The A Team, Sing, Thinking Out Loud, Castle on the Hill, Perfect, Shape of You, Galway Girl, 2002, I Don’t Care
All Ed Sheeran wants is to make Damien Rice proud.
The lad from Framlingham who didn’t go to uni or even BRIT School (both little-known facts) has become perhaps the single most successful beneficiary of the streaming era. How has he done it?
Ed Sheeran is all things to all people. He’s a busker who can write award-winning songs about teenage drug addicts set to acoustic backing – The A Team won him the Ivor Novello award when he was only 21 – and songs you can walk down the aisle to, as my cousin did at his wedding. Both Perfect and Thinking Out Loud are love songs that are designed for Magic FM and Steve Wright’s Sunday show on Radio 2, even if one is Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton (‘you look perfect tonight’) and the latter is Let’s Get It On by Marvin Gaye (same chord progression in a different key). I remember messaging the co-writer of Thinking Out Loud congratulating her on her future GRAMMY award: I know a classic when I hear it. I also marvelled at how the song had a fine structure, with the ‘people fall in love’ bridge key to the song’s catchiness.
I also admire how Ed picks his collaborators. Pharrell Williams co-wrote the two-chord jam Sing, with its woah-ful chorus and percussive delivery that is Ed’s trademark, influenced by black music in the UK. In 2010 his Collaborations Project included duets with Wiley, JME and Ghetts, among others, while Stormzy contributed a verse to a remix of Shape of You.
That song, released in the first days of 2017, will go down as one of Ed’s biggest tracks. Knowing his way around the radio dial, he put out Shape of You to be promoted to pop radio and Castle on the Hill for rock radio for mature audiences. He’s no idiot; he and Taylor Swift trade spreadsheets and vie for the status of top pop dog.
The allure of Shape of You is in the 12-note bajon rhythm that starts in bar one and continues throughout the song; it’s a love song which starts at a bar and moves to a buffet over which the couple ‘talk for hours and hours about the sweet and the sour’, then they get in a cab and hear Ed’s song in a meta commentary on Ed’s ubiquity.
Castle on a Hill starts with Ed breaking his leg at the age of six and moves to a childhood of bliss in Framlingham, home of the eponymous castle. The third verse spins forward to see what his mates are up to now (‘one’s brother overdosed’) and the pull of nostalgia; Ed owns a house in Fram and all reports say he is a nice neighbour, although one keen to build a swimming pool which upsets some of the nimbys.
Ed fought for the inclusion of Galway Girl, a three-minute advert not sponsored by the Irish tourist board, on Divide. I’ve always loved the song, and it did folk band Beoga’s career the world of good. Even when Ed isn’t on the charts, he follows the Bee Gees route in giving his songs away. Hilariously he had forgotten giving Justin Bieber a song which turned into a big hit but Ed definitely remembers Love Yourself and 2002. The latter, a hit for Anne-Marie, features Ed on backing vocals uncredited; the Essex-born singer is signed to his record label and her delivery is very Sheeranic, which is the adjective I have just coined.
Come summer 2019, Ed finally had a Song of the Summer – Shape of You dominated winter into spring 2017, while Perfect was the 2017 Christmas number one – with the lead single from his new Collaborations Project. The cast list was like an Avengers film: Khalid, Cardi B, Chance the Rapper, Stormzy, Yebba (who popped up on Mark Ronson’s 2019 release), Eminem and 50 Cent, Travis Scott, Ella Mai, Dave, H.E.R., Skrillex and Chris Stapleton & Bruno Mars.
As the album rollout cantered on, I Don’t Care remained at the top of the UK charts, holding off Old Town Road. Funny how it topped the charts in the UK and not the US because of the subject matter of the song: both Justin Bieber (‘crippled with anxiety’) and Ed are at a party with their lovely lady, who makes it bearable. You can also tell Max Martin is involved because of the strongly melodic bridge part (‘don’t think I fit in at the party’) and the ‘ooh-ooh-ooh’ bit in the chorus sounds like a joke.
The same weekend in August 2019 saw Ed play to 40,000 in a park in his home city of Ipswich and, days later, be subject of a headline in the Sunday Times which casted doubt over the originality of his ideas. Shaggy had to be credited on the song Strip That Down because the songs had rhythmic similarities. Photograph and Shape of You were both subject of lawsuits, the latter prompted by Sami Switch. He had sent Ed’s team a song and alleged that Shape Of You unfairly stole elements of the 2015 song Oh Why; Ed countersued and the case is ongoing.