label | Atlantic, Custard Records | |||||||||
Writer(s) | J. Blunt J. Hogarth S. Skarbek |
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Producer | Tom Rothrock Jimmy Hogarth |
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James Blunt singles chronology | ||||||||||
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"Wisemen" is a pop rock song written by British singer James Blunt, Jimmy Hogarth and Sacha Skarbek for Blunt's debut album Back to Bedlam. The song was produced by Tom Rothrock and Jimmy Hogarth. The song was released as the second single in the first quarter of 2005 and reached the top fifty in the United Kingdom, peaking at number forty-four. Following the success of "You're Beautiful" and "Goodbye My Lover", "Wisemen" was re-released in the spring of 2006, number twenty-one in New Zealand, and at number twenty-three in the UK. The song was met with positive reviews.
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The first music video, released in tandem with the first UK release of the single, has Blunt and his band performing in the Caf茅 de Paris. The only occupants of the caf茅 are three middle-aged men, supposedly businessmen, who are accompanied by a young woman. The woman stands and begins to dance in the middle of the room but is ignored by the men. Three masked men, supposedly the wisemen, then enter and kidnap Blunt, putting him into a car and driving to the shore where he is imprisoned in a hastily-constructed shack by the seaside, in reference to the lyric, "Those three wisemen, they've got a semi by the sea." The masks were constructed from moulds cast from Blunt's own face. The second version, which was released in tandem with the UK re-release of the single, has Blunt burning his personal papers and passport in a forest before slowly internally combusting. This video has been released to the US market. During a guest-hosting slot on the BBC2 program "Never Mind The Buzzcocks", James was asked what the line meant and said that "Semi" referred to a "semi-automatic rifle".
The initial release was available on three physical formats. The CD single includes an exclusive live performance of "No Bravery". The DVD includes the original video for "Wisemen", exclusive "Making-Of" footage and a live audio recording of "Out Of My Mind". The 7" Vinyl includes a live performance of "Billy".[1] The re-release was also available on three physical formats, containing a similar tracklisting. CD1 includes a live performance of "Out Of My Mind", taken from the initial DVD single; CD2 includes the live performances of "No Bravery" and "Out Of My Mind", plus the video for "Wisemen"; and the limited edition one-sided 7" Vinyl features "Wisemen" only.
On 7 March 2005, "Wisemen" was released in the United Kingdom. The song became Blunt's first single not to chart within the top 40 on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number forty-four. It was re-released in the UK the following March and became his fourth top forty single when it peaked at number twenty-three on the singles chart, and spent a total of six weeks in the top seventy-five. It reached number eleven in Australia and became his third single to reach the top twenty. In Canada, the song became an airplay hit, reaching number three on the BDS Airplay chart.
Chart (2005) | Peak position |
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UK Singles Chart | 44 |
Chart (2006) | Peak position |
Australian ARIA Singles Chart | 11 |
Austrian Singles Chart | 15 |
Belgian (Flanders) Singles Chart | 52 |
Belgian (Wallonia) Singles Chart | 41 |
Czech IFPI Chart | 1 |
Dutch Top 40 | 9 |
Dutch Top 100 Singles | 17 |
German Singles Chart | 40 |
Irish Singles Chart | 36 |
New Zealand RIANZ Singles Chart | 21 |
Swedish Singles Chart | 38 |
Swiss Singles Chart | 23 |
UK Singles Chart | 23 |
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