Ed Sheeran ‘worked his way to the top’

Ed Sheeran had “very limited talent as a kid” and has revealed the secret to his success

The 32-year-old pop star is one of the best-selling artists in the world, but Ed insists that his success hasn’t come easily. Ed explained: “I had very limited talent as a kid, and I was like what’s the one thing I can do, is I can outwork whoever.

“So I’d be doing shows with people that were ten times better than me. Infinitely. Better songs, better voice, better guitar players, better performers, but I knew that I could get up to that level by outworking them.

“People think that I was born with natural talent. You can go on YouTube and find videos of me at 13 and 14, and it’s really bad. It’s really bad.” Ed previously revealed that he was told to “get a real job” by one his school teachers.

The chart-topping star – who has won a host of accolades during his career – believes that kids should instead be encouraged to follow their dreams.

“I think kids should be encouraged to be creative. “When I was a child, saying you wanted to be a musician, they’d go, ‘You need to get a real job.’

“School is so stressful. You’ve got all these exams – maths, English and science – all these things are very difficult. But what I want to say to kids is if you do what you love, you will eventually get paid for it.”

Ed also thinks he’s learned “way more from failure” than from success.

The ‘Shape of You’ hitmaker added: “I have played Wembley Stadium and I’ve played a bar in Swindon to one person. And playing the bar in Swindon taught me more than Wembley Stadium.”

Ed Sheeran plays Van Morrison to prove he didn’t steal from Marvin Gaye in copyright trial

The singer has been accused of ripping off Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’ with his 2015 single ‘Thinking Out Loud’.

Ed Sheeran has spent another day in court in an ongoing plagiarism trial related to his 2015 single ‘Thinking Out Loud’, and played Van Morrison in the court room to further contest accusations that the song ripped off Marvin Gaye‘s ‘Let’s Get It On’.

Back in 2016, the pop star was sued by Ed Townsend, one of the song’s co-writers, who alleged that Sheeran and co-writer Amy Wadge copied the rhythm of the 1973 song, as well as an ascending four-chord sequence. It also references “striking similarities” between the two tracks that violate the copyright. Sheeran denies claims he copied Gaye’s song.

Sheeran once again got out his guitar and ran through mashups between ‘Thinking Out Loud’ and several other songs by Van Morrison, Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers and Blackstreet to contest musicologist Alexander Stewart’s claims about his melodies and intentions. He did this to show how easily one song can bleed into another based on common and incidental resemblances in chord progressions.
Sheeran said that while writing ‘Thinking Out Loud’ the song’s producers referred to it as “the Van Morrison tune.” He added: “My voice can sound like his.”

He re-iterated that he didn’t copy a single element of ‘Let’s Get It On’, nor was it present in his mind when he was writing it.

Sheeran told the court that he would be “done” with the music industry if found guilty. “I find it really insulting to devote my whole life to being a performer and a songwriter and have someone diminish it,” he said.

Last week, it emerged that a lawyer claimed Sheeran ‘confessed’ to copying Gaye by mashing up the two songs at one of his concerts.

“If I’d done what you’re accusing me of doing, I’d be an idiot to stand on stage in front of 20,000 people [and do that],” Sheeran said last week (April 25), responding to the allegations  “It is my belief that most pop songs are built on building blocks that have been freely available for 100s of years.”
Meanwhile, laughter reportedly broke out during the trial after the court was played an AI version of Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’. As per Insider, the computer-generated voice sang the lyrics in a way that sounded like “HAL the computer committing lethal karaoke in a sci-fi horror flick”.