PHGenre: Pop
Release Date: May 27, 2022
An Asylum Records UK release, a division of Atlantic Records UK, ā 2022 Warner Music UK Limited, with the exception of tracks 1-14 (P) 2021, track 15 (P) 2020 and track 23 (p) 2021 YBL Nation/EMPIRE, An Island records/Empire release
āThe theme of the record is me turning 30, becoming a dad, losing a friend, trying to balance work and marriage,ā Ed Sheeran tells Apple Music of his fourth full-length LP, =. āItās stuff that really has meant a lot to me.ā The follow-up to 2017ās all-conquering Ć· was originally conceived as an acoustic record, with Sheeran setting up in Nashville way back in 2018 to work. Youāll find tracks from that time here (āFirst Times,ā āLove in Slow Motionā), butāwith Sheeran restlessly writing and recording right up until its releaseā= is a typically eclectic record from an artist who has always delighted in confounding expectations. Thereās ā80s-inspired pop (the gargantuan āBad Habitsā), sad bangers (āOverpass Graffitiā), a cinematic piano ballad (āThe Joker and the Queenā), and even a childās lullaby, written for his daughter (āSandmanā). All tied together by bare-skinned songwriting, = is Sheeranās most personal, moving record to date. And he has just one request before you press play. āPlease just listen to it once in order, thatās all I ask,ā he says. āI donāt care what you do after your first listen. Put songs on a playlist, put the album on shuffleāwhatever you want. But you should listen the way itās intended to be listened to at least once.ā And as you do that, read Sheeranās intimate track-by-track guide to the album here.
āTidesā
āI had āEraserā on Ć·, which was me summing up the last few years and letting people know where I was. I wanted to do that again, but I didnāt really want to rap this time. I wanted something you could open with in a stadium that was huge, but, at the same time, tiny. So the verse is as chaotic as it comes, itās just noise: This is what's going on my life. This is my career. And then everything stops. It's about what happened: I became a dad and all the noise was just shut off. Nothing else mattered at that moment.ā
āShiversā
āI sometimes find myself in a vice-grip choke hold by the past songs I've written or the genre I'm in, or to always be a meaningful, deep singer-songwriter and write songs that really rip out someoneās heart. But the more and more my career's gone on, I like to do fun love songs sometimes. You could put this song on at the office Christmas party and hopefully everyone's going to get twisted to it.ā
āFirst Timesā
āThe reason āFirst Timesā is at this point in the album is so there can be an intake of breath from my fans, like, āOK, cool, there are songs on here for us.ā This is pretty much classic me format. And it has a funny story. Fred [aka producer and artist Fred again..] and I wrote this song and my brother [composer Matthew Sheeran] did a string part that went over the demo. We were living in this house in Nashville, which had an amazing wine cellar, and all of my friends had these weed pens. We'd finish a day of sessions, have a load of wine, get on the weed pens, watch an Avengers movie, and just smash Doritos. One night, Fred is like, āHey, man, can you re-vocal this?ā And I could barely keep my eyes open. I was not a functioning human. I sung it once and thatās the version on the song, which is why itās gentle and delicate. Because I was almost gone.ā
āBad Habitsā
āI'm very aware that I've never really done dance songs solo, and I've always had that in my back pocket as something I wanted to try. Fred and his brother go by Rain Radio, and I wanted to make something like their track āTalk Aboutāānot for me to sing, just a club banger. I went home and I had five or six songs I'd made that day. I played them to my wife [Cherry Seaborn], and as soon as āBad Habitsā came on, she was like, āThat. You should expand on that.ā So we did. If you stripped the dance beat away from this and sung it on a piano, it would fit on x or + quite well. I became a dad and I needed to cut certain things out that were detrimental to my body, basically.ā
āOverpass Graffitiā
āThe songās about a breakup that was years ago. You still hold on to the memory of that and it will never fade, like graffiti on the overpass. Originally, this song was a power ballad, it was very slow. Then Fred said, āHave you ever thought about making it double time?ā It gave it new life.ā
āThe Joker and the Queenā
