When Ed Sheeran performed his newest album for the first time on stage, he cried. Sheeran, an international star who rose to fame in the 2010s with hits such as “Shape of You” and “Perfect,” has re-captured the spotlight recently due to his international tour, “Mathematics.” The singer has also garnered attention for the release of his newest album, titled “Subtract” or simply “-.” The subject matter of Sheeran’s newest album has been especially poignant: the album’s soft, mellow acoustics contrast with grim lyrics that reflect the tragedies he faced in 2022, when he wrote most of the discography.
Sheeran, a proud resident of Suffolk, England, became an unlikely star after years of hard work playing small gigs across London. “Because of the way that I look, people were suddenly taken aback and shocked,” Sheeran recounts in a recent docuseries entitled “Ed Sheeran: The Sum of it All.” This didn’t stop Sheeran and his producer-turned-best-friend, Jamal Edwards, from bonding over a love of music. Together, Edwards and Sheeran experienced skyrocketing success. Sheeran’s record-breaking path to stardom began with the release of his first hit, “The A Team,” an upbeat song that was inspired by Sheeran’s trip to a homeless shelter and the stories he heard from its residents. From there, as Sheeran recounts in the docuseries, his fame “snowballed.”
In the singer’s newest album, “Subtract,” fans can see a shift in the focus and tone of his music. Though it mostly stays within the bounds of pop, the melancholy, acoustic album marks a shift. This isn’t a party album — it’s a diary. Sheeran dives into the themes of grief, depression, loss and loneliness, and ties the collection together with the occasional hint of bitter optimism. In the docuseries, he explains his realization that grief has the power to end one’s childhood. Sheeran cites the events of 2022 as the end of his youth and the true beginning of his adulthood, singing specifically about this experience in the song “End of Youth”.
But where did this change in attitude come from? While Sheeran’s past music hasn’t been lacking in powerful emotion, this album is especially unwavering in its discussion of the hardest feelings in life. In “Ed Sheeran: The Sum of it All,” the singer discusses the origins of the pain that can be detected beneath his latest songs.
Sheeran’s 2017 hit “Perfect” details his intimate feelings about his then-girlfriend (now wife), Cherry Seaborn. In “Subtract,” Seaborn becomes a focus in his music once again, but this time the focus is on his committed relationship with Seaborn and the life-or-death struggles they faced.
In the beginning of 2022, Seaborn was diagnosed with cancer. She was six months pregnant with their daughter Jupiter, which limited her treatment options. In the docuseries, the couple discusses the dark place in which they found themselves when they were told that the diagnosis was grim. Sheeran recalls going into their basement after the diagnosis and channeling his emotions into seven songs for “Subtract,” all written over the course of four hours.
The couple later learned that the tumor was less severe than they originally thought, and the family was able to take a sigh of relief. One day later, Sheeran’s lifelong friend Jamal Edwards died suddenly. To make matters worse, this tragedy was soon followed by a copyright suit filed against Sheeran by songwriters Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue. The suit claimed that Sheeran’s song “Thinking Out Loud” stole sections of music from Marvin Gaye’s classic hit “Let’s Get It On.”
“By the time the court case came I was just like, ‘This is actually nothing compared to what’s going on,’” Sheeran recalls. But the storm of hardship after hardship eventually took its toll. The death of Sheeran’s best friend was a focal point of the docuseries, and the singer spoke about how powerfully grief struck him. A “People” magazine article reports Sheeran staying at Jamal Edwards’ mother’s house for a week to support the family after their loved one’s death.
The lead single in “Subtract,” titled “Eyes Closed,” details Sheeran’s feelings of grief following the loss of his best friend. He debuted “Eyes Closed” and his other “Subtract” songs live on Oct. 11, 2022. “The union chapel gig was definitely like no other,” Seaborn recalled about the performance. “I’ve seen Ed perform for years and years … He looked vulnerable, didn’t he?” Sheeran said that it was the first time he had ever cried onstage. The song has rapidly gained notoriety and recently reached no. 1 on the Adult Pop Airplay Chart. This places “Eyes Closed” among the most popular of Sheeran’s extensive and critically acclaimed discography.
While “Eyes Closed” is his most well-known tribute to his lost friend, Sheeran’s single “F64” honors Edwards’ memory and career. The song is a freestyle rap that recounts the relationship between Sheeran and Edwards, especially their early friendship and the grief that Sheeran has felt since his passing.
“Subtract” and “F64” are the first works Sheeran has put out since the tragedies that plagued his life in 2022. There is a shift in tone from previous works, as this album details the singer’s fractured state of mind and the grief and fear that he experienced. “It’s scary putting out your (sort of) deepest, darkest thoughts to the world,” Sheeran said. “The first part of this year was a very difficult part of the first 30 years of my life. There’s an umbrella over that time that was just a bit of a blur but all of these songs came out. Those songs are so personal to me… no one can take away what those mean.”
Ed Sheeran is currently on tour in North America.
Ed Sheeran’s heartfelt song ‘Subtract’ touches on deeply emotional subjects such as cancer, death, and lawsuits, providing listeners with a poignant reminder of life’s challenging moments.