10 Things We Learned About Ed Sheeran From the New Documentary, Songwriter

Updated on May 2, 2018 at 4:35 PM

Murray Cummings

Ed Sheeran is an incredible singer, musician, and performer, but he's also a wildly gifted songwriter. While the 27-year-old English superstar has written countless hits for other artists, he's also the mastermind behind most of his own material. So, when he set out to create his third studio album, Divide, he decided to let fans in on the creative process.

Through the new documentary, Songwriter, which is directed by his cousin Murray Cummings, fans get a rare glimpse of the man behind the guitar as he crafts his album and takes you down his road to stardom. I recently attended the film's North American premiere at Tribeca Film Festival, and I was in awe of the singer's sheer amount of talent not just as a musician, but also as a writer. Needless to say, all Ed Sheeran fans will want to add this to their watch list when it eventually hits theaters. Keep reading for some of the most interesting tidbits from the film.

Justin Bieber's "Love Yourself" originally sounded very different. When Sheeran was writing the song, the iconic verse "'Cause if you like the way you look that much, Oh baby you should go and love yourself," was actually going to be "you should go and f*ck yourself."
His song "Don't" was written in two hours. One of Sheeran's biggest hits only took him two hours to write. It started with a beat, and the singer developed the story and lyrics from there.
He recorded "Happier" on a boat. Sheeran has definitely created music in some weird places. While "Love Yourself" was written on the back of a tour bus, the singer recorded "Happier" on the Queen Mary 2 with his music team.
He recorded his first song when he was 11. The singer definitely developed a passion for music at a young age. When he was just a teenager, he recorded his first song, which was fittingly titled, "Typical Average Teen."
He was voted most likely to become famous in high school. It seems like Sheeran was always destined for greatness. While visiting his old high school, Thomas Mills High School, the singer revealed that he was actually voted "most likely to become famous" at his prom.

He wrote "The A Team" in 20 minutes. Sometimes the best hits just come to you. After coming up with the line "She's in the Class A Team," the singer slowly started jotting down a ton of rhymes in his phone. When he actually sat down to write the song, it basically wrote itself.
"Perfect" was the first song written for Divide. Sheeran revealed that the hit love song was the first track he wrote for the album. Interestingly enough, it ended up being the last song to be finished.
He originally recorded "Perfect" with a live orchestra. Part of the reason it took so long for the track to get finished is because it went through different versions. Sheeran originally recorded the song with a live orchestra before singing it acoustically. He eventually found middle ground between the two with the final version.
"Shape of You" almost wasn't on the album. After sending his album to his record label, Sheeran got push back to add one more track. Thankfully, Sheeran already had a song idea in mind, and he ended up adding "Shape of You" to the album's track list. The song eventually became a huge sensation and even earned him a Grammy.
He feels like Divide is his best album yet. You can really tell that Sheeran put his heart and soul into this album. He actually admitted that he thinks Divide is the peak in his career.

Songwriter recently sold to Apple, and is expected to be released in theaters as well as on Apple's platforms in the near future.