Ed Sheeran Can Now Divide
More stories from Sabrina Riley
After 179 tour dates and a No. 1 album back in 2014, Ed Sheeran decided to take a year off from music and return to normalcy––or as normal as you can be as an international musician. He couldn’t stay away for too long, though, having logged back into social media a few weeks ago to announce the release of his third album, Divide.
Sheeran’s break from his social media has allowed him to develop his relationship with his girlfriend Cherry Seaborn, which ultimately led to producing his latest album. The couple traveled together for a year and eventually moved into the same place. Sheeran recently revealed in an interview with BBC Radio 2 that the two met in high school, but the couple was first seen together a little over a year ago at a Mets game. This is the happiest Sheeran has ever been, according to Heavy.com.
We still have a month left until the release of Divide, but Sheeran’s first two singles are already breaking records in the U.K. and the U.S. “Shape of You” and “Castle on the Hill” went straight to the top two spots on the U.K. singles charts. According to the BBC, this is the first time in the Official Charts Company’s history that this has ever happened. Not only did Sheeran come out on top in the U.K., but he also achieved his first U.S. No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Shape of You.”
Originally, “Shape of You” was not written for Sheeran to sing. He went into the studio with Steve Mac and Johnny McDaid to write songs. During an interview with BBC Radio, he said he thought this would really work for Rihanna. But after talking it over with Mac and McDaid, he decided that he was going to make the song for him. This was the last song recorded for the album. “Castle on the Hill” has a bit more significance for Sheeran; it confronts his teenage years and the memories he has made from his hometown. The music video for “Castle on the Hill” was filmed in Framlingham, England where Sheeran grew up. The lyrics of the song are describing Sheeran’s past: “Fifteen years old and smoking hand-rolled cigarettes/Running from the law through the backfields and getting drunk with my friends/Had my first kiss on a Friday night, I don’t reckon that I did it right.” Throughout the video you follow a young red-headed boy and his friends driving around, drinking beers and smoking. Sheeran excitingly shared in a tweet that the people in the video were actually all kids from his high school.
There are high expectations for Sheeran’s third album, especially following 2011’s + (Addition) and 2014’s x (Multiply). The album will be released on March 3, 2017 so make sure you get a copy!
Although the album isn’t out yet, Sheeran has teased us with the tracklist:
- Eraser
- Castle on the Hill
- Dive
- Shape of You
- Perfect
- Galway Girl
- Happier
- Hearts Don’t Break Around Here
- New Man
- What Do I Know?
- How Would You Feel?
- Supermarket Flowers