Will copyright suit be the final chapter in British pop star’s illustrious career?

“I always knew you just have to work harder than anyone else because there will always be someone who wants it more than you.”

– Ed Sheeran

This is the week one of the world’s most successful pop stars was hoping attention would center on the release of his fifth album and a new documentary series that offers fans a glimpse into the recent turbulent experiences in his well-kept personal life.

Instead, headlines about British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran have revolved around a court case where he was accused of copying the 1970s soul classic to create one of his biggest hits.

The copyright infringement case against Sheeran alleges that he used parts of Marvin Gaye’s 1973 song, Let’s Get It On on his song Thinking Out Loud.

The heirs of Marvin Gaye’s co-writer Ed Townsend, who died in 2003, are seeking a share of the royalties from Thinking Out Loud, which won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 2016, claiming they copied the syncopated chord progressions from the Motown classic without permission.

His latest album Subtract (-), the fifth in the titled series With Mathematical Symbols, was officially released Friday, May 5 on Atlantic Records, just two days after a new four-part documentary series Ed Sheeran: The Sum of It All premieres on Disney+. channel chronicling recent personal challenges in the life of the 32-year-old star.

These high-profile events are overshadowed by drama in a New York courthouse that at times borders on surrealism.

While on the witness stand last week, Sheeran strummed his guitar to show jurors that mixing different songs is standard practice among musicians because it is “easy to weave in and out of songs” that are in the same key.

This was in response to a video dubbed a ‘smoking gun’ by the defendants’ lawyers that showed him switching from Thinking Out Loud to Let’s Get It during a live performance.

Sheeran gave a glimpse into his creative process saying he writes most songs in a matter of minutes, sometimes eight or nine songs in a day.

According to him, the melody of Thinking Out Loud was inspired by Irish musician Van Morrison and that it only took him and his co-author 20 minutes to write the song.

In 2017, Sheeran won a separate lawsuit alleging that another of his songs he had copied part of a song by British artist Sammy Switch.

At the time, he said such legal claims seeking settlement hurt songwriters. This week he threatened to quit music altogether if he lost his current civil case.

The title of the docuseries Ed Sheeran: The Sum of It All is a play on his sports-themed albums: his 2011 debut Plus(+) was the addition of the EPs he had released up to that point, Multiply(x) three years later “Make It Bigger,” 2017’s Divide (¸) is a double album and 2021’s Equals (=) is the sum of all parts.

The first episode of the documentary “Love” reveals the mental health challenges that Sheeran faced when his wife Sherri Seaborn was diagnosed with cancer while she was pregnant with her second child, while the second episode centered on the death of her British close friend. Music entrepreneur and DJ Jamal Edwards.

Edwards, who gave Sheeran his big break by posting his music on an online platform he created for emerging artists, died in 2022 of a drug-induced cardiac arrest at the age of 31.

In a poignant scene, Sheeran is seen collapsing on stage while performing “Eyes Closed”, a tribute to Edwards, for the first time.

The episode “Focus” follows Sheeran as he writes and records the new album and the finale, “Release”, is about the challenges of finding a balance between work and parental responsibilities.

Edward Christopher Sheeran first became interested in music after joining a church choir with his mother at the age of four and learning to play the guitar at the age of eleven. He overcame his childhood stutter by learning the rap lyrics of his future idol, Eminem.

Sheeran got into the music business by playing small venues in London, and developed a strict work ethic such that if his peers were playing one show a week, he would perform three shows a night.

Among his admirers were Elton John and Atlantic Records, the label to which he is still signed.

The songs he wrote for the new album were shaped by the events that happened in his personal life over the course of just one week. According to Sheeran, he poured his “darkest thoughts” into the album.

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