October 17, 2024 • 34 mins
Welcome to Season 5 of Encore! We'll have new episodes until the end of the year to keep you going with even MORE stories from the songs you love!
Perhaps more than any artist so far on Encore, Ed Sheeran has been the most difficult one to determine just which song to feature. The guy is just such a consistent and reliable hitmaker.
He’s also a bit of an outlier. Although he established himself as an acoustic troubadour, over the span of his two-decade career, he has evolved and adapted as an artist to suit just about any style: from bubblegum pop to hip-hop to country to rock. And it doesn’t matter what type of music he’s making, it always seems to be at the top of the charts. But I think we found the right song for this episode. Not only one of the biggest songs he’s ever released, but one of the most interesting and dare I say, even a little controversial?
You’ll understand by the end of this, trust me.
This is the story of Ed Sheeran's 'Thinking Out Loud' with newly unearthed audio from Ed Sheeran!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Encore. The stories behind the songs. Here's ihe
Radio's Miles
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Galloway
when my legs don't work like they used to before. No, really.
I ran the Chicago marathon last weekend, not to brag,
but my legs are really sore. I'm Miles Galloway. And
this is the story of Ed Sheeran's thinking out loud,
perhaps more than any artist so far on. Encore. Ed
(00:28):
Sheeran has been the most difficult one to determine just
which song
a feature. I mean, the guy's just such a consistent
and reliable hit maker. He's also a bit of an
outlier as well. Although he established himself as an acoustic
troubadour over the span of his two decade career. He
has evolved and adapted as an artist to suit just
about any style from Bubba Gump pop, to hip hop,
(00:50):
to country, to rock. The only other person I can
think of who's been that versatile
over the last few years is maybe Post Malone. And
it doesn't matter what type of music Ed Sheeran's making,
it always seems to be at the top of the charts,
but I think we found the right song for this episode.
Not only one of the biggest songs he's ever released.
But one of the most interesting and dare I say,
(01:11):
even a little controversial, you'll understand by the end of this,
trust me.
But let's go back to the very beginning. Edward Christopher
Sheeran was born on February 17th, 1991 in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England.
He grew up in the nearby market town of Hebden
Bridge with his mother, Imogen father John and older brother Matthew.
(01:31):
His parents both worked in the art world. Dad was
a curator and lecturer, mum was a jewelry designer and
music
together. They would start their own art consultancy named Sheeran Locke.
His family would move to Framlingham in Suffolk when Ed
was four years old. But around this age, Ed took
an early interest in music. He began singing in the
(01:51):
choir at his local Catholic church where he also learned
how to play the guitar. His uncle gave him his
first guitar, which he taught himself to play at first
before he took lessons.
I don't think they had a loop pedal yet. At
the Catholic church. At the age of nine, little Ed
Sheeran had laser surgery to remove a port wine stain
birthmark next to his left eye. As he told an
(02:12):
audience at a Gala for the American Institute for stuttering
in 2015. That procedure would briefly ruin his life. I
I was a very, very, very weird child, very weird child.
Um And I had uh I had a, a Port
Weinstein birthmark on my face that
I got lasered off when I was very young. And
one day they've got to put the anesthetic on. And
(02:34):
then ever since then I had a stutter and I
also had very, very big blue glasses is the National
Health Service. One day, I hope you'll have the same
to say.
And um, I lacked, lacked an eardrum on one side
of my face. So to one side of my ear, uh, so, um,
(02:55):
stuttering was actually the least of my problems. When I
went to school
following the surgery. Ed's nervous system was affected, leaving him
with a lazy eye and studded speech. On top of that,
he wore thick glasses and had a head of ginger
hair which left him as an easy target for the
bullies at Rishworth School where he was teased on a
(03:15):
daily basis. Ed took speech therapy and homeopathic remedies to
try and cure his stuttering, but nothing worked. And then
one day young Ed discovered a new artist by the
name of Eminem. He would tell Howard Stern.
It's a funny one that cos my, when I was nine, my,
I was going through all sorts of speech therapy. And
when I was nine, my uncle bought me the Marshall
Mathers LP. And he just said to my dad that
(03:38):
this guy is the next Bob Dylan. You gotta let,
let me listen. My dad didn't really clock it. You know,
he was just like, OK, Edward's gonna go and listen
to that and by learning that record and wrapping it
back to back to back to back my, it cured
my stutter and I stopped, you know,
talking like that years later, I've, I've made songs with
Eminem now and we've, we've got to know each other
(03:58):
quite well. And as a kid, Ed questioned his sexuality
later admitting to the Man Man Man podcast that he
wasn't a hugely masculine person and had a definite feminine side.
He even thought he was gay for a bit, partially
due to his love for musical theater, pop music. And
Britney spears around this.
At the same time, Ed realized something that he wanted
(04:19):
to be a musician. Two moments in his life convinced
him of his future. First. He saw Eric Clapton on
TV perform at the party at the palace, a big
concert thrown at Buckingham Palace Garden in London on June 3rd,
2002 for Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee. Then he attended a
concert by singer songwriter Damian Rice at a venue called
(04:39):
Whelan's in Dublin, Ireland.
He would tell Ryan Tubridy of the late late show.
I was only about 11 or 12 when I saw
Damien play at Whelan's that night literally changed my life
the time he spent talking with me after the show
made all the difference. It inspired me in a way
that I only hoped to do for someone else. I
wouldn't be a singer songwriter. Had I not gone to
(04:59):
Whelan's and watched Damien Rice play Rice would tell the
young aspiring musician to start writing his own music, which
is exactly what he did. As soon as he got
home from the gig, he began writing songs.
Edward quickly caught the attention of his fellow school mates
with his music at Thomas Mills High School. He was
voted most likely to be famous and described as a
(05:19):
natural performer on his report card which read obviously at
the moment, his voice is beginning to change. Although he
still has quite a lot in his higher register.
In 2004, he recorded a collection of songs for a CD.
He called Spinning Man. When he was 13, most of
them were about a girl. He was in love with
named Claire who had just broken up with him in
his book, Ed Sheeran, a Visual Journey. He wrote about
(05:42):
the release. I burned the C DS myself and made
the covers. There were 14 songs and they were all
songs that rhymed. One lyric went, I'm a typical average
t
if you know what I mean, there were probably 20
copies of Spitting man in existence and I have 19
of them. I don't want anyone else to get a
hold of a copy. Turns out there were 21 copies
in total. The two that Ed doesn't own were sold
(06:04):
at auction. One fetched an impressive 8000 British pounds. While
the other went for a whopping 50 grand. I wonder
if Ed bid on either of those
taking inspiration from legendary singer songwriters such as Eric Clapton,
Paul mccartney Bob Dylan and Van Morrison. Ed was convinced
that he wanted to pursue music as a career. Once
(06:26):
he finished school, Ed spent his student grant money on
train tickets so he could travel around the country, busing
and performing at open mic nights, selling his self released
C DS and crashing on the sofa to fans along
the way. Eventually he ended up in London to see
if he could get discovered.
Ed would tell Rolling Stone. I spent so long with
people laughing about me making music. Everyone saw me as
(06:48):
a joke and no one thought I could do it
while he focused on his music. He also attended the
British National Youth Theater which helped launch the careers of
Daniel Craig Helen Mirren Colin Firth and Kate Winslet. Ed
participated in a presentation of Frankenstein which he says helped
him with getting up in front of crowds to perform.
Ed also auditioned for a TV series called Britannia High,
(07:09):
a drama that focused on the lives of a group
of teenagers and their mentors at a fictional London theater school.
Poor Ed struggled with the dance lessons but seemed to
impress the judges with his music. Some were clearly going
to struggle, hasn't a clue what he's doing, but he's trying,
I'm just trying to get it in my head. I
think I messed up as well. I got kicked in
(07:30):
the face
but performers like Ed couldn't be ignored because what he
lacked in dance ability, he more than made up for
in his musical talents.
He's great. He's quirky. I don't care if you're lost
it in our hearts. We both know that his voice
is classic. Roxy. Absolutely. I'd be interested to see what
(07:52):
the acting guys have got to say though. Acting and dancing.
