Ed Sheeran is back and in the midst of promoting a new album, but for much of 2020, he went silent. It turns out that was almost a permanent arrangement, as Sheeran says he considered retirement after the birth of this daughter.
In an interview with SiriusXM (as NME notes), Sheeran revealed:
“I stopped playing music for a bit, and music is entirely me as a person. Then I had my daughter and I was like, ‘Right, that’s it. This is me. I am probably just going to be a dad. I am not going to play music anymore.’ […] Then I was suddenly like, ‘It is more important for my daughter to grow up knowing that her parents have a work ethic.’ I slowly got back into music that way and the creative process started flowing again.”
He also noted that he’s coming off a stretch of immense productivity, saying, “I have done two albums and have written like 250 songs. In that, about 50 ballads. I write about 25 songs a week and one of them will be all right and that will go on the ‘maybe’ list.”
Sheeran’s songwriting is at the top of the world right now, as BTS’ “Permission To Dance,” which Sheeran co-wrote, is currently the No. 1 song in the US.
Ed Sheeran is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.