It’s been a rough week for Ed Sheeran. The “Eyes Closed” hitmaker has spent the last few days in court, fighting allegations of plagiarism on his 2014 hit, “Thinking Out Loud.” It was also revealed that he missed his grandmother’s funeral because he was required to appear in court during that time.
Thankfully, Sheeran won his case today (May 4), and has now dropped his long-awaited fifth studio album, —.
The album is Sheeran’s most personal yet, as he endured various life-changing events as he was writing for the album. Over the past year, Sheeran’s wife, Cherry Seaborn battled cancer while she was expecting her and Sheeran’s second child. He describes the events and the accompanying emotions on one of —‘s standout tracks, “Sycamore.”
“Right now in the waiting room, emotions running wild / Worried ’bout my lover and I’m worried ’bout a child / Part of me was always in denial
It’s gonna take a little while,” he sings on one of the song’s versus.
Earlier this week, Sheeran premiered his Disney+ documentary, The Sum Of It All, where Seaborn revealed he wrote several songs in a short amount of time after the album’s primary producer Aaron Dessner sent him various instrumental tracks.
In an interview with Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe, Sheeran explained more about the writing process for the aforementioned songs.
“Aaron will tell you this, but he sent me seven instrumentals one day and I sent them all back in two and a half hours and we have all the time stamps on it,” Sheeran said. “So it was like, and it’s songs like ‘Sycamore,’ which is one of my favorite songs…That’s what I find really uncomfortable about the release of the album is I have no idea. It’s foreign territory for me… even with Plus or Multiply, it’s like you write for three years and you pick the best songs and then that’s the album. Whereas this one, I wrote for a month and all of those songs are coming out. There’s a bonus of the album with eight songs and that’s all that I wrote in that time. And it’s coming out. And it’s not even necessarily a risk because it is what my fans originally liked me for, which was singer-songwriter stuff. Each my albums, I’ve always been like, well, I know I’ve got this and I know I’ve got this and I know I’ve got this.”
Tomorrow, Sheeran will bring “Subtract” to life with the album’s visual component, which will premiere at 11 a.m. EST on YouTube.
In the meantime, you can listen to “Sycamore” above.
— is out now via Asylum and Atlantic. Find more information here.
Ed Sheeran is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.