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Thinking Out Loud: How Ed Sheeran Wrote The Song That Changed Everything
Warner Music
In Depth

Thinking Out Loud: How Ed Sheeran Wrote The Song That Changed Everything

A timeless ode to everlasting love, Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud was a life-changing song that captured the hearts of millions worldwide.

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The backstory: “What’s that? We have to do something with that”

When songwriter Amy Wadge knocked on Ed Sheeran’s door in February 2014, she had no idea that she would be about to co-write one of the era’s biggest pop hits. “His album was finished,” Wadge later recounted to Wales Online, referring to Sheeran’s second record, ×,“and I was just going to his house to have some chilling-out time with my mate. It wasn’t ever supposed to be a songwriting session.” Not that a collaboration would have been out of the question: four years earlier, the pair had co-written all five songs on Sheeran’s Songs I Wrote With Amy EP.

As Wadge sat down on Sheeran’s sofa and the two songwriters began chatting, it was clear something was making Wadge anxious. “She was going through financial troubles,” Sheeran later told the Daily Mirror, “and she asked if I could put a song from when I was 17 on the deluxe album, so she could get a little bit of money and pay the mortgage and bills and stuff.” Always loyal to his friends, Sheeran was happy to oblige, much as he had done previously, when adding another one of their co-writes, Gold Rush, to the deluxe edition of his debut album, +.

For the moment, at least, this was purely a social visit: Sheeran had invited Wadge over to stay so she could escape her money worries, and the pair had made plans to go out for dinner with Sheeran’s parents later that evening. But when Sheeran nipped upstairs to take a shower, Wadge spotted the guitar that Harry Styles had bought Sheeran as a gift. Picking it up, she sat back down on the sofa and spontaneously began jamming a few chords. That was all it took. “Ed came running downstairs and said, ‘What’s that? We have to do something with that,’” Wadge later remembered.

The writing: “We had conversations about everlasting love”

Returning home at about 2am, Wadge and Sheeran sat in the kitchen to see if they could finish the song. Even at this early stage, the lyrics they came up with were deeply personal: Sheeran was grieving the recent loss of his grandfather, while Wadge was struggling to process the news that her mother-in-law was terminally ill. “We had conversations about everlasting love,” Wadge later said, explaining how Thinking Out Loud began to come together around notions of lifelong romance and the idea of growing old with a soulmate. In just 20 minutes, the song was finished.

Sheeran could hardly contain his excitement. “It should be on the album,” he insisted, telling Wadge that he wanted to record Thinking Out Loud as a last-minute addition to ×. The next day, as he listened back to the demo he had recorded on his phone, Sheeran knew that they had written something extraordinary. He sent Wadge a quick text message (“This song’s a banger you know”) and even shared a brief ten-second clip of the tune on social media to build buzz among his fans. All Wadge could do was wait.

The recording: “This is the song that will change everything for both of us”

With only four months to go before × was due to be released, Sheeran phoned his manager, Stuart Camp, and spoke glowingly about Thinking Out Loud, arguing that it was strong enough to earn a place on the album. With Camp’s agreement, Sheeran hurriedly booked some time with producer Jake Gosling at Sticky Studios, in London, and called upon Gosling’s pianist brother, Peter, and guitarist Chris Leonard to join him for the session.

As recording for Thinking Out Loud got underway, Sheeran kept in touch with Wadge, repeatedly telling her: “This is the song that will change everything for both of us.” Time being of the essence, he set down a heartwarming arrangement of gently strummed acoustic guitar, with a silky, slow-moving groove much closer to classic 70s soul than to his early folk-pop sound. Set in waltz time, Thinking Out Loud unfurled in the recording studio like the first dance at a wedding, filling the room with the hug-and-sway of Sheeran’s soft, passionate voice (“So honey, now, take me into your lovin’ arms/Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars”).

Like the pulse of a calm heartbeat, the song’s rhythm was slow but never dragging, inviting Sheeran to embody the lovestruck charm of classic balladeers such as Van Morrison and Lionel Ritchie. “People fall in love in mysterious ways,” Sheeran sings, “and maybe it’s all part of a plan.” Many of the song’s lyrics had been inspired by Sheeran’s relationship with his then girlfriend, Athina Andrelos, and by pouring his heart and soul into Thinking Out Loud he imagined a long and happy future with his partner (“When my hands don’t play the strings the same way/I know you will still love me the same”).

