Ed Sheeran on Desert Island Discs: 10 things we learnt
Ed Sheeran’s appearance on Desert Island Discs was an insight into the life and mind of a man who has become an unstoppable force of pop music. The 26-year-old dominated the pop charts earlier this year with every song from his third album, Divide. But how does he deal with his overwhelming popularity, and how did he get to where he is today? Here’s what we learned. He doesn’t intend this to be his only Desert Island Discs appearance: Ever the shrewd musical businessman, Sheeran is already planning a second outing on DID in 20 years’ time. With that in mind, the music he chose on this edition was intended to represent the “songs that made him want to make music”, and he foresees his second castaway experience will instead represent his life in music more generally. Fame didn’t always agree with him: Sheeran said there was a time when he “lost himself ” on tour, and though he wasn’t specific about what went on, he said that his behaviour had all the traditional hallmarks of a famous person going off the rails. “You can’t really not go mental”, he said of performing alone in front of many thousands of people. But the wild behaviour mostly ended when his cousin came to the rescue and threatened to stop coming on tour with him if he didn’t calm down. Sheeran also employs four of his old school friends to tour with him and keep him grounded. Like many artistic people, he was ‘a weird kid’: “I had huge blue NHS specs,” said Sheeran of his awkward childhood, as well as “a huge port wine stain birth mark on my eye that’s subsequently gone, and a really bad stammer. Oh, and I lacked an eardrum so I couldn’t go swimming, which helps get friends.” He grew up in a house where David Attenborough was everything: “We weren’t really allowed to watch TV … we were encouraged to paint and play instruments and do artistic stuff ”, says Sheeran. In fact the only TV he and his brother were allowed to watch was an old David Attenborough VHS tape. Could the work of Attenborough be Sheeran’s earliest influence? He couldn’t always sing: According to Sheeran, he “couldn’t really hold a tune until he was 16”, and there are videos of him singing from before then to prove it. The burning question, of course, is if these intriguing videos will surface for all the world to see … Eminem cured his stammer: Sheeran went through speech therapy as a child for his stammer, but in the end it was only fully cured because of Sheeran’s love for the rapper Eminem. As a youngster he learned all of the words to his favourite Eminem songs and attempted to rap along with the CD, practising Eminem’s style of fast-talking, rhythmic music, and eventually his stammer disappeared. Rapping is still a central part of Sheeran’s music style. He was voted “most likely to be famous” by his schoolmates at his Year 11 school prom … proving that teenagers are clairvoyant. He has done intensive dance training: For the video to Thinking Out Loud, one of Sheeran’s most popular love songs and a staple of wedding discos everywhere, Sheeran wanted to surprise people and create something that would become an online sensation. So, for five weeks, he trained extensively in dance so that he would be able to pull off the video’s complicated ballroom dance routine. He recognises that some people don’t like his music … but reckons that “even if you don’t like it, you still have to respect that other people do”. His sell-out stadium shows prove he certainly has a large and devoted audience, even if critics don’t always rave about his songs. And his record sales and live tours give him a sense of victory over anyone who doubted him back when he was “a weird kid”: “Because I played Wembley stadium, nobody ever laughs at my dreams any more.” All he needs to be happy is Philip Pullman and some condiments: The book that Sheeran chose to take to the desert island was Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, which Sheeran described as “the greatest love story ever told”. And his luxury item? Not a guitar, but instead a lifetime’s supply of ketchup.