Ed Sheeran says ‘First Times’ was inspired by drinking beer with his wife backstage at Wembley

In his career, Ed Sheeran hasn't been afraid to bare it all with tracks like “Thinking Out Loud,” “Give Me Love,” and “Photograph” leaving fans in tears time and time again. His latest album “=,” out October 29th, gives fans an even more intimate look into his life, where he explores love, loss, and fatherhood in his signature beautifully intricate tracks. 

Etalk anchor Danielle Graham had the chance to ask Ed about the stories behind some of his new album's sweetest songs including "First Times," "Visiting Hours," "Sandman" and "Leave Your Life."

Ed shared that “First Times” was actually inspired by a quiet moment amid the chaos and heightened expectations of one of the biggest nights of his life -- the evening he played Wembley Stadium. After all the excitement, he says it was a simple moment with wife Cherry Seaborn that really made it all real.

“I was just on stage, and I was like ‘It’s actually just a concert. It was a good concert, but just a concert,’” he said. “Coming backstage, my wife giving me a beer, then me sitting down, and we chatted over a beer each; I felt everything. This is like real life.” He explained that's where the entire first verse of the song comes from. 

“That sort of took me back and I wrote this song thinking about all the simplest things that seemed so insignificant at the time, like our first glass of wine sitting on a step in Brooklyn opposite a pizza bar, and that at the time was just whatever.," he shared. "Now, it's become tradition. We go back to New York and that's what we do every single time." 

“Life is full of small things that seem so insignificant at the time, but they are massive in the grand scheme of things. We chase after these things in life that we think will fill the void, whereas the void is actually being filled by all these tiny, beautiful things," he continued. "You go ‘I need to do this thing because this is what I think will be the making of me and this is going to be it’ when actually it’s all around you and you just have to take it in sometimes.” Well said, Ed. If anything, the pandemic taught us that a little too well. 

The track “Visiting Hours is particularly raw, dedicated to Ed's late friend and mentor, Michael Gudinski, who passed away earlier this year. 

“Grief is a very solitary lonely thing,” Ed explains, “You shut everyone out and you’re like ‘I don’t want to talk to anyone’ because if you talk to anyone, you just get upset” 

Sheeran was going back and forth on whether to release the heartfelt track but is glad that he did. “When I put it out you realize that it becomes the moment where people can break away of solitude and send it to someone, and then they know how they’re feeling.” Since the song’s release, the YouTube comment section has become a safe space for those dealing with loss and grief. People have populated it with paragraphs of their own stories and heartfelt encouragement.

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“Someone asked me ‘Do you get sad playing it?’ and I really don’t anymore," Ed explains. "I actually feel really invigorated playing it. I’m really happy to share it now because I feel like it’s not my song anymore, it belongs to all these other people.” 

One thing we could hear all day is Ed gushing about his daughter, Lyra. He dedicated the tracks “Sandman” and “Leave Your Life” to her. 

When speaking of “Sandman,” Ed shares that the line "Whatever you feel can never be wrong" is to demonstrate how he will always validate Lyra’s feelings. “All of her feelings in her life are valid. It doesn’t matter If someone else says ‘No you’re wrong with that’ because how you feel is how you feel.” 

He explains, “It’s just little life things that I want to instill in her because that’s always going to be her song.” Ed Sheeran wins dad of the year in our books.

“Leave Your Life” is a track he wrote to his daughter in case anything were to happen to him before she's old enough to remember his last words. He says it's an "I love you" message to those who mean the most to him, especially Lyra. 

“The line ‘If I forget to say goodbye before I catch the plane, will you know the way that I feel when I’m away?’ -- it’s basically, if the worst happens, she has a song that tells her how much I loved her.” Pull out the tissue boxes for that one.

For more from Etalk's conversation with Ed Sheeran, checkout this episode of Etalk's Off the Record podcast.

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