Who knows? But he's 16 is the real thing. I'll
be signing him anyway.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for Ed, he didn't make the
cut and wasn't cast on the show. But I can
safely say both you and I wouldn't know the names
of anyone who did and for what it's worth Britannia
High only lasted nine episodes. It was for the best. Instead,
(08:16):
Ed tried to focus more on getting his music heard.
He reached out to an alternative folk duo called Nizlopi
asking if he could help Roadie for them. John Parker
from the band told the Guardian of their time with
Ed on tour saying I remember him being very enthusiastic,
always asking questions. I do remember in Bristol him just
drinking our rider. It was a full on gig for
(08:38):
me and I was like, I could really do with
a cold beer all gone. I said to my band mate, Luke,
we can't have him on tour, but Edkins
need to open up shows for Nizlopi winning over the
crowd about the experience, Ed would tell the BBC Nizlopi
are my main influence. I started off being their guitar
tech last summer and did two tours with them, setting
up their equipment and stuff. They were on tour again
(09:00):
and asked me to open up for them in Norwich,
which was brilliant. I went down really well and sold
20 C DS at the gig, which was very, very good.
The crowd seemed to like it.
It was during these gigs with Nizlopi that Ed learned
a trick to help him perform live as a solo artist.
One that would help boost his sound and give it
more fullness. Watching the Irish singer songwriter Gary Dunn perform,
(09:22):
Ed discovered the loop guitar pedal which allows musicians to
create instant recordings of a musical performance and play them
back in real time.
The lou pedal has become such a big part of
how he performs that to this day. Ed plays a
lot of his shows by himself that kids is how
you make a lot of money by doing everything by yourself.
Ed now sells his own line of loop pedal stations.
(09:45):
By the way, here's Ed explaining to access creative College
where he took an artist development course on why he
chose to incorporate the pedal as well as rapping and
beat boxing when he was trying to establish his own sound.
And when I first was gigging around London, James Blunt,
James Morrison Paolo Natti, like these were the kind of
big singer songwriter names
(10:05):
and everyone was trying to do that. Everyone was trying
to sing songs like you're beautiful wearing leather jackets, like
doing that. And I found myself doing that at one point.
I used to use the loop pedal still do but
like beatbox and rap and do, do all of that.
And uh I was being told not to do that
because James Blunt didn't do it. And that was the
thing at the time that, that sold. And I find my,
found myself doing a gig without loop pedal, not beatboxing
(10:28):
and being like, I just, just not enjoyable. I don't
care if like, it's not the thing, it's just not enjoy.
I love, I love rapping. I know people look on
stage and they see a fat white ginger kid beat
boxing and rapping, but I actually really, really enjoyed doing
it and I didn't enjoy the gigs, not doing it.
So I just carried on doing what I loved and
then eventually people clock on like the general public aren't idiots.
(10:49):
Like they see what's real and what's not and what's
real is enjoyment and belief. And if I walk on
stage and go, I love this, you might like it too.
People go. Yeah. Actually I
do or no, not for me. But if I walk
on stage and be like, this is what I think
you're gonna like, they're not gonna like it in the
fall of 2009. Ed enrolled at the Academy of Contemporary
(11:09):
Music AC M in Guilford, studying classes like professional musicianship,
songcraft and music industry preparation. Ed received an F grade
in every one of his six classes. Yep, Ed Sheeran
flunked out of music school but it wasn't for a
lack of trying.
Only three weeks into the year. Ed was asked to
go on tour with a rising hip hop artist by
(11:30):
the name of just Jack. When he asked the school,
if they would allow him to take time off to tour,
they refused, which led him to leaving college. So don't worry, kids,
Ed wasn't an underachiever he was simply a dropout. Fun
fact about Ed flunking out of music school. His dad
John once included the letter from the academy with his
final results in a museum exhibition titled Ed Sheeran made
(11:51):
in Suffolk.
As 2009 was coming to a close EDTA tallied a
ridiculous 312 concerts performed that year. That's basically a full
time job of just playing gigs. Luckily, for him, his
work schedule was soon about to change. 2010, changed everything
for Ed Sheeran. He recorded a studio session for SB TV,
(12:11):
an online media platform that helped music lovers discover emerging
artists
from it. His live performance of You Need Me. I
don't need you went viral. At the same time, Ed
was busy writing and self releasing new music including a CD.
He called Loose Change featuring a song called the A
team that would be a real difference maker for him.
Ed was also making the most of new fangled resources
(12:34):
like youtube, Facebook and Twitter to help promote his music.
He caught the attention of rapper examples
who took him out on tour where Ed was able
to sell some of his C DS for money while
things were looking up, he still couldn't find any record
labels interested in signing him. So he decided to take
a chance by booking a gig in Los Angeles and
buying a plane ticket. Somehow, he caught the attention of
(12:55):
Oscar winning actor Jamie Fox. He told much music's Liz
Triner all about it. He is uh a lovely guy.
Um I
went over to L A to do a poetry night
called Flo Poet for a guy called John Hensley, who's
a really cool guy as well. And he kind of
hooked me up with a lot of, a lot of
shows and one of them happens to be one of
Jamie Fox's gigs. And um
(13:17):
uh I got invited to play his radio station after that.
And then he was just like, I've got a studio
in my house. If you wanna, you wanna come and record.
So I ended up going there and it just kind
of restored my uh
faith in myself because I, I think things hadn't exactly
been going well up until that point. And uh yeah,
that just kind of was like, if I can do
(13:38):
this within a month, I end up here, then I
can do anything kind of thing. Jamie Fox shared his
side of the story during an appearance on the Graham
Norton show.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
That connection
with you and Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran slept on my
couch
for six weeks before he was famous. But how does
that happen? She, I, I was doing a radio show
in L A and it was, it was a, it
was a satellite show and he, he knew that we
do music. So he comes to my radio show. Hello, James,
just trying to get my music, you know, we'd love
to hear my music, whatever I was like, well, what
let me hear it. So he lets me hear. His
(14:08):
music comes to my crib and I had a, now
I got the bigger crib in the studio is incredibly
because of the Kanye song. So, so, so he plays,
I'm like, you're incredible. So he starts, I said, listen,
I know you don't have anywhere to go. Just chill here.
I was giving him food. My daughter was like, who
do you have over here now? Because I would always
have people, you know, I would always like champion the artist.
(14:29):
And so
I said, listen, man, I think you got the goods.
But I gotta check you out though. So I took
him down to this this show that I was doing
a live night every Monday in L A uh downtown
L A and it was like 800 black people, all black,
like just the best musicians who plays, you know, the, the,
the guitar for staying. And I mean, the, the, the
(14:50):
level of the music is here and there was a
dude up there rapping and he was sweating and he
was black and then another girl, she came up and
she sung and she was black and they was thinking blackness.
It was incredible.
And so all of a sudden I say, ladies and gentlemen,
Ed Sheeran, he pops out
red hair and a ukulele
(15:10):
and, and one of my homies who was an incredible guitarist,
but he's just true to the music. It came from us.
This is black, black, black and black, right? And he said, yo, Fox,
come on, man. What's this man? What's this? What you
doing to the room right now, man. You gotta respect
the room and it was just like a movie. I said, well,
let's see what the kid has.
(15:31):
And he went out there on that ukulele got a
standing ovation in 12 minutes and the rest was history. Wow,
that's incredible. Yeah. Cheer for him. Cheer for you.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
All of a sudden, Ed Sheeran was going places when
he was back home in the UK. Ed released another
ep titled number five collaborations project that found him teaming
up with M CS for a kind of moody fusion
of his acoustic pop with contemporary UK hip hop. The
EP was an unexpected success reaching number two on the
itunes chart and selling more than 7000 copies in its
(16:05):
first week of release without any real promotion behind it.
The British Press were calling the 20 year old, the
next Justin Bieber when he announced a free show at
the Bar Fly in Camden London, over 1000 fans turned
up more than five times the capacity of the venue
to make it up to them. Ed played three shows
in a row, then took fans to the car park
across the street to perform for anyone unable to get in.
