Ed Sheeran is going to be very explicit on his next album. Announcing the upcoming release, the musician opened up about recent struggles he’s been facing, including fear for his wife’s health. “I worked on Subtract for a decade, trying to make an album sonically perfect, writing and recording hundreds of songs with a clear vision of what it should be. And then, at the start of 2022, a series of events changed my life, my mental state and ultimately the perspective from which I view music and art,” he said.
Ed Sheeran in a photo promoting his new album ‘Subtract’. March 2023.
Photo source: Annie Leibovitz.
“Songwriting is my therapy. It helps me to be aware of feelings. I wrote without thinking about what the songs should be, I just wrote what came out of them. And in just one week, I replaced the result of a decade of work with my deepest, darkest thoughts,” Sheeran added.
The event that so abruptly changed the course of thought was the news of his wife, Cherry Seaborn. During the second pregnancy, she was diagnosed with a tumor, and it was impossible to operate on the neoplasm before childbirth. Seaborn gave birth to her second daughter in May, and the musician hasn’t said what’s going on with her health now. “Subtract” is set to be released on May 5.
