‘Shape of You’ Was 2017’s Biggest Track. Here’s How Ed Sheeran Made It.

‘Shape of You’ Was 2017’s Biggest Track. Here’s How Ed Sheeran Made It.
Mr. Mac co-wrote Westlife’s “Flying Without Wings,” which, Mr. Sheeran said, is “one of my favorite songs of all time.”
Mr. Sheeran also invited a longtime friend with whom he has written hundreds of songs, Johnny
McDaid, a member of Snow Patrol, to the session at Mr. Mac’s Rokstone Studios in West London.
“The best songs that I’ve ever written, I don’t really remember writing,” Mr. Sheeran said.
As they were working, the collaborators realized that the emerging chorus melody resembled TLC’s 1999 hit “No Scrubs”; at one point they were calling the song-in-progress “TLC.” Mr. Sheeran said
that negotiations to add credit for the songwriters of “No Scrubs” — Kandi Burruss, Tameka Cottle and Kevin Briggs — began well before the song was released, but weren’t finalized until after it came out.
“I didn’t make this song to be mine to sing,” Mr. Sheeran said.
“I don’t think we’ve ever been together and not written a song,” Mr. McDaid said.
Mr. Mac came up with the core keyboard riff, playing it with the log-drum sound
that happened to be on his synthesizer at the time, hinting at a Caribbean-flavored beat that was already popular: Since the song wasn’t going to be for him, Mr. Sheeran didn’t mind sounding a little derivative.
Mr. Sheeran thought he already had enough songs for “÷,” the album he released this year, and he was pondering the final selections.
“Like a heartbeat that happens inside it.”
The song was taking on a rhythm-and-blues feel; Mr. Sheeran started thinking of it as something
for a female harmony group, or as a male-female duet, or maybe a song for Rihanna.