(16:29):
Not long after that, Ed joined Elton John's management company
Rocket and finally got his record deal signing with Asylum Records,
a subsidiary of Warner Music, but he gave all the
credit to his fans, the Cheerios, he would tell the BBC.
I feel great, but it's a lot to take in.
It's all down to the fans being really supportive. They
are the main reason
(16:49):
it is where it is. Ed released his debut single
VA team in June 2011 and it took off immediately
selling 58,000 copies in the first week and reaching number
three in the UK. The song details the life of
a sex worker and her addiction to crack cocaine, which
is designated as a class, a drug in the UK.
Hence the, a team
(17:10):
would tell Billboard that the song came to him after
playing a show at a homeless shelter saying I was
18 at the time and kind of quite naive. So
I was a bit taken aback by some of the
stories that I heard. I got home that night and
I just wrote a lot of the lyrics. I wanted
to write it. So it sounded kind of upbeat. So
you wouldn't really know what it's about because it's quite
a dark subject
(17:31):
proving he could do it. Ed made the, a music
video for just 20 quid which is about $36. Canadian
way to be economical. Ed not long after Ed released
his debut album, which is called, well, let's let Ed
explain it. You tell me what they are. Uh Plus
positive design. Um, I don't know. It's, I mean, it's addition. Yeah,
(17:52):
I mean, it's kind of like
it is, it is just the sign, but most people
call it plus, to be honest, ok, we'll go with
plus then anyway, plus was a big hit upon its
release on September 9th, 2011. It debuted at number one
in the UK albums chart and went top five in
both Canada and the US. Ed Sheeran was officially a
global star. And while he was regularly lumped in with
(18:15):
the British singer songwriter types like James Blunt and James Morrison.
Ed stuck out thanks to
interest in adding a strong hip hop influence to his songs. Oh,
and writing songs for the biggest boy band on the planet. Sure.
I didn't know it either. Yes. Folks, Ed Sheeran wrote
songs for one direction. The first being moments you may
know it. He told much music's Les Dreer just how
(18:35):
that happened. I wrote that song four years ago and
hadn't found a way for it to work on my
stuff and I'd put it on a, uh, a demo
cd that I was given to
people pub publishers that kind of place my song. And
um whilst doing that, I was saying on my guitarist
sofa who in turn played for one direction and he,
(18:57):
uh
uh Harry just started staying at the house on the
other sofa. So we, we started hanging out and he
was like, we're putting our album together. Have you got
any songs? And I was like, well, actually, yeah, funny enough,
I have a, have a whole CD of them. So
if you'd like to choose one, then go for it. And, uh,
so they did, and that was that one, did they
add any of their own twists on the side? Um
(19:17):
I went into the studio and I mean, the, the,
the original version I did was a drum and bass version.
So I went into the studio with them. Uh we
made the backing track
and then, uh what, what I was most surprised about
is how well they can sing. I mean, it was really,
really good. And um
so yeah, it was a, it was a, it was
a really interesting studio session because you can
(19:39):
get them to.
I've seen some really cool stuff over it. So yeah,
it was fun in case you're wondering what all of
that noise is in the background. Ed was making a
cat out of LEGO during the interview and that's because
his next hit was called Lego House. So naturally when
you name a song after famous interlocking plastic toy bricks,
it follows you around. No, the video for Lego House
(20:00):
starred fellow ginger famous person, Rupert Grint, also known as
Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter films. Not me, not Hermione.
You
and yes, people did get the two of them mixed
up quite a bit simply because of the red hair.
People just say I look like him. So I've put
him in your music video pretty much. Yeah. In both
drunk and like as Yeah. Yeah. Well, um there's a
(20:23):
drunk video with uh with the cat as well and
the cat is actually from, from Harry Potter. Um It's, yeah,
it's Mrs Norris and Harry Potter. The real cat cat. Yeah.
Are you a big Harry Potter fan? I like, I
like Harry Potter. Yeah, it's good.
Anyway, this was kind of the start of Ed Sheeran
becoming a songwriter for other artists. He would write more
(20:44):
songs for one direction as well as the weekend, Keith
Urban BT S and Justin Bieber. Maybe you've heard of
a Bieber song called Love Yourself. Yeah. That was also
written by Ed,
but I digress. Ed Sheeran was now one of the
most in demand singers and songwriters in music. He won
two brit awards the next year for best British male
solo act and British breakthrough act and even got a
(21:06):
song of the year nomination at the Grammy Awards for
the A team a song he would end up performing
at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Oh And he also performed
a song, a Pink Floyd cover actually at the closing
ceremony for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
It was around this time that Taylor Swift took an
interest in Ed's music and reached out to invite him
to collaborate and join him on her Red tour. In fact,
(21:29):
Ed was pretty ahead of the curve on recognizing Taylor
for her skills as a songwriter together. They wrote everything
has changed, which would appear on Red and thus a
brand new power friendship was born.
Ed would tell Billboard, I'm a fan of Taylor's not
just her work but her ethics and that she writes
her hits herself and she's probably the only woman in
her position in the industry who writes 100% of her hits.
(21:50):
It's a very cool thing. The song that ended up
on her record was pretty much 100% her idea in
the first place. I did what I could to help,
but she definitely knows what she's doing.
Appearing on much music's new music live Edward. Tell host
Lauren Toyoda that he and Taylor bonded over their love
of pies. Specifically her love to bake them and his
love to eat them. We did, we baked apple pie.
(22:13):
Um
We had dinner with some of her friends. Uh, she
put on Nicki Minaj very loudly and rapped to it.
It was quite cool. Do you know how to rap
to Nicki Minaj too? She's gangster when she does it though.
She gets properly properly, all the hand movements and everything.
I love it. And how did your apple pie turn out?
Uh I'm, I'm not a very good cook, so I
(22:34):
kind of watch and you know, I, I, you know what,
you know, when you were a kid and your mum
would cook and you'd nick
some of this stuff halfway through should be making like
chocolate batter or whatever. And you just, I was just,
I was like that. Awesome. Well, Ed and Tift baked
a pie. Ed would spend the better part of 2013
opening up for Taylor and see his star power grow
(22:56):
immensely to the point where he headlined three straight sold
out shows at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
That November, that's roughly 20,000 people per show and guess
who came out to join him. Yep Taylor Swift Ed
off the year by contributing a song to the film
the hobbit, the desolation of smog called Icy Fire. Cool.
(23:16):
Fact about this song, Ed felt it needed some violin
on it, but he didn't actually know how to play
the instrument, but that didn't stop him from using it
on the song. By the time 2014 arrived, Ed had
his next album ready to go. He stuck with the
mathematical theme and named the album Multiply or X or
I guess cross or Times, but he mostly referred to
(23:36):
it as multiply for the album. Ed worked with a
range of hit making
and taste making producers including Rick Rubin, Benny Blanco and
Pharrell Williams. The first single sing saw Ed exploring his
love for hip hop, bringing in Pharrell to cori produce
and sing backing vocals and really help him sound a
little bit like Justin Timberlake. Come on. It's pretty obvious
though Ed had a custom puppet of himself made for
(23:57):
the video who gets up to all sorts of debauch.
Fun Singh was a hit scoring Ed his first number
one in the UK and number four in Canada. But
the song fans really wanted was the single that came
next
multiply was released on June 20th 2014. And to no
one's surprise, it reached number one in 15 countries including Canada,
(24:17):
the US, the UK and Ghana Much music's Liz Triner
asked Ed about that feat in Ghana
to go number one in the country you've never been.
