More than a decade after Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift began their friendship, the two are still going strong.
Sheeran, who recently spoke with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, shared how he often confides in his old friend about things going on in his career – and his life.
“I have long, long, long conversations with Taylor about things, just because I feel like she’s one of the few people who really understands where I’m at,” he explained, “because she’s a solo artist, she is stadiums.”
The “Shape of You” singer said he and the “Anti-Hero” performer spent an hour and 20 minutes catching up before the interview.
“We were just… Everything we thought about, we discussed,” he said. “I mean, that’s kind of therapy in itself too, because you’re actually talking to someone who really gets it, who has all the things that you feel and have insecurities about and how other people treat you or how your family treats you, how you friends treat you, she’s just in the same vibe.
Sheeran also shared that fans owe many of the songs on his upcoming album to Swift – (pronounced subtract). She introduced him Aaron Dessner of The National when they were working Red (Taylor’s version) together, on which Sheeran has two collaborations with Swift, “Run” and “Everything Has Changed.”
“I’d kind of keep my distance if there was a collaborator she would work closely with just because that’s her thing,” said the “Thinking of You” singer. “And I don’t want to say, ‘Well, I’m going to do that,’ but she was like… she said, ‘I think it would be really important for you as an artist to do what I did and work with Aaron because this is what it did for me and I think you and Aaron should work together.'”
And she was right. Dessner and Sheeran went on to co-create every song on -, which is due out May 5.
“That opened the door for it,” Sheeran said. “And I am incredibly grateful. I’m making some of the most meaningful music I’ve made in a long time. And I was just really wary about continuing to[her job]… and we can be open with each other about that kind of thing as well.
The “Perfect” singer was recently found not liable in a New York City copyright infringement lawsuit after the heirs of songwriter Ed Townsend, who co-wrote Marvin Gaye’s 1970s hit “Let’s Get It On.” , claimed that Sheeran played important parts of the song when he created his hit “Thinking Out Loud”.
Speaking to Apple Music, Sheeran spoke about the case, saying he would “never” consider a lawsuit against another artist. He explained that he even reached out to Coldplay’s Chris Martin once about a song he was writing for Keith Urban that sounded a bit like the band’s “Ever Glow” and asked the frontman to delete the song , and he said he didn’t have to. because he trusted him.
“The problem with these cases is that it’s usually not the songwriters suing songwriters,” Sheeran explains. “I mean, sometimes it is, but it’s not. … I feel like in the songwriting community everyone more or less knows that four chords are mainly used, and there are eight notes. And we work with what we have.”
