Ed Sheeran Shares How Elton John Convinced Him To Write A Christmas Song

Ed Sheeran initially had zero interest in writing a Christmas song, the singer revealed in Tuesday night's (November 9) episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. However, after a lot of convincing from Elton John, Sheeran came around to writing a song on the condition that they would go all out.

"I've always been against – it's not that I don't like Christmas, I love Christmas," Sheeran said. "But in terms of doing a Christmas song, you need to chuck the kitchen sink at it. If you're going to do it, you got to be able to do it. I have a Northern Irish friend that says 'If you're gonna get done for stealing a horse you might as well **** it, you know.' So I said to Elton, I was like, 'I don't really want to do a Christmas song unless we're going in. Unless it's like, sleighbells, ding-dong, it needs to be a proper Christmas song. So I wrote a chorus, and then I went to go and stay with him. And we wrote three, and one of them was this one called 'Mery Christmas.'

Sheeran also said that he thought of changing the song's title from "Merry Christmas," as he was sure there would be a plethora of tracks with that same title. However, when he went to search through streaming services and YouTube, he could not find one single song with the name.

Sheeran and John first began to tease their upcoming Christmas single back in October. Sheeran had shared at the time of the announcement that part of what changed his tune in releasing a Christmas song was after the death of a close friend, as he began to realize that things could change overnight. Sheeran then revealed to Jimmy Fallon that John began calling him every day around that time to check in on him and see how he was doing.

While he's working on gearing up for the release of "Merry Christmas," Sheeran is also promoting his new album, = (pronounced "equals"). The singer had also been diagnosed with COVID-19 shortly before his album came out, and slept through his album's release. Since recovering from COVID-19, Sheeran has kept busy, and joined Saturday Night Live as the musical guest on November 6. The singer also joined Ryan Seacrest to talk about his new record, and shared how he finished writing "First Times."