Uh I think for me it's quite random that did
Ghana because I, yeah, I mean, it was like five
record sales in Ghana. You don't have to sell much
(24:38):
to go. Number one in Ghana. Um I've sold one
record in Laos. I wanna go to Lao and find
the dude that bought my record though and do a
gig for him. You one. Yeah. Yeah. And that was
like a top 10. Like that's how little records people
sell over there. Well, that's OK. Multiply
ended up becoming Spotify's most streamed album of 2014 with
(24:58):
more than 430 million streams in basically six months. Not
too shabby, it would go on to sell more than
10 million copies worldwide. Ed acknowledged this milestone by posting
a simple on his Instagram account. In fact, multiply was
such a hit. It became the 20th best selling album
(25:18):
in UK history that
includes the Beatles Queen, Adele Oasis and Pink Floyd. That's
some good company to be in part of the album's
success was its third single, a song called Thinking Out Loud. Now,
normally the third single from an album gets released and
generally forgotten after a few weeks, but not the case
with this song after releasing some slick R and B
(25:40):
pop for the first two singles, Sing and Don't, which
was reportedly about his ex girl
friend Ellie Golding. Ed offered up a true love song
for the next one produced by Jake Gosling. Thinking Out
Loud was a ballad written for his girlfriend at the time.
Athena Andreo. It was the last song Ed wrote for
the album as well as the only Happy song he
(26:01):
wrote for the album. He has called it his Walking
Down The Aisle song though. I'm pretty sure he didn't
walk down to it when he married his wife, Cherry
Seaborn in 2018,
Ed met his wife when he was in high school,
but he actually wrote Thinking Out Loud with another past
school mate, Amy W a songwriter herself. The two previously
collaborated on an EP together in 2010 called songs I
(26:23):
wrote with Amy. So when Amy came by Ed's place
for a visit to just chill out one day, something happened,
Amy picked up a guitar while Ed was in the
shower and began strums
tune, which Ed happened to hear, they sat down and
began working on it. And according to legend, they composed
the song in just 20 minutes. In the early hours
of February 4th, 2014, inspiration came from many different places.
(26:45):
Ed's girlfriend, the influence of Van Morrison, a favorite songwriter
of Ed's and the idea of everlasting love, which came
from thinking about his grandparents' marriage.
But here's the thing about Ed writing the song with Amy.
Not only did he do it to spend time with
his friend, but he also did it to help her
out a year or so. After the song came out
in an interview with the Daily Mirror. Ed revealed that
(27:06):
Amy needed some assistance, paying her bills. He told the
paper she was going through financial troubles. About a year ago,
she drove to my house, my album was nearly done
and she asked if I could put a song from
when I was 17 on the deluxe album so she
could get a little bit of money and pay the
mortgage
and bills and stuff while she was there. We wrote
Thinking Out Loud now, she never has to worry about
(27:27):
money again. She's got a family and two kids and
stuff and every time I speak to her, she's going
on holiday. It's really nice to see. It wouldn't have
happened if she hadn't come down from Wales to see me.
Thinking Out Loud would go on to be Ed's biggest
hit at the time. It topped the UK charts and
reached number two in Canada. And the US, in fact,
Thinking Out Loud became the first single to spend a
full year in the UK top 40
(27:48):
at the 58th Grammy Awards. It would win best pop
solo performance and song of the year here is Ed's
acceptance speech.
Well, um, wow. Wow, thank you very much. Thank you.
Um
I just wanna say thank you very much to uh
(28:10):
Jake Chris and Jake's dad for recording the song Amy
for writing the song with me. We wrote it uh,
on a couch in my house after having dinner quite odd.
Uh Thank you to Atlantic Records. Thank you to all
the Grammy voters. My manager Stuart, my parents who have
flown for the past four years to come to the
Grammys every single year and every time I lose they
go
maybe next year.
(28:31):
Um
ok,
but honestly, um if, if, if, if you would have
told my 11 year old, five year old, any age
that I would have uh received an award from Stevie
Wonder that I, I would have been shoed. So thank
you very much
in case you missed out at the beginning of that clip.
That was Stevie Wonder presenting the Grammy to Ed saying
(28:53):
I told you you would get a Grammy. Imagine Stevie
telling you something like that on top of all of
that thinking out loud would become a staple at pretty
much every single wedding that ever occurred since its release,
largely due to its romantic music
video, which is quickly approaching the 4 billion views mark.
That makes it one of the top 25 most viewed
music videos of all time on youtube. In case you're
(29:16):
wondering nothing's ever gonna catch baby shark, which is by
and far the leader with 15 billion views. Nice one
pink Fong.
The music video for thinking out loud featured Ed pulling
off some serious choreography with a female dancer in an
impressive ballroom. Seriously, the dude can dance but he told
much music in 2014 that he had to work hard
for it. My favorite moment of 2014 was, uh, I'm not,
(29:39):
I'm not a mover. I, I don't have that much
rhythm in my body and I learned how to dance
this year. Um, for a music video which was, which
was fun. Um
And in the process, like, I'm, I'm not, I'm not
someone that works out. So, uh, I'm, I was dancing
every day very intensely and I've got a two pack,
two pack which will I'll lose very quickly. But II
I got one. So, yeah. Yeah. Think it out loud
(30:00):
was one of the biggest songs of the decade and
life was good for Ed Sheeran. That is until he
was accused of stealing the idea for his song
in August 2016. Ed Sheeran was sued by the family
of Ed Townsend, co writer of Let's Get it on
the sexy 1973 hit by Marvin Gaye. The lawsuit claimed
that Ed copied the heart of let's get it on.
(30:23):
But specifically that the melodic harmonic and rhythmic compositions of
thinking out loud are substantially and or strikingly similar
to the drum composition of let's get it on. The
case was dismissed in February 2017 without prejudice, but it
wasn't closed. Then in August 2018, Ed was sued once
(30:44):
again for the same thing this time for $100 million
in damages by a company called Structured Asset Sales which
owned one third of the copyright to let's get it
on
the case, wouldn't be heard until five years later, when
Ed took to the stand, he even performed a mash
up of both his song and Marvin Gaye's song to
(31:06):
demonstrate just how common the four chord progression is when
it comes to writing songs. Have you ever seen that
Comedy bit by the Australian comedy group axis of Awesome.
Who proved that countless songs sound the same because they
use the same four chords. It's a pretty funny sketch
and so effective in proving its point that it was
actually used as a defense for Ed's case. Look it
up on youtube. It's definitely worth your while
(31:26):
while the plaintiffs thought they had a smoking gun and
a video of Ed playing a mash up of the
songs live at one of his concerts. He responded, if
I had done what you're accusing me of doing, I'd
be quite an idiot to stand on stage in front
of 25,000 people in the end. After three hours of deliberation,
a Manhattan jury found that
did not engage in wilful copyright infringement and he defeated
(31:49):
the lawsuit. Ed spoke to the press afterwards. I'm very
happy with the unbelievably frustrated that
we spent the last eight years talking about two songs
with dramatically different lyrics, melodies and four chords which are
(32:10):
all different and used by songwriters every day all over
the world. These chords are common building blocks. We used
to create music long before let's get it on, it
was written and we'll be used to make music long
after we are all gone. They are in a songwriter's alphabet,
our toolkit and should be there for all of us
to use. No one owns them. All the, all the
way they are played in the same way that nobody
(32:31):
owns the color blue.
I'm just a guy with a guitar who loves writing
music for people to enjoy. I am not and will
never allow myself to be a piggy bank for anyone
to shake. Having to be in New York for this
trial has meant that I've missed being with my family
at my grandmother's funeral in Ireland and I will never
get that time back. These trials take a significant toll
on everyone at gold including Catherine.
(32:51):
I want to thank the jury for making the decision
that will help protect the creative process of songwriters here
in the United States and all around the world to
celebrate the victory. Ed's co writer, Amy Wedge has the
words independently created, tattooed on her arm while the allegations
of plagiarism may have threatened the legacy of thinking out loud.
The song remains one of Ed's biggest songs to date.
(33:14):
It's Been Power
by Jeremy Renner for his character of Marvel's Hawkeye on
The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. It was also spoofed
on the sitcom Crazy ex-girlfriend, which even reenacted the video's
Big Dance and Yes, Swifty's Taylor Swift sang a duet
with Ed to the song when he performed at Wembley
Stadium in London on the Eras tour doesn't get any
(33:34):
bigger than that. Perhaps the most memorable performance of Thinking
Out Loud. However
happened on September 7th, 2024. Ed performing on stage in
Loara Cyprus when all of a sudden he sliced his
finger on his guitar. Thankfully, fans up front noticed blood
was gushing from his hand and his team sprung into
action with some bandages, but not before he began singing.