Just three months after co-writing Thinking Out Loud in his kitchen, Sheeran performed the song for the very first time, on the BBC TV show Later… With Jools Holland, in May 2014. With Holland adding some heart-rendingly jazzy piano, it was clear that Thinking Out Loud marked a huge songwriting leap for Sheeran, whose rich voice perfectly mirrored the song’s lyrics as he professed a love that remains evergreen. Watching Sheeran’s performance on TV at home, Wadge broke down in tears, finally allowing herself to believe that this song might just change her life forever.

The release: “It’s actually the only happy song on the album”

Following the release of ×, in June 2014, Thinking Out Loud immediately entered the UK singles chart at No.26, and stayed in the Top 40 for almost 20 weeks before eventually peaking at No.1. Not bad for a song that was recorded at the 11th hour. “I like it because it’s actually the only happy song on the album,” Sheeran noted of the late addition.

By the time Thinking Out Loud was officially released as ×’s third single, on 24 September 2014, it had already become a huge international hit, topping the charts in several countries and, later, peaking at No.2 on the US Hot 100. Embraced by DJs as a “slow dance” number for wedding parties across the globe, there was no doubt that Thinking Out Loud was one of the best Ed Sheeran songs to date, selling more than 3.7 million copies in North America alone and solidifying Sheeran’s reputation as one of the greatest songwriters in history.

Thinking Out Loud’s music video also proved Sheeran was keen to stretch his talents beyond songwriting. Remarkably, while on tour Sheeran spent five hours a day learning how to dance, and lost two and a half stone so he could fit in a waistcoat and perform a routine with choreographer Brittany Cherry, from the US TV show So You Think You Can Dance. “It’s the best video I’ve ever done and probably will ever do,” he later told MTV. “It’s incredible, and I don’t say that lightly.”

Directed by Emil Nava, the romantic promo film saw Sheeran master some ballroom dancing moves with Cherry at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, in Los Angeles. To date, the charming video has racked up 3.7 billion views on YouTube and played a significant role in increasing the song’s popularity in the US. “He just wants to make a really good video,” Nava later said in an interview with 4Music. “He doesn’t want to make it about him, he wants to make it a special piece of visual. He’s really open to everything.”

The legacy: “I’m just a guy with a guitar who loves writing music for people to enjoy”

As of 2024, Thinking Out Loud has become one of Sheeran’s most-streamed hits, with over 2.5 billion Spotify plays and approximately 9.3 million sales worldwide. If you factor in stream-to-sales ratios, this figure could even be as high as 19 million, which would make it the UK’s sixth best-selling single of all time – an unprecedented achievement for a contemporary pop artist. Not only did the song win two Grammy Awards in 2015, for Song Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, but it also helped Sheeran win an Ivor Novello Award for Songwriter Of The Year.

Becoming the first song ever to surpass 500 million online streams on Spotify, Thinking Out Loud’s success was truly phenomenal – although it briefly threatened to come at a cost, when the heirs of songwriter Ed Townsend brought a case against Sheeran, claiming that he had copied Marvin Gaye’s 1973 hit Let’s Get It On. Steadfastly denying all accusations of infringement, Sheeran won the case after proving the claims were baseless. “It’s devastating to be accused of stealing someone else’s song when we’ve put so much work into our livelihoods,” he declared outside the court room. “I’m just a guy with a guitar who loves writing music for people to enjoy.”

History will remember Sheeran’s legal triumph as an important moment for songwriters across the world. The jury’s decision underscored the fundamental principle that basic musical building blocks, such as chord sequences, cannot be copyrighted. Allowing such a claim, as Sheeran fervently expressed in court, would have set a dangerous precedent, stifling creativity and hindering the free exchange of musical ideas that has driven the evolution of music for centuries. For this reason, Thinking Out Loud has become historic, not just for its commercial success, but also for its role in shaping the future of copyright law and protecting the rights of songwriters everywhere.

For a song that emerged so spontaneously, the idea that Thinking Out Loud would become such a big focal point for creative freedom was certainly not lost on its co-writer, Amy Wadge. “That song changed my life,” she has said, “but today I realise it was way more important that I could have ever contemplated.”

As Sheeran later put it: “Thinking Out Loud wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t come down from Wales to see me… Now she never has to worry about money again.”

Buy ‘×’ 10th-anniversay merch at the official Ed Sheeran store.

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