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Ed Sheeran · S3 E7
On the Road
From couches to tour buses to the Olympics closing ceremony. Ed's world gets bigger, faster than anyone expected
A tour bus somewhere on the M1, 4 AM, early 2013. Ed Sheeran is asleep in a bunk the size of a coffin, heading to his third city in three days, and for the first time in his career he has a bed that moves with him instead of borrowing someone else's.
"All of the Stars" (Ed Sheeran, official music video, 2014). Written for The Fault in Our Stars, this was Ed's second major film song after "I See Fire" for The Hobbit. By 2014 Hollywood was calling, the shows were getting bigger, and the kid who used to busk on the Circle Line was writing for global movie franchises.
From Couches to Tour Buses
Two years earlier, Ed had been sleeping on friends' sofas and in tube stations. Now he had a tour bus, a crew, and a schedule that moved him through cities like luggage on a conveyor belt. The lifestyle change was absurd. He went from having no fixed address to having a different address every night.
Sources
Sheeran, Ed. Interview. GQ, 2014.
The Guardian. "Ed Sheeran: The One-Man Band Who Filled Wembley." 2015.
“I slept on more couches than I can count, and now I sleep in a moving box on wheels. Both are weird. At least the box has wifi.”
— Ed Sheeran on touring life, Rolling Stone, 2013
All of the Stars, Ed Sheeran (2014)
"All of the Stars" was written specifically for The Fault in Our Stars after Ed read John Green's novel. The production is bigger than anything on +: layered strings, a full drum kit, and a reverb-soaked vocal that sounds like it was recorded in a cathedral. Jake Gosling is still behind the desk, but the scale is different. Listen for how Ed's voice sits further back in the mix than usual, letting the arrangement carry the emotion. It was the sound of a songwriter realizing he could work on a bigger canvas.
Sources
Sheeran, Ed. Interview. MTV, 2014.
Billboard. "Ed Sheeran Chart History." Hot 100.
TAP TO REVEAL: What did Ed Sheeran do at the 2012 London Olympics?
The World Gets Bigger
Between the Taylor Swift support slot, the Olympics closing ceremony, the Grammy nomination, and two hit film soundtracks, Ed's world expanded faster than anyone expected. By early 2014 he was playing headline shows in Australia, Japan, and South America. The + album was still selling, but Ed was already writing something new, something that would need more than a guitar and a loop pedal.
Sources
Pollstar. "Ed Sheeran Global Touring Stats 2012-2014."
Rolling Stone. "Ed Sheeran's Next Move." 2013.
Olympic Stadium, London
The venue where Ed performed to a global audience of 750 million at the London 2012 Olympics closing ceremony. Three years before, he'd been sleeping outside nearby Buckingham Palace. The distance between those two facts is the entire Ed Sheeran story.
Going Global
Homeless, Ed Sheeran (2010)
From the Loose Change EP, written when Ed was literally sleeping on the streets and on friends' floors. Two years before the tour buses and the Olympics and the Hollywood soundtracks, this was the reality: a kid with a guitar trying to figure out where to sleep that night. The fact that this song exists on the same Spotify page as "All of the Stars" is the most Ed Sheeran thing imaginable.
Homeless, Ed Sheeran (2010)
Ed wrote "Homeless" while he was actually homeless, and the lyrics are matter-of-fact in a way that makes them harder to shake. There's no self-pity, no drama, just a clear-eyed description of not having a place to sleep. The casual tone is what stings: he's treating it as normal because for him, at that point, it was. Listening to it now, knowing what came next, is like reading the first page of a story you already know the ending to.
What did Ed Sheeran perform at the London 2012 Olympics closing ceremony?
Ed went from sleeping on couches to performing at the Olympics in three years. Next episode: a backstage conversation in Nashville that turned two songwriters into best friends and changed both their careers forever.
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