Shape of You

Writing The Top Song of the Decade

2020 New Year has been and gone (here’s to finally making it past January!) and with it, we welcome in a new decade.

Without a doubt, one of the most successful popular musicians of the past year was Ed Sheeran. From his third studio album Divide, Shape of You, won the top spot of the 2010’s.

Ed Sheeran as a Songwriter

Unlike a lot of mainstream singers nowadays, Sheeran is known for writing his own music. What many people don’t know, is that a lot of your favourite songs from other artists might have been written by him too.

Die-Hard fans of Justin Bieber would know that Love Yourself was written by Sheeran and even One Direction’s Little Things came from him.

If you check the wikipedia page on this (I know I know… not always the most accurate but…), including his own songs, Sheeran is said to have written around 102 songs.

Safe to say the man knows what he’s doing.

So, how do you write the decade’s top song?

Not alone apparently! Sheeran wrote Shape of You with the help of Johnny McDaid (the British hitmaker behind Flying Without Wings) and Steve Mac (member of Snow Patrol).

Like a lot of current pop hits, ‘Shape of You was written in a brainstorming session where ideas are developed or disregarded fast, with computers and instruments close at hand with recorders running.’

The first bit of the piece was the keyboard riff by Mac. He played it ‘with the log-drum sound that happened to be his synthesizer at the time’ creating a Caribbean-esque rhythm which was quite popular then. It was only then that Sheeran started creating ideas for a melody. The melody started out without lyrics.

(Personally, I find this rather strange as I always create my lyrics and melody at the same time. Theres a technique to try in the future!)

To create percussion, Sheeran would tap, slap and strum on his guitar with the strings damped.

Mac described Sheeran’s technique as: ‘He’s doing one part, he does the next part, he does the next part and puts those on top of each other.’

(Fun fact: Once they realised the song sounded similar to No Scrubs- negotiations were made to give the writers Kandi Burruss, Tameka Cottle and Kevin Briggs songwriting credits!)

To create contrast, the song uses dynamics, lyrics and rhythm changes as opposed to key changes.

When it comes down to the lyrics, inspiration was drawn for a variety of places. Sheeran was inspired by people he knew who were in relationships who met in pubs and the idea of taking a plastic bag into a Chinese buffet was inspired by Fresh Meat.

The titular line doesn’t actually mean what you might think it means. McDaid suggested ‘Shape of You’ because in Northern Ireland, where he’s from, the phrase has a beautiful meaning.

Whatever you are, whatever it is, I’m in love with you. It is the shape of who you are figuratively.

When I first heard the song, I figured it was talking purely about physical appearance. On the contrary, it was put in the song (due to its deeper meaning) to counteract the objectifying ‘I’m in love with your body.’

Some interesting song writing tips were in the New York times article along with the process. To quote the article:

‘If there’s only a vocal and one sound, that’s going to sound much louder on radio than if you have a hundred sounds… If the lyric’s good enough, and the melody’s crazy, and you’ve got one sound showing where its going to go, you don’t need much more than that’

The songwriting tip that I personally found the most useful was to be careful to keep the song uncluttered.

So there you have it!

The songwriting process behind the most popular song of the 2010’s started in a brainstorming session, combining the idea of three incredible musical minds.

What do you think about the song? I would love to hear what you thought!

Artemis

If anybody want to read the NY times article, you can find it below.