āWeād written āBad Habits,ā and I was like, āI think weāre done for the day. Iām not going to put pressure on trying to get another song.ā Then Fred said, āI just worked with this guy, [British singer-songwriter] Sam Roman, and he did a piano instrumental that I've always thought is really beautiful, but I've never been able to write anything over it.ā He played it and honest to god, it was probably 15 to 20 minutes of writing down metaphors and whispering them in. I had the line ājoker and the queen,ā then it was like, āI fold, you saw my hand, you let me win, you put the cards on the table.ā I didnāt like this song for a whileāin my mind, songwriting is cheating when itās that easy. Then my brother did a string part and suddenly it sounded like this old classic that had been around since the ā50s. I fell in love with it.ā
āLeave Your Lifeā
āI flew over to Australia for the memorial of my friend Michael [Gudinski, the beloved Australian music industry figure who was a mentor to Sheeran, who died in March 2021] and was quarantining for two weeks. We watched the funeral via a live video link, and afterwards I was on the phone to his daughter, who said, āMy dad always said that he loved me. The last thing he ever said to me was āI love you.āā I was like, āMy daughter is six months old. If I went tomorrow, she would never know.ā So this is a letter to her, saying that. I think this is my favorite song on the album. There arenāt a lot of lyrics in this, but every single line, I feel, means the most.ā
āCollideā
āI felt the album was quite morose up to this point, and I wanted to pick it up again with an uplifting song. My first-dance wedding song was āThirteenā by Ben Kweller, which is a list of things that he did with his wife. I messaged him and said, āCan I do a version of that [and] itās everything else that me and Cherry have done?ā And he said, āGo ahead!ā It's a tune that, if you were at a festival, you'd be putting your hands in the air and holding a glass of cider.ā
ā2stepā
āIn April or May in 2021, I was in LA with [producer] Andrew Watt, who Iāve known for 10 years, but who Iāve never worked with before. I went by his studio and we made four of five songs for the fun of it. ā2stepā was one that I really liked. It sounded like 2010 meāit was me at 30, trying to be me at 18, singing about what I was going through at 30. I always had the line ātwo-stepping with the woman I loveā because I can't dance. And my wife, god bless her, isn't an incredible dancer either. But the two-step is what we can do.ā
āStop the Rainā
āThis is about a lawsuit Iām involved with. Every time I've ever taken influence from a song, I give it credit. And this thing that I'm in at the moment, I believe I'm in the right. But the rain just wonāt stop. It's just about knowing that you're in the right, and knowing that you will eventually get out of it. I do feel like this song is me taking the shit of that situation and making something great out of it.ā
āLove in Slow Motionā
āIn the city, thereās always something going on. Then [Cherry and I] moved to Suffolk full-time, and not many people live around us, and we would start having evenings where it was like, āOh man, this is really nice. How are you?ā āLove in Slow Motionā is basically about switching all of that off and enjoying each other's company and realizing why you love each other.ā
āVisiting Hoursā
āI was working with [British singer-songwriter] Amy Wadge, who I'd made āThinking Out Loudā with. And she said she'd been working with this guy called Ant Clemons, who had sent a song for me to check out. It wasnāt for me, but it had this line: āI wish heaven had visiting hours.ā We asked if we could use it. And then my friend Michael passed away. I had about a week and a half where I couldnāt have a conversation with anyone without sobbing. I wrote this at my house and then sang it at his memorial. I found it quite upsetting to write and definitely more upsetting to sing.ā
āSandmanā
āI wrote this song before my daughter was born. I thought, āSheās going to need a lullaby. What would she be dreaming about?ā This comes just after āVisiting Hours,ā so youāve got sadness and loss and then joy and life. I think it just diffuses the situation instantly after āVisiting Hours.āā
āBe Right Nowā
āI purposefully wrote this as a closing track. It felt like the end of the record, my family basically going back into our world. The album literally starts with you being slapped in the face with noise, and the album ends with a vocoder choir singing really gently and easing you out. I just liked itāI really, really like the sound of it.ā
Tracklist:
- Tides
- Shivers
- First Times
- Bad Habits
- Overpass Graffiti
- The Joker And The Queen
- Leave Your Life
- Collide
- 2step
- Stop The Rain
- Love In Slow Motion
- Visiting Hours
- Sandman
- Be Right Now
- Afterglow
- One Life
- Penguins
- I Will Remember You
- Welcome To The World
- The Joker And The Queen (feat. Taylor Swift)
- 2step (feat. Lil Baby)
- Bad Habits (feat. Bring Me The Horizon)
- Peru ā Ed Sheeran & Fireboy DML