Thinking out loud. Yes. Even a little first aid couldn't
(33:55):
stop Ed from giving the fans what they wanted a
blood soaked performance of his Grammy winning hit.
I'm Miles Galloway. And that was the story of Ed
Sheeran's thinking out loud on Encore with new episodes every Thursday.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Encore is an iheartradio Canada podcast. Subscribe to this podcast
on iheartradio or wherever you get your podcasts. Download the
iheartradio app for more great podcasts just like these.
This is Encore. The stories behind the songs. Here's ihe
Radio's Miles
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Galloway
when my legs don't work like they used to before. No, really.
I ran the Chicago marathon last weekend, not to brag,
but my legs are really sore. I'm Miles Galloway. And
this is the story of Ed Sheeran's thinking out loud,
perhaps more than any artist so far on. Encore. Ed
(00:28):
Sheeran has been the most difficult one to determine just
which song
a feature. I mean, the guy's just such a consistent
and reliable hit maker. He's also a bit of an
outlier as well. Although he established himself as an acoustic
troubadour over the span of his two decade career. He
has evolved and adapted as an artist to suit just
about any style from Bubba Gump pop, to hip hop,
(00:50):
to country, to rock. The only other person I can
think of who's been that versatile
over the last few years is maybe Post Malone. And
it doesn't matter what type of music Ed Sheeran's making,
it always seems to be at the top of the charts,
but I think we found the right song for this episode.
Not only one of the biggest songs he's ever released.
But one of the most interesting and dare I say,
(01:11):
even a little controversial, you'll understand by the end of this,
trust me.
But let's go back to the very beginning. Edward Christopher
Sheeran was born on February 17th, 1991 in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England.
He grew up in the nearby market town of Hebden
Bridge with his mother, Imogen father John and older brother Matthew.
(01:31):
His parents both worked in the art world. Dad was
a curator and lecturer, mum was a jewelry designer and
music
together. They would start their own art consultancy named Sheeran Locke.
His family would move to Framlingham in Suffolk when Ed
was four years old. But around this age, Ed took
an early interest in music. He began singing in the
(01:51):
choir at his local Catholic church where he also learned
how to play the guitar. His uncle gave him his
first guitar, which he taught himself to play at first
before he took lessons.
I don't think they had a loop pedal yet. At
the Catholic church. At the age of nine, little Ed
Sheeran had laser surgery to remove a port wine stain
birthmark next to his left eye. As he told an
(02:12):
audience at a Gala for the American Institute for stuttering
in 2015. That procedure would briefly ruin his life. I
I was a very, very, very weird child, very weird child.
Um And I had uh I had a, a Port
Weinstein birthmark on my face that
I got lasered off when I was very young. And
one day they've got to put the anesthetic on. And
(02:34):
then ever since then I had a stutter and I
also had very, very big blue glasses is the National
Health Service. One day, I hope you'll have the same
to say.
And um, I lacked, lacked an eardrum on one side
of my face. So to one side of my ear, uh, so, um,
(02:55):
stuttering was actually the least of my problems. When I
went to school
following the surgery. Ed's nervous system was affected, leaving him
with a lazy eye and studded speech. On top of that,
he wore thick glasses and had a head of ginger
hair which left him as an easy target for the
bullies at Rishworth School where he was teased on a
(03:15):
daily basis. Ed took speech therapy and homeopathic remedies to
try and cure his stuttering, but nothing worked. And then
one day young Ed discovered a new artist by the
name of Eminem. He would tell Howard Stern.
It's a funny one that cos my, when I was nine, my,
I was going through all sorts of speech therapy. And
when I was nine, my uncle bought me the Marshall
Mathers LP. And he just said to my dad that
(03:38):
this guy is the next Bob Dylan. You gotta let,
let me listen. My dad didn't really clock it. You know,
he was just like, OK, Edward's gonna go and listen
to that and by learning that record and wrapping it
back to back to back to back my, it cured
my stutter and I stopped, you know,
talking like that years later, I've, I've made songs with
Eminem now and we've, we've got to know each other
(03:58):
quite well. And as a kid, Ed questioned his sexuality
later admitting to the Man Man Man podcast that he
wasn't a hugely masculine person and had a definite feminine side.
He even thought he was gay for a bit, partially
due to his love for musical theater, pop music. And
Britney spears around this.
At the same time, Ed realized something that he wanted
(04:19):
to be a musician. Two moments in his life convinced
him of his future. First. He saw Eric Clapton on
TV perform at the party at the palace, a big
concert thrown at Buckingham Palace Garden in London on June 3rd,
2002 for Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee. Then he attended a
concert by singer songwriter Damian Rice at a venue called
(04:39):
Whelan's in Dublin, Ireland.
He would tell Ryan Tubridy of the late late show.
I was only about 11 or 12 when I saw
Damien play at Whelan's that night literally changed my life
the time he spent talking with me after the show
made all the difference. It inspired me in a way
that I only hoped to do for someone else. I
wouldn't be a singer songwriter. Had I not gone to
(04:59):
Whelan's and watched Damien Rice play Rice would tell the
young aspiring musician to start writing his own music, which
is exactly what he did. As soon as he got
home from the gig, he began writing songs.
Edward quickly caught the attention of his fellow school mates
with his music at Thomas Mills High School. He was
voted most likely to be famous and described as a
(05:19):
natural performer on his report card which read obviously at
the moment, his voice is beginning to change. Although he
still has quite a lot in his higher register.
In 2004, he recorded a collection of songs for a CD.
He called Spinning Man. When he was 13, most of
them were about a girl. He was in love with
named Claire who had just broken up with him in
his book, Ed Sheeran, a Visual Journey. He wrote about
(05:42):
the release. I burned the C DS myself and made
the covers. There were 14 songs and they were all
songs that rhymed. One lyric went, I'm a typical average
t
if you know what I mean, there were probably 20
copies of Spitting man in existence and I have 19
of them. I don't want anyone else to get a
hold of a copy. Turns out there were 21 copies
in total. The two that Ed doesn't own were sold
(06:04):
at auction. One fetched an impressive 8000 British pounds. While
the other went for a whopping 50 grand. I wonder
if Ed bid on either of those
taking inspiration from legendary singer songwriters such as Eric Clapton,
Paul mccartney Bob Dylan and Van Morrison. Ed was convinced
that he wanted to pursue music as a career. Once
(06:26):
he finished school, Ed spent his student grant money on
train tickets so he could travel around the country, busing
and performing at open mic nights, selling his self released
C DS and crashing on the sofa to fans along
the way. Eventually he ended up in London to see
if he could get discovered.
Ed would tell Rolling Stone. I spent so long with
people laughing about me making music. Everyone saw me as
(06:48):
a joke and no one thought I could do it
while he focused on his music. He also attended the
British National Youth Theater which helped launch the careers of
Daniel Craig Helen Mirren Colin Firth and Kate Winslet. Ed
participated in a presentation of Frankenstein which he says helped
him with getting up in front of crowds to perform.
Ed also auditioned for a TV series called Britannia High,
(07:09):
a drama that focused on the lives of a group
of teenagers and their mentors at a fictional London theater school.
Poor Ed struggled with the dance lessons but seemed to
impress the judges with his music. Some were clearly going
to struggle, hasn't a clue what he's doing, but he's trying,
I'm just trying to get it in my head. I
think I messed up as well. I got kicked in
(07:30):
the face
but performers like Ed couldn't be ignored because what he
lacked in dance ability, he more than made up for
in his musical talents.
He's great. He's quirky. I don't care if you're lost
it in our hearts. We both know that his voice
is classic. Roxy. Absolutely. I'd be interested to see what
(07:52):
the acting guys have got to say though. Acting and dancing.
Who knows? But he's 16 is the real thing. I'll
be signing him anyway.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for Ed, he didn't make the
cut and wasn't cast on the show. But I can
safely say both you and I wouldn't know the names
of anyone who did and for what it's worth Britannia
High only lasted nine episodes. It was for the best. Instead,
(08:16):
Ed tried to focus more on getting his music heard.
