Ed Sheeran’s latest Eyes Closed single about inescapable sadness, singer says
d Sheeran has said that his new single, Eyes Closed, is about “losing someone” and “feeling like every time you go out you expect to just bump into them.”
The 32-year-old chart-topping singer recently opened up about his mental health struggles after his wife was diagnosed with a tumor and close friend Jamal Edwards died.
After originally writing Closed as a break-up track, Sheeran Eyes re-recorded the song after a personal loss and discovered the lyrics took on “a whole new meaning.”
Speaking of the new song, Sheeran said, “This song is about losing someone, feeling like every time you go out you expect to just bump into them and everything just reminds you of them and them things you did together.
“Sometimes you have to somehow pull yourself out of reality to numb the pain of loss, but certain things bring you right back.”
Earlier this month, Sheeran announced that his wife, Cherry Seaborn, whom he married in 2019, was told by doctors that she had a tumor while pregnant with their second child, who was born in May 2022.
Music entrepreneur Edwards, who founded music platform SBTV in 2006, which helped launch Sheeran’s career, died in February last year at the age of 31.
Sheeran explained the idea behind the Eyes Closed official music video, which was directed by Mia Barnes and features Sheeran being pursued by a blue monster that serves as a metaphor for grief.
“When I was thinking about concepts for the ‘Eyes Closed’ music video, I wanted to make a video inspired by movies like Harvey, where the main character has an imaginary friend who is a giant rabbit that no one can see,” he said sheeran
“There is also a book I read to my daughters in which sadness is encapsulated in an imaginary creature. Sadness is often something that follows you and engulfs the spaces you are in, and you can feel and see it, but no one else around you can.
“So I decided to create my own big blue monster for the video. He gets bigger and bigger as the video goes on until he takes up entire rooms and all I can see is just like sadness.”
Sheeran’s sixth studio album, titled – (the mathematical symbol for subtraction) is due out May 5 and will feature 14 tracks written and recorded with The National’s Aaron Dessner in February last year.
During the making of the album, Sheeran and Dessner, who worked on Taylor Swift’s lockdown records Folklore and Evermore, wrote more than 30 songs during a month of studio time.
Subtract is the latest installment in Sheeran’s line of mathematical symbols, which evolved through albums like = (Equal) and ÷ (Divide).
A portrait shot for Eyes Closed was taken by the renowned US photographer Annie Leibovitz.