He’s back! Global superstar Ed Sheeran has returned with his new album, “Play,” marking the first in a new set of concept albums. They will be named after controls on a music player, while his last album cycle focused on mathematics.
“When I was like 18, I had an idea for like 10 albums,” he said on The Tonight Show. “It’s Plus, Multiply, Divide, Subtract, Equals, and then Play, Pause, Fast Forward, Rewind and Stop.” The “Perfect” singer added that the idea was inspired by Quentin Tarantino. “So, I wanna do my 10 and then every now and then do a side project,” he says.
“Play” has a bright pink album cover, but the music was written during a dark time for the singer.
“Play was an album that was made as a direct response to the darkest period of my life. Coming out of all of that I just wanted to create joy and technicolour, and explore cultures in the countries I was touring,” he wrote on Instagram. “I made this record all over the world, finished it in Goa, India, and had some of the most fun, explorative creative days of my life. It’s a real rollercoaster of emotions from start to finish, it encapsulates everything that I love about music, and the fun in it, but also where I am in life as a human, a partner, a father. Going into this album campaign I said to myself ‘I just want everything I do to be fun and playful’ – so that’s why we are building pubs for folk jams, doing gigs on open top busses and singing in pink cowboy hats on bars. The older I get the more I just want to enjoy things, and savour the moments that are mad and chaotic.”
Today, we’re taking a look at the sheet music for “Old Phone,” which is the lead single from Sheeran’s “Play.” The song came to him at 2 am, when he awoke, due to being jet-lagged. As everyone around him was asleep, he decided to write a song.
Sheeran once again gets the most out of a simple chord progression to express a universal feeling. The song mines nostalgia by imagining finding an old phone and seeing all the text messages with old friends and exes. In the final verse, Sheeran decides that the past should stay in the past.
“I found my old phone today
So full of love, yet so full of hate
I put it back inside there from whence it came
Nothing good will come from regretting”
Sheeran invited fans to be part of his music video by sharing their own memories from their old phone. He also launched a new Instagram account to share photos, videos, and notes from his own old phone that he retired in 2015.
Check out the music video for “Old Phone,” above, then grab the sheet music and dig into Ed Sheeran’s new album:
