Ed Sheeran‘s new album will take an unflinching look at one of the most difficult periods of the musician’s life.
The singer announced that he is working on a record called Subtract inspired by his “deepest, darkest thoughts” in a press release on Wednesday. He explained, “I was working Subtract For ten years I tried to sculpt the perfect acoustic album, writing and recording hundreds of songs with a clear vision of what I thought it should be. Then, in early 2022, a series of events changed my life, my mental health, and ultimately the way I looked at music and art.” He continued: “Writing songs is my therapy. It helps me understand my feelings. I wrote without thinking about what the songs would be, I just wrote what tumbled out. And in just over a week I replaced ten years of work with my deepest, darkest thoughts.”
One of those events that changed his life, Sheeran explains, is that “within a month my pregnant wife was told she had a tumor, with no treatment until after birth.” The couple welcomed their second daughter in May last year. After that health scare, the Grammy winner said, “My best friend Jamal, a brother to me, died suddenly and I was in court to defend my integrity and career as a songwriter. I spiraled through fear, depression and anxiety. I felt like I was drowning, with my head submerged, looking up but unable to break through for air.” The lawsuit Sheeran is referring to is the copyright infringement lawsuit he and his two co-writers faced last year over claims that they had plagiarized the song “Shape of You.” However, a judge finally cleared them of the charge in April 2022.
Sheeran went on to explain that going through all of these experiences made him realize he needed to let fans know what was going on in his world. “It opens the hatch to my soul. For the first time, I’m not trying to make an album that people will like, I’m just putting out something that’s honest and true to where I am in my adult life,” he said. “This is the diary entry from last February and my way of understanding it. This is Subtract.”
In January, Sheeran returned to social media after a two-month hiatus to focus on everything going on in his personal life. In his first post on Instagram, he said, “The reason I’m making this video is to be completely honest, I’ve been through some turbulent things in my personal life so I just didn’t really feel like getting online and pretending to be I’m something I’m not, when I didn’t feel that way, and I know that sounds weird.” But he added that now that “things are looking better again” in his life, he’s “back online” and “weird things are going to be posted.”