He reached out to an alternative folk duo called Nizlopi
asking if he could help Roadie for them. John Parker
from the band told the Guardian of their time with
Ed on tour saying I remember him being very enthusiastic,
always asking questions. I do remember in Bristol him just
drinking our rider. It was a full on gig for
(08:38):
me and I was like, I could really do with
a cold beer all gone. I said to my band mate, Luke,
we can't have him on tour, but Edkins
need to open up shows for Nizlopi winning over the
crowd about the experience, Ed would tell the BBC Nizlopi
are my main influence. I started off being their guitar
tech last summer and did two tours with them, setting
up their equipment and stuff. They were on tour again
(09:00):
and asked me to open up for them in Norwich,
which was brilliant. I went down really well and sold
20 C DS at the gig, which was very, very good.
The crowd seemed to like it.
It was during these gigs with Nizlopi that Ed learned
a trick to help him perform live as a solo artist.
One that would help boost his sound and give it
more fullness. Watching the Irish singer songwriter Gary Dunn perform,
(09:22):
Ed discovered the loop guitar pedal which allows musicians to
create instant recordings of a musical performance and play them
back in real time.
The lou pedal has become such a big part of
how he performs that to this day. Ed plays a
lot of his shows by himself that kids is how
you make a lot of money by doing everything by yourself.
Ed now sells his own line of loop pedal stations.
(09:45):
By the way, here's Ed explaining to access creative College
where he took an artist development course on why he
chose to incorporate the pedal as well as rapping and
beat boxing when he was trying to establish his own sound.
And when I first was gigging around London, James Blunt,
James Morrison Paolo Natti, like these were the kind of
big singer songwriter names
(10:05):
and everyone was trying to do that. Everyone was trying
to sing songs like you're beautiful wearing leather jackets, like
doing that. And I found myself doing that at one point.
I used to use the loop pedal still do but
like beatbox and rap and do, do all of that.
And uh I was being told not to do that
because James Blunt didn't do it. And that was the
thing at the time that, that sold. And I find my,
found myself doing a gig without loop pedal, not beatboxing
(10:28):
and being like, I just, just not enjoyable. I don't
care if like, it's not the thing, it's just not enjoy.
I love, I love rapping. I know people look on
stage and they see a fat white ginger kid beat
boxing and rapping, but I actually really, really enjoyed doing
it and I didn't enjoy the gigs, not doing it.
So I just carried on doing what I loved and
then eventually people clock on like the general public aren't idiots.
(10:49):
Like they see what's real and what's not and what's
real is enjoyment and belief. And if I walk on
stage and go, I love this, you might like it too.
People go. Yeah. Actually I
do or no, not for me. But if I walk
on stage and be like, this is what I think
you're gonna like, they're not gonna like it in the
fall of 2009. Ed enrolled at the Academy of Contemporary
(11:09):
Music AC M in Guilford, studying classes like professional musicianship,
songcraft and music industry preparation. Ed received an F grade
in every one of his six classes. Yep, Ed Sheeran
flunked out of music school but it wasn't for a
lack of trying.
Only three weeks into the year. Ed was asked to
go on tour with a rising hip hop artist by
(11:30):
the name of just Jack. When he asked the school,
if they would allow him to take time off to tour,
they refused, which led him to leaving college. So don't worry, kids,
Ed wasn't an underachiever he was simply a dropout. Fun
fact about Ed flunking out of music school. His dad
John once included the letter from the academy with his
final results in a museum exhibition titled Ed Sheeran made
(11:51):
in Suffolk.
As 2009 was coming to a close EDTA tallied a
ridiculous 312 concerts performed that year. That's basically a full
time job of just playing gigs. Luckily, for him, his
work schedule was soon about to change. 2010, changed everything
for Ed Sheeran. He recorded a studio session for SB TV,
(12:11):
an online media platform that helped music lovers discover emerging
artists
from it. His live performance of You Need Me. I
don't need you went viral. At the same time, Ed
was busy writing and self releasing new music including a CD.
He called Loose Change featuring a song called the A
team that would be a real difference maker for him.
Ed was also making the most of new fangled resources
(12:34):
like youtube, Facebook and Twitter to help promote his music.
He caught the attention of rapper examples
who took him out on tour where Ed was able
to sell some of his C DS for money while
things were looking up, he still couldn't find any record
labels interested in signing him. So he decided to take
a chance by booking a gig in Los Angeles and
buying a plane ticket. Somehow, he caught the attention of
(12:55):
Oscar winning actor Jamie Fox. He told much music's Liz
Triner all about it. He is uh a lovely guy.
Um I
went over to L A to do a poetry night
called Flo Poet for a guy called John Hensley, who's
a really cool guy as well. And he kind of
hooked me up with a lot of, a lot of
shows and one of them happens to be one of
Jamie Fox's gigs. And um
(13:17):
uh I got invited to play his radio station after that.
And then he was just like, I've got a studio
in my house. If you wanna, you wanna come and record.
So I ended up going there and it just kind
of restored my uh
faith in myself because I, I think things hadn't exactly
been going well up until that point. And uh yeah,
that just kind of was like, if I can do
(13:38):
this within a month, I end up here, then I
can do anything kind of thing. Jamie Fox shared his
side of the story during an appearance on the Graham
Norton show.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
That connection
with you and Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran slept on my
couch
for six weeks before he was famous. But how does
that happen? She, I, I was doing a radio show
in L A and it was, it was a, it
was a satellite show and he, he knew that we
do music. So he comes to my radio show. Hello, James,
just trying to get my music, you know, we'd love
to hear my music, whatever I was like, well, what
let me hear it. So he lets me hear. His
(14:08):
music comes to my crib and I had a, now
I got the bigger crib in the studio is incredibly
because of the Kanye song. So, so, so he plays,
I'm like, you're incredible. So he starts, I said, listen,
I know you don't have anywhere to go. Just chill here.
I was giving him food. My daughter was like, who
do you have over here now? Because I would always
have people, you know, I would always like champion the artist.
(14:29):
And so
I said, listen, man, I think you got the goods.
But I gotta check you out though. So I took
him down to this this show that I was doing
a live night every Monday in L A uh downtown
L A and it was like 800 black people, all black,
like just the best musicians who plays, you know, the, the,
the guitar for staying. And I mean, the, the, the
(14:50):
level of the music is here and there was a
dude up there rapping and he was sweating and he
was black and then another girl, she came up and
she sung and she was black and they was thinking blackness.
It was incredible.
And so all of a sudden I say, ladies and gentlemen,
Ed Sheeran, he pops out
red hair and a ukulele
(15:10):
and, and one of my homies who was an incredible guitarist,
but he's just true to the music. It came from us.
This is black, black, black and black, right? And he said, yo, Fox,
come on, man. What's this man? What's this? What you
doing to the room right now, man. You gotta respect
the room and it was just like a movie. I said, well,
let's see what the kid has.
(15:31):
And he went out there on that ukulele got a
standing ovation in 12 minutes and the rest was history. Wow,
that's incredible. Yeah. Cheer for him. Cheer for you.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
All of a sudden, Ed Sheeran was going places when
he was back home in the UK. Ed released another
ep titled number five collaborations project that found him teaming
up with M CS for a kind of moody fusion
of his acoustic pop with contemporary UK hip hop. The
EP was an unexpected success reaching number two on the
itunes chart and selling more than 7000 copies in its
(16:05):
first week of release without any real promotion behind it.
The British Press were calling the 20 year old, the
next Justin Bieber when he announced a free show at
the Bar Fly in Camden London, over 1000 fans turned
up more than five times the capacity of the venue
to make it up to them. Ed played three shows
in a row, then took fans to the car park
across the street to perform for anyone unable to get in.
(16:29):
Not long after that, Ed joined Elton John's management company
Rocket and finally got his record deal signing with Asylum Records,
a subsidiary of Warner Music, but he gave all the
credit to his fans, the Cheerios, he would tell the BBC.
I feel great, but it's a lot to take in.
It's all down to the fans being really supportive. They
are the main reason
(16:49):
it is where it is. Ed released his debut single
VA team in June 2011 and it took off immediately
selling 58,000 copies in the first week and reaching number
three in the UK. The song details the life of
a sex worker and her addiction to crack cocaine, which
is designated as a class, a drug in the UK.
