Ed Sheeran breaks down his Radio 1 Live Lounge special
is no stranger to the Radio 1 Live Lounge, having performed several sessions during his career.
But his latest is his biggest and best by far.
Ed performed the two biggest songs of 2017 (Shape Of You and Castle On The Hill) along with Bloodstream, Thinking Out Loud and a cover of Little Mix's Touch in our Live Lounge special. Heartstrings were tugged, feels were felt.
We caught up with Ed after the performance to find out what went into his Live Lounge appearance and how a scene from a TV comedy inspired some of his most obscure lyrics...
While both Castle On The Hill and Shape Of You sounded close to perfect in the Live Lounge, it took a long time for Ed to get fully comfortable performing the songs.
"It took lot of practice trying to get them perfect." he told us after the performance.
"There was a month of being in a room before Christmas trying to get them perfect, so by the time I came in here I could do it easily."
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Clara chats to Ed ahead of his Live Lounge special
Ed has previously revealed that Shape Of You was written with in mind and he admits that it is the only song in the album he doesn't relate to on a deep level.
Shape Of You is the only song on the album that isn't about somethingEd Sheeran
"I don't really have that much of an emotional connection to the song at all," he says.
"It was literally written with someone else in mind, that's the only song on the album that isn't about something."
He also says some of the song was inspired by a scene from Channel 4 comedy, Fresh Meat.
"The line where I say "You and me are thrifty, so go all you can eat / Fill up your bag and I fill up a plate" is from Fresh Meat," he says.
"I was watching an episode of Fresh Meat and Vod and Howard went to a Chinese all-you-can-eat with a plastic bag and shoved a load of noodles in it.
"I watched that and thought 'That's pretty cool, i'll put that in a song at some point'."
Ed also performed Thinking Out Loud, which he says is the song that opened him up to new fans across the world.
"Thinking Out Loud was more of a song that opened things up in America," he says.
"In England, that point A Team had been the biggest hit i'd had so it was good to have something that beat that."
He covered Touch by and says as a songwriter he admires how catchy the song is, having struggled to get it out of his head for the past few weeks.
"It's an earworm, it's just constantly in my head," he says.
"I will wake up with it in my head, it's just one of those songs that is there the whole time."
