STACK #205 Nov 2021

FEATURE MUSIC

Clockwise from left: Ed Sheeran with wife Cherry Seaborn;The couple at an Ipswich game in 2018;The adorable image Ed posted to announce the birth of the pair‘s daughter this year. Image courtesy of Ed Sheeran/ Instagram.

of simply his voice and piano – but you‘ll want to hang around for its closing bars. The analogy of suits and court cards (or ‘face cards‘) tells the tale of a romance between the titular characters. “When I fold, you see the best in me,” Ed sings, then riffs on the mirrored design of the Joker card in the line, “I was upside down from the outside in/ You came to the table, and you went all in.” Towards the track‘s conclusion we get some acoustic guitar into the mix, and then it‘s on with a stop-you-in-yer-tracks string orchestra, reaching Percy Faith levels of beauty in its delivery. LEAVE YOUR LIFE Leave Your Life ‘s beat alone deserves a Ted Talk; it‘s a chopped-up and snapped-together rhythm of breaths and “ck” sounds, and there‘s something very intimate about it, despite the fact it‘s done artificially (unlike live beatbox). “I‘m never gonna leave your life,” Ed asserts across acoustic guitar plucking, while reverse harmonium chords swoop in and then pop out of existence with abrupt cracks. In its closing ad-libbed moments, Sheeran comes very close to sounding like King of Pop Michael Jackson in the way he lets that super- emotional serrated edge come into his belted notes. Beautifully textured yet sparse, this one‘s a gorgeous piece of percussive pop. COLLIDE The warmth of the velveteen synths on this up-tempo, syncopated gem is all-time – think Springsteen‘s Streets of Philadelphia – and its auxiliary percussion (tambourine, shaker, cabasa) elevates it to a sunny plane. Sheeran details a sackful of memories he‘s made with the woman who “bring[s him] to life”: Drinking her father‘s whisky at her grandma‘s wake, visiting an Irish bar in Rome, missing out on the Northern Lights because they slept in, making love on a plane, and the time she lost her wedding ring. “Head-first colliding/ Dreamers colliding/ Universe colliding,” goes the final, divine refrain. LOVE IN SLOW MOTION The ultimate romantic mea culpa, Love In Slow Motion goes into the ways that, within our intimate relationships, “we commit to so many things, but not to ourselves.” The classic ¾ waltz rhythm (best friend of love-tragics across time and space) is the perfect backdrop for some of Ed‘s most earnest lyrics out: “Baby let‘s slow down time/ Baby let‘s press rewind… I need to change my perspective and prioritise… I apologise.”

SANDMAN And finally: the devoted, starry-eyed father makes his appearance. Ukulele, glockenspiel, xylophone, plucked violins and adorable piccolo pitter-patter all over this incredible tribute to Sheeran‘s baby daughter Lyra Antarctica Seaborn Sheeran, now four months old. What‘s remarkable about this track is the way Sheeran has used all the elements you‘d normally find in kids‘ music (the cutesy mallet percussion, the simple melodies) and created something that works from an adult‘s perspective. “You were loved before you arrived/ And every day that love just multiplies,” he sings, and here comes the couplet of unconditional adoration that‘ll rip your wee heart out: “Fall into the world of your song/ Whatever you feel could never be wrong.”

VISITING HOURS “I finished writing this song going through proper grief for the first time,” Sheeran wrote on Instagram when he released this track as a single in August this year. But we had, of course, heard the song before: Ed performed it live (stopping once or twice when emotion

overtook him) at the state memorial for the late, great Michael Gudinski. In its recorded iteration, the fragility of its sentiment seeps through every note, and you can hear the voices of two of our homegrown icons – Kylie Minogue and Jimmy Barnes, with whom Ed shared the stage at the conclusion of Gudinski‘s memorial – in the Greek chorus-esque backing layers.

= by Ed Sheeran is out now via Warner. It‘s available on CD, regular black vinyl, and JB-exclusive white vinyl (pictured).

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