Hence the, a team
(17:10):
would tell Billboard that the song came to him after
playing a show at a homeless shelter saying I was
18 at the time and kind of quite naive. So
I was a bit taken aback by some of the
stories that I heard. I got home that night and
I just wrote a lot of the lyrics. I wanted
to write it. So it sounded kind of upbeat. So
you wouldn't really know what it's about because it's quite
a dark subject
(17:31):
proving he could do it. Ed made the, a music
video for just 20 quid which is about $36. Canadian
way to be economical. Ed not long after Ed released
his debut album, which is called, well, let's let Ed
explain it. You tell me what they are. Uh Plus
positive design. Um, I don't know. It's, I mean, it's addition. Yeah,
(17:52):
I mean, it's kind of like
it is, it is just the sign, but most people
call it plus, to be honest, ok, we'll go with
plus then anyway, plus was a big hit upon its
release on September 9th, 2011. It debuted at number one
in the UK albums chart and went top five in
both Canada and the US. Ed Sheeran was officially a
global star. And while he was regularly lumped in with
(18:15):
the British singer songwriter types like James Blunt and James Morrison.
Ed stuck out thanks to
interest in adding a strong hip hop influence to his songs. Oh,
and writing songs for the biggest boy band on the planet. Sure.
I didn't know it either. Yes. Folks, Ed Sheeran wrote
songs for one direction. The first being moments you may
know it. He told much music's Les Dreer just how
(18:35):
that happened. I wrote that song four years ago and
hadn't found a way for it to work on my
stuff and I'd put it on a, uh, a demo
cd that I was given to
people pub publishers that kind of place my song. And
um whilst doing that, I was saying on my guitarist
sofa who in turn played for one direction and he,
(18:57):
uh
uh Harry just started staying at the house on the
other sofa. So we, we started hanging out and he
was like, we're putting our album together. Have you got
any songs? And I was like, well, actually, yeah, funny enough,
I have a, have a whole CD of them. So
if you'd like to choose one, then go for it. And, uh,
so they did, and that was that one, did they
add any of their own twists on the side? Um
(19:17):
I went into the studio and I mean, the, the,
the original version I did was a drum and bass version.
So I went into the studio with them. Uh we
made the backing track
and then, uh what, what I was most surprised about
is how well they can sing. I mean, it was really,
really good. And um
so yeah, it was a, it was a, it was
a really interesting studio session because you can
(19:39):
get them to.
I've seen some really cool stuff over it. So yeah,
it was fun in case you're wondering what all of
that noise is in the background. Ed was making a
cat out of LEGO during the interview and that's because
his next hit was called Lego House. So naturally when
you name a song after famous interlocking plastic toy bricks,
it follows you around. No, the video for Lego House
(20:00):
starred fellow ginger famous person, Rupert Grint, also known as
Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter films. Not me, not Hermione.
You
and yes, people did get the two of them mixed
up quite a bit simply because of the red hair.
People just say I look like him. So I've put
him in your music video pretty much. Yeah. In both
drunk and like as Yeah. Yeah. Well, um there's a
(20:23):
drunk video with uh with the cat as well and
the cat is actually from, from Harry Potter. Um It's, yeah,
it's Mrs Norris and Harry Potter. The real cat cat. Yeah.
Are you a big Harry Potter fan? I like, I
like Harry Potter. Yeah, it's good.
Anyway, this was kind of the start of Ed Sheeran
becoming a songwriter for other artists. He would write more
(20:44):
songs for one direction as well as the weekend, Keith
Urban BT S and Justin Bieber. Maybe you've heard of
a Bieber song called Love Yourself. Yeah. That was also
written by Ed,
but I digress. Ed Sheeran was now one of the
most in demand singers and songwriters in music. He won
two brit awards the next year for best British male
solo act and British breakthrough act and even got a
(21:06):
song of the year nomination at the Grammy Awards for
the A team a song he would end up performing
at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Oh And he also performed
a song, a Pink Floyd cover actually at the closing
ceremony for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
It was around this time that Taylor Swift took an
interest in Ed's music and reached out to invite him
to collaborate and join him on her Red tour. In fact,
(21:29):
Ed was pretty ahead of the curve on recognizing Taylor
for her skills as a songwriter together. They wrote everything
has changed, which would appear on Red and thus a
brand new power friendship was born.
Ed would tell Billboard, I'm a fan of Taylor's not
just her work but her ethics and that she writes
her hits herself and she's probably the only woman in
her position in the industry who writes 100% of her hits.
(21:50):
It's a very cool thing. The song that ended up
on her record was pretty much 100% her idea in
the first place. I did what I could to help,
but she definitely knows what she's doing.
Appearing on much music's new music live Edward. Tell host
Lauren Toyoda that he and Taylor bonded over their love
of pies. Specifically her love to bake them and his
love to eat them. We did, we baked apple pie.
(22:13):
Um
We had dinner with some of her friends. Uh, she
put on Nicki Minaj very loudly and rapped to it.
It was quite cool. Do you know how to rap
to Nicki Minaj too? She's gangster when she does it though.
She gets properly properly, all the hand movements and everything.
I love it. And how did your apple pie turn out?
Uh I'm, I'm not a very good cook, so I
(22:34):
kind of watch and you know, I, I, you know what,
you know, when you were a kid and your mum
would cook and you'd nick
some of this stuff halfway through should be making like
chocolate batter or whatever. And you just, I was just,
I was like that. Awesome. Well, Ed and Tift baked
a pie. Ed would spend the better part of 2013
opening up for Taylor and see his star power grow
(22:56):
immensely to the point where he headlined three straight sold
out shows at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
That November, that's roughly 20,000 people per show and guess
who came out to join him. Yep Taylor Swift Ed
off the year by contributing a song to the film
the hobbit, the desolation of smog called Icy Fire. Cool.
(23:16):
Fact about this song, Ed felt it needed some violin
on it, but he didn't actually know how to play
the instrument, but that didn't stop him from using it
on the song. By the time 2014 arrived, Ed had
his next album ready to go. He stuck with the
mathematical theme and named the album Multiply or X or
I guess cross or Times, but he mostly referred to
(23:36):
it as multiply for the album. Ed worked with a
range of hit making
and taste making producers including Rick Rubin, Benny Blanco and
Pharrell Williams. The first single sing saw Ed exploring his
love for hip hop, bringing in Pharrell to cori produce
and sing backing vocals and really help him sound a
little bit like Justin Timberlake. Come on. It's pretty obvious
though Ed had a custom puppet of himself made for
(23:57):
the video who gets up to all sorts of debauch.
Fun Singh was a hit scoring Ed his first number
one in the UK and number four in Canada. But
the song fans really wanted was the single that came
next
multiply was released on June 20th 2014. And to no
one's surprise, it reached number one in 15 countries including Canada,
(24:17):
the US, the UK and Ghana Much music's Liz Triner
asked Ed about that feat in Ghana
to go number one in the country you've never been.
Uh I think for me it's quite random that did
Ghana because I, yeah, I mean, it was like five
record sales in Ghana. You don't have to sell much
(24:38):
to go. Number one in Ghana. Um I've sold one
record in Laos. I wanna go to Lao and find
the dude that bought my record though and do a
gig for him. You one. Yeah. Yeah. And that was
like a top 10. Like that's how little records people
sell over there. Well, that's OK. Multiply
ended up becoming Spotify's most streamed album of 2014 with
(24:58):
more than 430 million streams in basically six months. Not
too shabby, it would go on to sell more than
10 million copies worldwide. Ed acknowledged this milestone by posting
a simple on his Instagram account. In fact, multiply was
such a hit. It became the 20th best selling album
(25:18):
in UK history that
includes the Beatles Queen, Adele Oasis and Pink Floyd. That's
some good company to be in part of the album's
success was its third single, a song called Thinking Out Loud. Now,
normally the third single from an album gets released and
generally forgotten after a few weeks, but not the case
with this song after releasing some slick R and B
(25:40):
pop for the first two singles, Sing and Don't, which
was reportedly about his ex girl
friend Ellie Golding. Ed offered up a true love song
for the next one produced by Jake Gosling. Thinking Out
Loud was a ballad written for his girlfriend at the time.
Athena Andreo. It was the last song Ed wrote for
the album as well as the only Happy song he
(26:01):
wrote for the album. He has called it his Walking
Down The Aisle song though. I'm pretty sure he didn't
walk down to it when he married his wife, Cherry
Seaborn in 2018,
Ed met his wife when he was in high school,
but he actually wrote Thinking Out Loud with another past
school mate, Amy W a songwriter herself. The two previously
collaborated on an EP together in 2010 called songs I
(26:23):
wrote with Amy. So when Amy came by Ed's place
for a visit to just chill out one day, something happened,
Amy picked up a guitar while Ed was in the
shower and began strums
tune, which Ed happened to hear, they sat down and
began working on it. And according to legend, they composed
the song in just 20 minutes. In the early hours
of February 4th, 2014, inspiration came from many different places.
(26:45):
Ed's girlfriend, the influence of Van Morrison, a favorite songwriter
of Ed's and the idea of everlasting love, which came
from thinking about his grandparents' marriage.
But here's the thing about Ed writing the song with Amy.
Not only did he do it to spend time with
his friend, but he also did it to help her
out a year or so. After the song came out
in an interview with the Daily Mirror. Ed revealed that
(27:06):
Amy needed some assistance, paying her bills. He told the
paper she was going through financial troubles. About a year ago,
she drove to my house, my album was nearly done
and she asked if I could put a song from
when I was 17 on the deluxe album so she
could get a little bit of money and pay the
mortgage
and bills and stuff while she was there. We wrote
Thinking Out Loud now, she never has to worry about
(27:27):
money again. She's got a family and two kids and
stuff and every time I speak to her, she's going
on holiday. It's really nice to see. It wouldn't have
happened if she hadn't come down from Wales to see me.
Thinking Out Loud would go on to be Ed's biggest
hit at the time. It topped the UK charts and
reached number two in Canada. And the US, in fact,
Thinking Out Loud became the first single to spend a
full year in the UK top 40
(27:48):
at the 58th Grammy Awards. It would win best pop
solo performance and song of the year here is Ed's
acceptance speech.
Well, um, wow. Wow, thank you very much. Thank you.
Um
I just wanna say thank you very much to uh
(28:10):
Jake Chris and Jake's dad for recording the song Amy
for writing the song with me. We wrote it uh,
on a couch in my house after having dinner quite odd.
Uh Thank you to Atlantic Records. Thank you to all
the Grammy voters. My manager Stuart, my parents who have
flown for the past four years to come to the
Grammys every single year and every time I lose they
go
maybe next year.
(28:31):
Um
ok,
but honestly, um if, if, if, if you would have
told my 11 year old, five year old, any age
that I would have uh received an award from Stevie
Wonder that I, I would have been shoed. So thank
you very much
in case you missed out at the beginning of that clip.
That was Stevie Wonder presenting the Grammy to Ed saying
(28:53):
I told you you would get a Grammy. Imagine Stevie
telling you something like that on top of all of
that thinking out loud would become a staple at pretty
much every single wedding that ever occurred since its release,
largely due to its romantic music
video, which is quickly approaching the 4 billion views mark.
That makes it one of the top 25 most viewed
music videos of all time on youtube. In case you're
(29:16):
wondering nothing's ever gonna catch baby shark, which is by
and far the leader with 15 billion views. Nice one
pink Fong.
The music video for thinking out loud featured Ed pulling
off some serious choreography with a female dancer in an
impressive ballroom. Seriously, the dude can dance but he told
much music in 2014 that he had to work hard
for it. My favorite moment of 2014 was, uh, I'm not,
(29:39):
I'm not a mover. I, I don't have that much
rhythm in my body and I learned how to dance
this year. Um, for a music video which was, which
was fun. Um
And in the process, like, I'm, I'm not, I'm not
someone that works out. So, uh, I'm, I was dancing
every day very intensely and I've got a two pack,
two pack which will I'll lose very quickly. But II
I got one. So, yeah. Yeah. Think it out loud
(30:00):
was one of the biggest songs of the decade and
life was good for Ed Sheeran. That is until he
was accused of stealing the idea for his song
in August 2016. Ed Sheeran was sued by the family
of Ed Townsend, co writer of Let's Get it on
the sexy 1973 hit by Marvin Gaye. The lawsuit claimed
that Ed copied the heart of let's get it on.
(30:23):
But specifically that the melodic harmonic and rhythmic compositions of
thinking out loud are substantially and or strikingly similar
to the drum composition of let's get it on. The
case was dismissed in February 2017 without prejudice, but it
wasn't closed. Then in August 2018, Ed was sued once
(30:44):
again for the same thing this time for $100 million
in damages by a company called Structured Asset Sales which
owned one third of the copyright to let's get it
on
the case, wouldn't be heard until five years later, when
Ed took to the stand, he even performed a mash
up of both his song and Marvin Gaye's song to
(31:06):
demonstrate just how common the four chord progression is when
it comes to writing songs. Have you ever seen that
Comedy bit by the Australian comedy group axis of Awesome.
Who proved that countless songs sound the same because they
use the same four chords. It's a pretty funny sketch
and so effective in proving its point that it was
actually used as a defense for Ed's case. Look it
up on youtube. It's definitely worth your while
(31:26):
while the plaintiffs thought they had a smoking gun and
a video of Ed playing a mash up of the
songs live at one of his concerts. He responded, if
I had done what you're accusing me of doing, I'd
be quite an idiot to stand on stage in front
of 25,000 people in the end. After three hours of deliberation,
a Manhattan jury found that
did not engage in wilful copyright infringement and he defeated
(31:49):
the lawsuit. Ed spoke to the press afterwards. I'm very
happy with the unbelievably frustrated that
we spent the last eight years talking about two songs
with dramatically different lyrics, melodies and four chords which are
(32:10):
all different and used by songwriters every day all over
the world. These chords are common building blocks. We used
to create music long before let's get it on, it
was written and we'll be used to make music long
after we are all gone. They are in a songwriter's alphabet,
our toolkit and should be there for all of us
to use. No one owns them. All the, all the
way they are played in the same way that nobody
(32:31):
owns the color blue.
I'm just a guy with a guitar who loves writing
music for people to enjoy. I am not and will
never allow myself to be a piggy bank for anyone
to shake. Having to be in New York for this
trial has meant that I've missed being with my family
at my grandmother's funeral in Ireland and I will never
get that time back. These trials take a significant toll
on everyone at gold including Catherine.
(32:51):
I want to thank the jury for making the decision
that will help protect the creative process of songwriters here
in the United States and all around the world to
celebrate the victory. Ed's co writer, Amy Wedge has the
words independently created, tattooed on her arm while the allegations
of plagiarism may have threatened the legacy of thinking out loud.
The song remains one of Ed's biggest songs to date.
(33:14):
It's Been Power
by Jeremy Renner for his character of Marvel's Hawkeye on
The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. It was also spoofed
on the sitcom Crazy ex-girlfriend, which even reenacted the video's
Big Dance and Yes, Swifty's Taylor Swift sang a duet
with Ed to the song when he performed at Wembley
Stadium in London on the Eras tour doesn't get any
(33:34):
bigger than that. Perhaps the most memorable performance of Thinking
Out Loud. However
happened on September 7th, 2024. Ed performing on stage in
Loara Cyprus when all of a sudden he sliced his
finger on his guitar. Thankfully, fans up front noticed blood
was gushing from his hand and his team sprung into
action with some bandages, but not before he began singing.
Thinking out loud. Yes. Even a little first aid couldn't
(33:55):
stop Ed from giving the fans what they wanted a
blood soaked performance of his Grammy winning hit.
I'm Miles Galloway. And that was the story of Ed
Sheeran's thinking out loud on Encore with new episodes every Thursday.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Encore is an iheartradio Canada podcast. Subscribe to this podcast
on iheartradio or wherever you get your podcasts. Download the
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